Llantrissant Christmas Cracker, 6th Feb 2011

Mick and Jim’s amazing road trip and first foray into downhill racing, start lights, countdown beeps and all the razzmataz.

It was an early start, leaving at 06.15am.  3 hrs later we arrived in a steady drizzle to register.

We were told there was 120 riders spread across all the usual category’s.

We set the bikes up and headed up the hill. The track was rumoured to be 1min 20secs in the dry but that wasn’t happening today – it was wet, slick and very rooty.

The track could broken down into 3 sections:

The start/top third was a flat pedally start into a series of wet 90^o turns with a little gap jump in the middle,

across a fire road and into the middle section, this was the real deal and the win or lose section of the race.  Very rooty and it reminded me of Hopton.  There was a table top and then small kicker into a slick root covered section with fast step down part way down throwing with speed into another rooty section which demanded a brave commitment to scrub speed late and take a chance across the inside line around two corners or mess this and take it wide and slow. After that a little hip and across another fire road and into the final third.

This third began with a kicker into a step down and then into a deep, twisty, slick chute like rut before a small slope into a table top and then the finish.

 

That’s the course but now for the details:

Both of us were really excited and up for it.  Jim was pretty cool and after just a few looks at the lines and watching the locals was committed to trying them and pretty much nailed them from the off.  Plus he was styling the step down.

I was enjoying the rooty middle section and looking forward to it.

 

Jim’s first race run didn’t quite go as planned but he was confident of improvement. 2.06.3

My first run was going sweet until i caught the guy in front just going into the last chute and there was nowhere to get round.  That’s racing i suppose. 2.12.7

Jim’s second run was quicker but he made a couple of mistakes that he didn’t like but was quite sure on how to improve on these before his next race. 2.04.1

My second run went pretty good and except for slipping an spd for one corner i was chuffed, i also went before the slow guy i caught up on my first run.  2.05.1

Jim got a solid 8th in a tough category with quite a few local lads.

I got 1st in a slightly less competitive category.