The Mountainboarding Downhill discipline is looking pretty healthy right now. When the first UK downhill comp was announced to be held in the heart of Wales, it certainly wasn't a treck too far with 25 riders turning up, some travelling over 4 hours to get there.
This attitude shows the mountainboarding scene in very good light but also says a lot about the attitudes of the people who take part in this kind of thing: happy to go that bit further to ride a track that no one will see you do but in a backdrop of beautiful Welsh countryside with a whole load of like-minded individuals doing the same thing.
The vibe was good. The uplift worked - the payoff of a few minutes stuffed into the back of Rogers car was 1.3 miles of lovely fire track; 9 corners, each with it's own characteristic, some tight and dropping away, some wide and sweeping, all with the knowledge that pedestrians and vehicles weren't going to interrupt proceedings. A steeper top section where the emphasis was to control speed for the tight corners and occasional cliff versus the lower section where smooth corners and a good line could maintain speed sufficiently to shave vital seconds off the overall time.
A synchronised watch system allowed times to be calculated with riders setting off from the top in one minute intervals. Once people got the concept of this, times were quickly established with some astonishingly quick times from both brake and brakeless riders. A full list of the quickest times is shown here: http://atbauk.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/dave-uk-downhill-the-results/
All in, a very good track selection and a huge success for downhill mountainboarding. More of this sort of stuff please!
Right then, the media:
Remolition Preview Words and Video
Travis' on board competition run vid:
Chris 6th Degree's most excellent Write-Up here (subscribe to FreerideNW whilst you're at it)
http://freeridenw.blogspot.com/2011/08/dave-all-wrapped-up.html
So, in the meantime, do you know of any long, descending, tasty firetracks in the Midlands that might be suitable for downhilling? Please get in touch!
And finally, big, big thanks to the ATBA, Roger, Joe and everyone involved for putting this on - much appreciated! Lets all do this again soon!
3 comments:
Nice write-up Ade (cheers for the mention)!
Congrats on your podium place as well! I'll be joining the Masters class next year for some friendly competition.
Cheers Chris, it was just good to see so many freeriders in one spot - the timing system was almost irrelevant, such a nice track!
yeh good work on the write-ups fellaz! wish i coulda been there... next time ;)
Post a Comment