| Two weeks ago J.C
(Jason carpenter) set the bar for the Dragons.
Please dear god don’t let D.M. (Dave Morgan)
have set the bar for the NPS. I’m willing
to let him off on the weather and he didn’t
make the track but, as so often at an NPS, massive
queues for the uplift were there.
Ok I may have gone into a rant here so maybe
I best start at the beginning. The NPS is Great
Britain’s premier league for down hillers
and ok it don’t get the backing from the
government or sponsors like football but as down
hillers we don’t care - we just want to
ride our bikes. It has six rounds which only five
count to overall points one must be the final
(to get us all to the final), which this year
is at Fort Bill and if I got in the car right
now it would still take me 10 hrs to get there,
but I digress. Back to round 1.
Dolgellau in the Snowdonia National Park should
be its hilly and that’s true. Found by the
every resourceful Dan Atherton and he or his bro
Gee found a farmer willing or stupid enough to
let us ride it. The park keepers however weren’t
so keen and no prep work was allowed prior to
the race. This is mountain biking in its purest,
well it was until 250+ riders rode down it a half
dozen times in the wet, and again I’m getting
a head of myself.
Let’s see Fri. morn we pack the van and
set off for Wales and after going over hell’s
pass (or so the Audi would let us believe) we
fall over the race site which is just as well
cause there was no signs or nothing (good P.R
for our sport, not) and being a Fri. not many
people are here already, which was good as the
camping paddock is soft grass and not yet churned
up so I managed to get in and pitched (not always
possible with a 2wd car, low profiles and 800kgs+
of c/van on the back). New for this year Fridays
practice for elite and expert if you or your sponsors
don’t mind shelling out another £8
on top of the £46 entry fee. So once pitched
camp I went and found the lads, said our hellos
and blagged a lift to the top of the track.
The course was near the top but so exposed to
the elements on moor land with a bout 7/8”
of peat resting on shale/slate. Being April the
peat was near saturation point. From the line
a slow slog took you to a small drop of into a
soft left hander down to a lump of rock just before
it a peat bog was starting to form (more on this
later) from here the gravity helped give you some
speed down to a flat and another rocky out crop
where a peat bog was starting form before it just
after it a dip and (you guessed it a peat bog
which shall be shortened to p.b from now on) to
a slightly higher rocky out crop (r.o.c. from
now on) back to a slope helping speed come back,
here you have a line choice take the right line
which has a drop off through a p.b. to a r.o.c.
or take the left line to a r.o.c. and round the
right hand’s higher ground but this has
a disadvantage of having less drop to the next
r.o.c. onto a bit of hard ground in the shape
of an old slate wall before a long off camber
right round a large r.o.c. which was best to stay
as high as possible to keep some height before
a flat section. From here the hill started getting
steep and the tempo change from having to pedal
to keep going to holding the bike back from shooting
of downhill wildly (read uncontrollably). A r.o.c.
had made a nice bender style huck which wasn’t
that bad. The art of hucks is what you’re
landing on and what you were landing on was soft
peat (not peat bog, well yet any way) on to a
few small few rocks round a bend onto a drop off
with a p.b. to land onto. Here is where some controversy
started, on Fri. a small set of r.o.cs had made
set of two drop offs about 30 feet apart. The
first was blind on entry (in my opinion a marshal
was needed here) which was hard to land - I did
it once on sat and I was shady as. Remember the
drops I come back to this later. From now on your
every crash was visible from the paddock, A few
more r.o.c drop offs, one of which was quite big,
led you into a long of camber right before a long
off camber left hand turn into a tighter right
hand turn with a 2 foot drop off in the middle
to a long off camber right on to the up lift fire
road. Again a bit of controversy for the next
bit but on Fri. and sat a left-hand turn lead
you to a massive r.o.c. where a chicken run which
spun you round the wrong way or through the middle
of it which wasn’t so bad however the bit
after by the very shape of the rocks was a natural
pond and had left about a foot of peat which even
before us muppets (the non elite and expert) had
rode it, looked soft. Over a r.o.c. through a
p.b. pedal up hill to a r.o.c. down to a nice
technical set of switch backs through a hole in
a stone wall, left and pedal on the off camber
left to the line.
On Fri. those on the hill didn’t look
like expert or elite - only a few looked like
they had ever sat on a bike before today and these
were the cream of British down hillers. What hope
had we got? (I’ll get me coat). What was
also hard was to work out who was who as by now
sponsors had provided new race kit and new bikes
and some were on different bikes. Kona’s
boom boom Beaumont who’s been riding kona’s
since well before I knew of him is now Rocky Mountain’s
boom boom. The never quiet Jamie Faulkner and
partner in crime Danny Harper from Commercial
to Glorys (Giant).
After a windy, cold and wet night we were going
to get a practical lesson in liquifaction (the
same process that made the tower of pizza lean)
that Craig Bromley would be more than willing
to tell you about. So once suited and booted with
everything warm we owned, we headed up the hill
just after kick off. Half a dozen tractors of
various powers towed half a dozen trailers of
various degrees of bodged togetherness. The first
two runs were alright the soft peat made it hard
going and sectioning was essential. After the
first run the ever familiar NPS queue had arrived.
By the end of open practice I had only managed
three runs and by then the track was cutting up.
Remember in my course description the drop that
I said I would come back to well here it is, in
practice many riders stopped, had a look, went
for it and spannered themselves on the landing.
Don’t forget, no marshal so the next rider
was unaware of this until he was off the drop;
far too dangerous in my opinion. The tape was
impossible to keep where it should be as by the
time someone had put it back the next rider crashed
through it, the commissaire had to do some thing
and the track was altered, not to everyone’s
liking but it was to dangerous to leave in. Nearer
the finish after the road crossing that pond like
area had turned to mud bath nearly a foot deep
in places. And the technical s bend just before
the end had been trashed and no tape defined the
track.
This was the low point of my weekend and I wasn’t
the only one as by now some had loaded there bikes
up and gone home. It had cost me £45 in
entry fee and nearly £100 in fuel, to feel
like sh£” and as though I didn’t
know how to ride a bike.
New also for this year sat seeding run no longer
carried points but instead Sunday’s practice
was to be split in two between the fastest 100
and the rest of us, after the track changes seeding
got scrapped. At this point I renamed the national
points series to the no point series. D.M. was
keeping his head down as there was talk in the
paddock of a hanging.
At this point it become more of riding my bike
than racing my bike so I headed back up the hill
for a few more runs before the tractors gave up
for the day, and to be fair this is when I started
to enjoy riding again. I got in may be two more
runs but some got in up to four in this time.
Time for dinner and somewhere in this time after
the fire road a new piece of track grew, cutting
out the mud pond after the big r.o.c
So after another windy (very windy it’s
not often I get out of bed to check we’ve
still got an awning) and wet night, I get up and
go to look at the new bit of track and see if
the lads got back in one peace. All bar my shoes
everything had dried out over night, even if I
did put my seal skins in the oven. So that wasn’t
so bad. And headed back up the hill, for Sunday
the weather man had promised snow and on the bigger
mountain on our right there was snow. At times
the strong winds made hail and then the snow;
came not much, but enough to chill you to the
bone. The hill was draining more water than was
falling so during the morning the soft peat was
turning quite stodgy. I nearly lost a shoe in
one bog and once stopped and got off my bike and
it stayed stood up. The foot drop before the fire
road had been granted a flat landing making it
almost possible to land and the boggy bit onto
the fire road had the benefit of a jcb reshaping
it to make it rideable. The new section was alright
at first but then a line formed sending you the
wrong way and just before the end the stone wall
had a nasty compression before it.
Time to earn our points (for those who stayed)
break out the clean kit have lunch and head off
up the hill, not before being nagged at by D.M.
“as there’s trucks waiting and no
one on the start line” , he didn’t
say that yesterday when there were no trucks waiting
and around 100 riders waiting for them! When we
did get up there on time we still had a 20 min
wait on top of a hill with no cover it wasn’t
fun. With the vets off it was our turn and one
of the first victims of the stooge was Craig Bromley
who at full chatter hit a bog, the bike stalled
and was left rag dolling for about 30 odd feet
(that going to hurt in the morning), Jas had a
couple of get off and push moments. It was clear
that to do well you had to just stay on your bike
(not easy). As for my run well the soft mulch
on top of the peat did its best to block up my
bike and on the flat it felt like my brakes had
seized (I found out on Monday when I washed my
bike they had and the uplift buckled my disc)
I crashed once and stalled my bike in the mud
at least three times putting me third behind Oz
and Si with still 10 to go. Andy Titley put in
a strong one and hit the bog at the stone wall
and went for a burton losing his shoe but securing
second behind new to the masters Adrian Bishop.
I came 6th when all was told.
that was me done I saw some racing but the cold
wind forced me back to the van to get warm, so
sorry didn’t see much racing but I did see
the carnage of getting out of the paddock. Had
dinner missed out on a lucky dip of top 100 so
cheers Jerry for the stem I was only joking? Hitched
up, got towed out of the paddock and drove home.
At home and after checking the results [http://dm27.com/nacc/archive/results/NPS/2006/rnd1_page1.htm]
I can say that the lottery that was rd1 Gee (Atherton)
took the win by over 7 sec’s to Matt (Simonds)
narrowly beating Marc (Beaumont) which was a good
start for Matt’s year. Just missing out
was Neil “the don” (Donnahue).
Rob (Breakwell) took the honours in the expert
and he deserved it as he was 6th overall and was
clear of Ed (Mosely) by 10 sec’s Luke Marshall
took third.
Not that I see the youths racing (normally on
the uplift) Joe Smith and Sam Dale took 1 2 in
cat but were in the top 15 overall, ones to watch!
Aiden Bishop won the masters over Andy “where’d
me shoe go” Titley whilst tiny brummy Si
Paton took a well earned/ lucky (del as green
eyed monster will allow) 3rd
In the vets Jerry Twigg took the honours and
my stem (well Phil Ashbridge’s actually)
over Martin Crockett
And that’s all I can be bothered with as
it’s half term and I have a child to look
after, added to that the NACC (naff as known in
the house) web site isn’t the most user
friendly around!
And onto the epilogue round 1 of the NPS not
good, things can only get better right. I hope
for our sport to survive it does, not all of this
is D.M. fault he does a hard job not many would
want and I wouldn’t. The track in the dry
or at least firm would have been so good, as it
was maybe 10% of the competitors were good enough
to race it, had it been dry that would have gone
up to 90%. The uplifts as ever a baulking point
at an NPS not helped by break downs could have
been better. The weather: he’s not a god,
he can’t stop it raining; but may be April
wasn’t the best time to be here. Promotion
was sparse in the area and as riders we had trouble
finding it, what hope did the public. That’s
the negative out of the way the positive is the
land owner couldn’t have been more helpful
dragging us lot in and out of the paddock, the
paddock was a good one (a bit soft) it’s
good to see the track from the comfort of your
own c/van /van /tent /car (del as app). The uplift
once on it, was quick and direct as possible to
the top with only a small push to the start. (Old
git alert) the view from the mountain when the
cloud lifted was amazing almost like the highlands.
Well that’s about me waffled out for a
while so see you around |
