NPS Ae Forrest
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.
