BDS dh Round 1 - Nant G

Well I've got to be honest I didn't sleep much on the lead up to the weekend, not sure if was the excitement about getting my new Santa Cruz V10 the fact it was the first big race of the year for me and the newly formed SPS team, too much protein shake or just a combination of all these things



Check out this picture of the dream team building up my bike... Big props to all at Northwest Mtb Centre who worked damn hard to build a staggering total of 14 complete V10's in one shift under the watchful eye of pro mechanics Andy Kyffin and Ricky Bobby.

We travelled up to a very sunny Friday afternoon at Nant G with my main man big George behind the wheel and also SPS team mate Ben Humphries jumped in for a one way journey and was subjected to the obligatory Jurassic 5 funky beats.




Soon after we arrived I couldn't wait to get over to the Steve Peat Syndicate pit area, say hello and more importantly get my grubby mitts on my new bike.... Needless to say it looked the absolute shizzle with the custom team graphics on which really set it apart.

We all did a track walk with Steve and J. Bryce late in the afternoon after we bagged a lift up the hill in Peaty's flash new Vito Sport.!


Friday evening sunset was insane

Saturday morning came around super fast and all of the team were decked out in their flash new Royal Racing gear and 661 protection ready to go shred on the new bikes. Conditions were pretty dry for north Wales and everyone was soon getting their bikes dialled in, I had a little mishap on trying a dodgy line and bent the rear disk real bad, luckily with the backing of the SPS and Sram I was soon back on track after the SPS mechanics kindly fixed her up for me, cheers boys.

Saturday evening the rain and the wind came in real bad and caused some carnage in the pits...

The whole team were buzzing come race day despite the damp conditions, I only managed one practice run which was dead smooth and I hit all my lines so decided to save myself for seeding/racing.... This paid off as I qualified 3rd with a steady run.

Some of my friends from Hereford had travelled up to watch so the pressure was on to make my race run count.!

I'd hit all the technical section pretty good and managed to keep up my corner speed, went through the speed trap pretty fast and felt strong on the final pedally section (maybe all the training is paying off www.adywatts.co.uk) came over the finish line and into the hot seat with only 2 riders left, pretty stoked. Listy was just off the pace which makes a change and then the legend Nigel Page (CRC team manager) was last on the hill, he went faster by just over a second and took the win leaving me with 2nd place and bagging the first SPS podium of the day. It was rad having Steve and a load of the team there at the finish line to congratulate me, cheers guys.

Michael and Nathan both won their respective categories and all the rest of the team who stayed on done good. Hope Freddie heals up quick.



And to finish a great weekend off what better than having to wait till 19.30hrs till we got towed out of the bottom field, that's racing folks...

Thanks to everyone involved with supporting the SPS team, in particular Tristan and Steve for their hard work in pulling it all together. It's gonna be a great season for the SPS for sure...

Lastly, hats off to George who despite breaking his hand during Saturday's practice wanted to stay and let me race rather than go to A&E, they breed em strong up Shobdon






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