Hi. the time has come. the blog has been rebooted. the first half of the season was well good but for some reason I didnt take one photo or write one word. brain freeze. There were some sweet races with 10 under the ben xc race being so fun and our DH team stealing the win. Fort William WC and also the canada trip. we squeezed 5 into the pimpest motor home this side of montreal. All being good it was time to pack up the van and finish the end of the summer off on the continent. The racing out here is pretty competative and so much good biking to be done mid week.
I packed up the white randomly stickered speedy van machine with enough rice pud to last 2 months got the boys belted in and hit the road. Liam and Ferg joined me for the first part of the trip and we arrived buy the lake in Les Gets late in the evening for a nice swim. continued……
It has been mental the last three weeks. I have been to two world cups and the IXS dirt masters festival. The trip started with Me, Ferg Lamb and Ben Cathro setting off in my Fun Bus for La Bresse in France. I don’t know how it happened but we managed to take far to much kit and the van was carrying a fair burden. One essential piece of kit was the wee bike, my 14” Peugeot, It got ridden more than any other bike and kept us sane on the long drives. Its a bit worst for wear now though so its getting a full service before the Fort Will world cup. After sleeping in Calais ferry terminal we hit the road and got into the usual sweaty boring french driving routine. not much happened, may be some hoolahoop a minute game to pass the time. The track in La Bresse was the dogs, it was fresh, loose and rocky. After setting up pits(easy-up) and meeting Harriet, a friend from the NZ trip, all was good for tapping some turns. Ferg got a bit carried away and nosed it into a back slope and broke his collar bone. silly sausage. it was a big shame and Ferg flew home early for some laser treatment to be ready for the world cup here. This left me and Ben and we were both riding well in practice. I got a bit bucked about in one section and pulled off the best save in a while (see mtbcut.tv). yess. For my seeding I hit a streak of bad luck and got a rear puncture. I continued on but missed the cut by a couple of seconds. About 30th at the split so very annoying. Cathro was on the pipe and qualified in 18th but for the final couldn’t continue the form and got about 50th. It was a great weekend and good to hang out with Harriet and the Boys. With Ferg gone me and Ben trucked down to Andora. It took flaming ages to get there but it was a cool place. We walked the course and rode some wee bike and then got in about Marshals(MTBcut film maker) swimming pool at his hotel. Harriet and Steffi arrived and had some room in their apartment so me and Ben stayed there for the weekend. Another good course here as well, may be a bit flat and short but also really fun to ride. I finally raced the final but ben crashed in his seeding and pulled his cv joint off( or is it ac Ben) either way his collar bone was skyway. 2 down and one to go, could i survive the trip. Yes, I did it. I also got 37th in the final so was pretty pleased with this. A good start before the world cup at Home. I had to go it alone for the 30 hour drive home but I’m getting used to trucking now. After a quick half day turn around I packed up again and flew out to the IXS Dirt Masters with Cathro, Cathro Daddy and Pete@hotlines. It was a really cool trip and the festival was huge with 30 thousand people there. I just took my Orange Blood short travel bike and road around on other tracks as well as the race. The DH was a pretty good track, a bit flat but okay for my blood. I got 4th and beet some really good riders who were on DH bikes. I am back in The Fort now for a few weeks and am enjoying not traveling and being at home. Its the world cup next week and I am helping build a really boom gnarley new section I hope they use. Its nuts, really steep with rocks, mud and general boom. Well good
The first NPS this weekend was at Ae Forrest in the Borders of Scotland. I went down with a friend from Fort William, James Shirley. We made a mini break out of the weekend and went down a day early to the No Fuss press release for their summer’s events. On Thursday night there was a whisky tasting session in the hotel at Kirochtree just south of Ae, however we didn’t make it in time. We turned off the motorway planning to cross-country it over to Kirochtree and were going fine until the road started getting smaller and smaller and the fuel warning light was on. We called in to a farm for directions and it turned out we weren’t taking the most direct route. We made it to the nearest town but everything was closed apart from the pub. With a bit of banter from the locals a guy offered us some fuel he had sitting at home in a jerry can. He gave us a good price (providing it wasn’t red). We finally arrived at the hotel at 9.30 and caught up with the guys from No Fuss.
I shared a room with High Tower and then the next day we went out on a xc ride round the “10 at Kirochtree” xc race course. Stu, Brian, Hutch and Cathro were there from the team and also the Hope boys. James and me did a bit of bike swap testing, rode some good single track and did some photos. Thanks to No Fuss for a great day and a good lunch. We then drove over to Ae to walk the course. The course looked really good, Ae forest usual, fast, a bit blown out and with some good new turns.
Practice was really fun and I felt pretty good on my bike all day. James was hitting a sweet “huck the stump” line but cased the stump and belted a tree. He has a big swollen knee now and couldn’t overcome the pain to race. It peed it down on Saturday night so I changed my tyres to cut spikes but the course rode pretty similarly on Sunday anyway. I put in a good seeding run and was in 3rd. Dougie did a sterling job on my bike and also James making pizza bread. My final race run was pretty fast most of the way but a bit too loose on the middle rock garden still securing me 2nd. Gee was the only person to beat me. Considering the competition its one of my best results and a good start to the season.
