Pearce Rd#2 - Bala

With Chaz Owen out due to his wrist injury, last week, Mick Whyte and Nathan Foster attended the second round of the Pearce Cycles DH series at Bala:


Mick Whyte
After track walking a very dusty and dry course on Friday night I was really looking forward to a very different course to last year. However, the sound of rain on tent all through the night put paid to that!
Most of the course was just surface wet but the flat turns in the lower fields were like a speedway course and every rider had a moment or two. In the woods there was a very tough, rooty section peppered with trees in the fall zone that had a lot of riders off or tripoding down but I managed to ride this through on almost all of my practice runs.
It rained a little again on Saturday night so I swapped the front to a cut spike and did my first race run on this. It was going really well until the last turn in the lowest field when the back end came round on the front and I slid out! Grrr! This cost me quite a bit but I was still 10th and well pleased.
For my 2nd run it had dried up a lot so the dry tyre went back on the front. In biking you quite often hear that smooth and flowy is the way to be quick, well I was anything but; I was loose, sketchy and nearly lost it several times but it felt fast. I nailed the rooty section to a massive cheer and this just boosted me on. A decent lower section and I crossed the line 10 seconds quicker!! I was chuffed. I finished 8th, putting me well on course towards my aim of consistent top ten finishes this year.
Another good weekend’s riding with Squadron rider Nathan Foster (3rd in youth and getting comfy on the podium again! Well done Nath) and Racers Guild/KTM/O’Neal/Shore rider Lee Pettitt (he has a lot of sponsors).
Good luck to the Squadron and Racers Guild regulars at Fort William this weekend.

Nathan Foster:

Saturday was a bit messy first thing in the morning and I went down plenty of times. around mid day i started to pull things together and make it smooth and a decently fast. When Sunday morning came round the top half of the track was really greasy on the rocks and I couldn't get the roots either. When it came to race run the rocks were still greasy but the roots weren't to bad so I had a steady one down and put a time in that was good enough to put me in 4th place. It dried out by second run and I tried to attack a bit more and managed to get my podium only missing out by a second on 2nd place. Mick rode well to take his well deserved top ten he has been after. So overall a good weekend and another good result.

An excellent weekend for RGsquadron and hopefully it's a sign of things to come. Nathan heads off to Fort William for the British Downhill Series this weekend, best of luck mate!