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Bristol BikeFest 2004 Repo
23rd June 2004 - Dud
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On Saturday I took a trip up to the Bristol BikeFest to check out the dirt jumping comp. Upon arrival we were met by XC riders occasionally riding past looking rather knackered. Not surprisingly really as the team race for them had started at 12 midnight of the Friday night and didn’t finish for another 6 hours... Over in the main area MBUK had set up a start and finish gate for the riders and had them riding through the beer tent on their circuit. So after having only the noise of their breath to keep them company through most of the lap they suddenly get hip-hop beats blasted at them, nice.
The main arena had three or four retailer tents selling all the usual XC apparel, like coloured sugar in a cup to give you energy and some frankly stupid looking bar ends. (I don’t care if they make it easier to ride they still look gay...) Down at the bottom of the arena was the three doubles. The first being a step up, and then a larger double leading onto the largest of the three. Unfortunately the riders had a lot of trouble with the jumps because of the very high crosswinds. Always the trouble with jumps held in a field. Nevertheless Chris Smith (Azonic), Steve Geall (G-Bikes), Grant Fielder (G-Bikes) and a handful of BMXers hung around for the evening.
Practice started at around 6:45 and saw the usual X-ups, no handers and whips but then competition time came and the guys started to throw down some big superman’s, a couple of 360's, super flat tabletops and the odd turndown from the small wheeled fraternity. The feeling of the event was more a of a jam session because there was no official judging as such just the commentator from 'Bad Ass Bikes' stating that the winner gets to down a pint! After about half an hour of jumping the guys decided to call it a day, most probably because of the increasing wind and small winnings! The winner was crowned, got his pint and the spectators all wandered off to restore feeling to their very cold fingers.
The event was rather different to the usual because the majority of the crowd were XC riders and had never jumped in their life. The problem with this is you get a crowd of dads who continually shout "Whey, look that boys going high isn’t he" in a childish voice so to communicate with his incredibly bored children. Another slightly random element to this event was the escaping horse running around the field being chased by an apparently drunk female rider and a couple marshals. Quite amusing when a commentary of the riding comes with announcements of what’s happening to the "pissed up woman trying to get on her horse". Only in Somerset...
Overall it was a pretty good evening, see the gallery for pics of the event.
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