Last weekend the excellent Pearce Cycles team hosted the final round of their 2011 series at Bucknell, Shropshire. There had been plenty of rain overnight on the friday but the track looked pretty dry and great fun during the saturday morning track walk.
I'd ridden hear a couple of times before but never raced so was looking forward to things. First stop i headed over to catch up with Jimmer http://www.j-techsuspension.co.uk/ and grab my rear shock off him, he'd been giving her a secret tune up and what with all my extra training this season (too many salt and vinegar crisps)... he'd upped my spring rate!
Practice started with a few showers but they mostly held off for the day which meant everything dried up real good and the track got pretty beaten up in places by the end of play. I'd spent most of the day practicing with Tommy 'gun' Adams who's pretty new to DH coming over from moto x so tried to help him out a little with line choices, hope it helped Tommy.
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| Off the ski jump up top I think, Ref - Mikey Preston |
Bucknell's pretty close to home so i headed back saturday night to spend time with my family, abuse the washing machine and generally get all my stuff together and prept for race day. The forecast was for heavy showers sunday so I cut a set of Wetscream tyres down just in case and managed to get some mega arm pump in the process.
Sunday morning and it was lashing down, rocked up to the race and first job was get the awning out on the van and put the kettle on... Seemed to spend much of the day waiting for the kettle to boil or making tea for the pit crew
Practice went well and i got all my lines somewhere near then made the mistake of doing a run with Marc Beaumont who showed me a few alternative lines which kind of played on my mind, some worked well for me but others i decided to just let go as i couldn't get them to work out and the fact he's a tad faster than me these days, ha
First runs were upon us and the heavens opened up about halfway through the Masters category to turn the track into a real splash fest. I was last man down and visibility was the real issue, i decided not too push too hard as i wasn't sure how greasy it would be, turns out it was still pretty grippy even on dry tyres but i didn't want to risk a bad run, came down in 3rd place just 0.6s off the front man. The rain seemed to keep on coming for the rest of the afternoon and the track conditions got heavy going in places.
Second runs were generally slower for most riders but i needed to push as i really wanted the win.. Was the fastest man down in my category on the second runs but still about 1s off the lead so had to settle for 3rd on the day.
On the plus side, managing to ride consistently through the season had paid off and I took first place in the overall which i was mega stoked with both for myself and also the SPS.
The Pearce rounds had been well attended by the SPS crew throughout the year and there were plenty of podiums to go round at the overalls, Freddie and Ben in the Juniors, Michael was a hot contender in the Seniors all year and Jenny snuck into 4th spot overall in the ladies. Also a big shout out to the Hereford crew, loads of riders, loads of podiums. Got a really great riding scene going on in the Hereford area right now, lots of keen and motivated riders which is always a good thing.
Full results http://www.rootsandrain.com/race299/2011-sep-18-pearce-cycles-5-bucknell/
Massive thanks to Dave, Lindsey and all the crew/helpers who once again put on an amazing series, you only have to look and see just how far people have travelled from to realise how good these races are, long may they continue.
Cheers for now
