2015 Scottish Downhill Championships

It seemed a bit early in the year when the team headed to Ae Forest for the Scottish Downhill Championships.
Usually held in June and scheduled to be run at Fort William, there was a date and venue change due to clashing with an event down South.
The weather gods reminded us that maybe winter was not quite over and threw in a few hail and snow showers, but in general it stayed dry over the weekend and the track got faster and drier with every run.

Our 2015 Team race kit was looking bright in the sun and we could not be missed as we practised together all weekend.

Thanks to Nicola Johnson for this pic of Neil

 It was great to have Neil back after his leave of absence due to injury and a happy Neil said

" I just took it steady all weekend which was a little frustrating but was also good fun to be just cruising down the hill. "

Neil was looking as smooth and focussed as usual and will be up to speed in no time,

Ewan, the teams young ripper continues to improve with every race and is just about ready to be let off the lead ! He had a cracking weekend and was ripping hard down the fast fun track.

Another pic from Nicola Johnson:  Ewan with Al trying to keep up.

Alastair had a fun weekend riding with team mates and was feeling good come race day putting in what he reckons was a "proper fast race run, but not fast enough to win"

And another Nicola Johnson pic

So, a fairly vague report with no results. Unfortunately there was timing issues and as I write the full checked and verified results are not available as the mighty SDA crew have been burning the midnight oil squeezing the results one by one out of the system. A hard and frustrating job for the dedicated guys and girls at SDA HQ , hopefully they will be rewarded for their dedication soon.

And finally, a random pic of Billy who we adopted for the weekend.......

British Downhill Series Rnd 1

Ae Forest was the venue for the Round 1 of the British Downhill Series last weekend .
With Neil still out from injury it was up to Alastair and Ewan to represent.
Ae has been a well used venue over the years and although fairly short, the tracks are normally fast and fun.
The BDS track this weekend did not disappoint, and with a combination of fast natural sections, jumps and berms it really was a track worthy of the the premier British Series Event.

Ewan, fresh from a great result the previous weekend was determined to put in a great performance, and along with Alastair had a good day in practice dialling in lines and looking for speed, and by the end of Saturday both were confident of puting in good runs on race day.

The Nukeproof Pulses have been running great this year, and with a few adjustments to the Rockshox shock during practice the bikes were running sweet for the qualifying run.
Ewan was off first, literally, and ploughed off the track early on costing him valuable time and putting him well down the seeding list for his race run in Youth Category.
Alastair put in a good steady run concentrating on getting lines right and qualified 1st in Grand Vets well ahead of the others in the category.

Final race run saw Ewan setting off first and laying down the power out of the start line and onwards down the track only to have another crash and finish off his race run chances in this super fast category.
Ewan has found new speed this season and has been exploring the outer reaches of his skills which is great to watch and he will come out of this learning curve not only with ultimate speed but with miles of style to match.

After heading up to look at a section of track that had caused slight problems in qualifying, Alastair sorted lines out in his head and was happy with the track.
Setting off last in Grand Vets he managed to hit all the lines with good speed and sliced quite a few seconds off his qualifying time to take a convincing win and take home maximum points from the event.

As with all events we attend, the team worked well together and took lots of positives from the practice and racing. It was great to see Neil once again who had come over to support the team even although he still is not very mobile, great work guys.

Full results can be found on Roots and Rain

We are now working towards our next event which is the Scottish Championships run by the SDA back at Ae Forest in 3 weeks time, can't wait!

Neil, Down & Out in Tweed Valley Hill

After our last blog where we reported Neil's training accident a lot of folks have been kindly asking after him.
Being a true team member, Neil managed to sneak away from the nurses and get himself along to Inners SDA to support his team mates.
Heres a wee report from the man himself.........

After a lot of time spent training on the bike and in the gym and with my new Nukeproof Pulse set up and ready to go , the first round of the 2015 race season – an SDA Race at Innerleithen couldn't come soon enough. Unfortunately , while putting in some last minute training last week, I had a trip over the handlebars, landing on my back and requiring a trip to the hospital. Nothing was broken but it will take a few weeks to recover enough to ride .

I was very lucky that it wasn't anything serious and I am very aware that it could have been much worse - a trip to A&E and a stay in hospital where some folk are in a much worst state is a great reminder of how lucky we are to be fit and healthy enough to ride our bikes.

Anyway, I didn't want to miss out on all the fun at the race so I managed to hobble along and watch on both days. Although it was frustrating not to be able to join in , it was great to see lots of friends from racing that I hadn't seen over the winter. I can't say much about the track as I only saw the finish line but from the states of the bikes and everyone's faces it looked muddy but fun! I know Ewan has been riding well as I've struggled to keep up with him in all the training rides we've done and as always Alastair was going well. I was glad to be able to make it to the race to watch but I am looking forward to when I can ride again much more…