|
A first look at The UK Downhill Championships 2011 The Artful Roger (freeriding ATBA supremo) & a big ol' bunch of freeriding friends headed to the West country to see what next years proposed track has to offer the average wheelieboard enthusiast... ‘WTF! you're nuts’ read the text from Mark... ‘So, you’ve seen the track, then?’, I thought. We were still an hour or so away, but after a bit of ‘Street Wizard spotting’, buying bandages, and way too much ‘Would you rather...’ we pulled into the carpark to find mountainboarders padding up and getting ready for the long trek up the hill to check out the proposed track for next years UK Downhill Championship. Parts of the track & lots of the surrounding area has been used for many dirt-based events before. The location will be revealed nearer the time so this is a sneak peak of the course to get you inspired... it's such a great way to improve your boarding skills and ride with lots of great people in varied freeride environments... It's a challenge, and a real fun one at that. Imagine you're there... The track has four distinct sections. From the top; The ‘Christmas Tree’ section is a narrow single track through face-whipping pine trees... ...that opens up just in time to take the five foot drop through Beech trees... ...into the ‘Mountainbike Track’ section. This is the steepest and most demanding part of the track and will test all your speed control techniques... After that you’ll be glad that the third section, called ‘The Meadow’, is a mellow track through open grass and is all about maintaining the speed and resting your legs before... ...you drop into the fourth section. Here we’ve got some rocks, some roots, some corners, and some steepness to a fast finish. . .
After hitting the track in full four times and having the usual discussions about brakes vs. non-brakes, competition categories, and Stu Lugger getting a fastest time of about 3 mins 50 secs, we all headed home, happy with an awesome days riding.It was good to have twenty riders from Cheltenham, Malvern, Plymouth Uni, Reading, and even Pitstone all freeriding together. That doesn’t happen often. It was good to see riders of all different abilities hitting the entire track, and it was great to see so much support for the UK Downhill Championship. There will be more details available soon. Cheers! words & pics by Roger Swannell |
