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Fort William World Cup Round #1
Fort William - UCI
James - 15th June 2006
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Seems like a long time ago now I was hiding under our umbrella in Scotland and watching the 4x, or trying to navigate the DH course on Saturday afternoon without being blown off or drowned by the persistent rain. Unfortunately the past few weeks have been crazily busy, and it took us a week to catch up on sleep from camping in a leaking tent! But here goes.
Fort William is easily the best round of the world cup calendar, in fact recently the 2005 event was voted the Best Event of 2005 by the IMMTO (International Mountain Bike Teams) who vote on every single mountain bike event in the world, so that's a pretty big endorsement. Fort William is the 'Outdoor Capital of the UK' and with huge mountains, ski lifts and some of the best scenery in the UK you can see why.
Downhill - Minority sport? Yeah right.
So after 8 hours driving we get to Fort Bill and after a quick 20 mile detour find the campsite and pitch the tent, we stayed at the Lochy site right next to one of the pickup points for the park and ride bus into the Nevis Range itself, a little way out of the town itself so we ended up driving in. After pitching the tent in the rain and a quick nap we went into the town for the Opening Ceremony, which was basically the Animal/Braun trials demo with Ashton and Chopper, looked pretty good but probably too early for the majority of the crowd, very little to do afterwards?
Unknown hipping it
Anyway, onto Saturdays action. It began with the downhill practise then quickly spiralled into XC racing, at which point I went to spectate the Scottish One Day Trial. Basically there was a selection of different sections, from the very man made ones around the World Cup Village, the usual things with concrete pipes, large slabs of rock and cable drums being the order of the day. However the most impressive riding was the natural sections which took place along a gully just outside of the Village. Picture a 30ft wide stream filled with extremely slippy rocks and you won't go far wrong. The riding skill shown here was amazing, for an event which was only regional.
Downhill start way up
Saturday evening saw the 4X racing; i'm sure you have all seen the Fort Bill track, wide fast with huge jumps and a surprisingly high elevation. The crowd was big considering it rained through pretty much every single race; hiding under an umbrella was the way to be.
Gee Atherton held on strong through the races and made it to the last 8, a convincing performance from him, but Prokop took the win, with Lopes 2nd and Kovarik 3rd.
We were chatting to a couple of people on the bus in and turns out during the 4x, at some of the big spectator friendly areas there was a photographer area between them and the track, after waiting half an hour for the racing in prime position, a line of photographers turned up in the gap, and blocked any view they had, better planning next time? After the 4x everyone retreated back to the town itself for the 'Party In The Fort' which was basically a semi-traditional Scottish band playing reels, all pretty cool with a good atmosphere... would have prefer Biffy Clyro again though? Maybe next year ;)
On Saturday we also spent a fair bit of time in the pits checking out on anything worth a look and although we couldn't get pics of the Hope area, there's something pretty special going down there. New freeride brakes with vented discs, i.e. the usual disc with a space down the middle for air to flow, will it work? We'll see.
Honda 4X
Honda DH
Honda as usual have something for us to look at, Minnaars 4X and DH bikes looking very sweet, and just what is in that gearbox? Derailleur in a box? Yeah right?
Judge
The Cannondale Judge looks much nicer in the metal, with Sick Mick Hannah ripping on them this year.
RaceBike
Perhaps one of the most solid looking bikes around, the RaceBike somethingorother? Twin tube and beastly isnt the word.
Electric Yeti 303
Yeti 303 in the Electric pits (if memory serves) perhaps my favourite looking bike of the moment.
PIMP
Santa Cruz had a big pit area and PIMP vans, three of them!
SRAM Truck
SRAM brought a huge truck, as they have plenty of riders to go around.
Other things we didn't get pictures of were Sam Hills brakes, Avid DH brakes with bearings to pivot the levers, sounds solid?
Downhill action now, first up was qualifying, notable performances being Dan Stanbridge taking 8th, a huge performance by the lifelong student.
Tracey Moseley put in a solid performance to take 1st qualifying position and Minnaar is the fastest man on the hill.
Dan Stanbridge on a flyer!
The track is pretty much the same as used in previous years, however with a new middle section which takes into account some of the muddiest terrain on the hill (some bits were impossible to walk upright) but the riders making it look easy, a new hip jump appeared at the bottom of one of the gondola poles - nice and crowd friendly. A huge new wall ride too, emblazoned with the 'Worlds 2007' logo, as if we needed reminding. 3-9 September 2007, be there! 5x more spectators expected and obviously more riders and more goods in the finishing area, sounds good? We'll be there for you guys.
Moseley from top of wallride!
The top 30 women and top 80 men from qualifying get a second run in the finals, the atmosphere was electric and the queues for the chairlift a mile long to get up the track. Steve Peat was still on form despite having a broken knuckle and one hand strapped up bigger than the other, hard man I think so.
Highland Spring were the title sponsor this year, and the highland spring jump is a bit of a mouthful but if it means a top notch World Cup then so be it! Commentators wound the crowd up nicely for the action, as soon as the British riders started coming down it got to the best bits.
Jonny Cheetham: Cleared for takeoff
Tracey Moseley takes the win in the Women's and the crowd go nuts, we do like a home winner.
The men naturally like to keep everyone on the edge of their seats (at least those of us who got into the grandstand) and the racing was top quality. Barel came down and pure comedy, hardly anyone said a word! Skin suits are definitely OUT.
As usual the most noise was reserved for the big Yorkshire man, Peaty unfortunately couldn't repeat last years success but still took a very respectable 4th carrying a hand injury on such a rough track as Fort William.
Gracia comes in second and gets a proper trophy this time (those who watched the 4x will understand) and the ragged IronHorse rider Sam Hill takes the win. Minnaar takes 3rd, Marc Beaumont 6th and Gee Atherton 5th, a Brit 456 I can live with.
DH womens
As usual Fort William delivered a brilliant event, and its going to be even bigger next year for the World Championships. Get your accommodation booked early and plan your holidays, it's going to be amazing.
Till next time. Keep scrolling, plenty more pictures..
Share your toys now boys
Atherton brother launching into the finish straight
Highland Spring Jump
Sabrina Jonnier in 'subtle shocker'
Rach Atherton ripping it
Graves: Low and FAST
Thats it for this year, see you next time.
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