|
|
Pearce Cycles Midlands Summer Series - Round One
Caersws, Powys
James - 14th May 2007
Back to racing archive
Caersws is a pretty deceptive hill, it all seems a bit tame to look from the outside. Doesnt look remotely steep.. well they do say appearances can be deceptive!
The tracks on the hill are amongst the most technical in the country, with massive root gardens (like a rock garden, except even nastier in the wet), steep slopes into tight corners and fast racing even in the wet.
The trip past Newtown into Caersws suddenly got very wet, the skies opened just as we pulled into the field and dumped their load onto the hill for the whole racing time on Sunday. At first racing was pretty slow, the rain making the already wet track pretty gloopy and riders struggling to stay on the straight and narrow, made even more difficult by the sheer gradient of the hill.
Eventually by the riders second runs the course began to speed up, the amount of water running down the course meant that it was washing away the loose gloopy mud and cutting down into the hardpacked dirt underneath, riders were clocking faster times, some by 10 seconds or more. It seems though that many left before they even ran the second length of the course, the car park being pretty empty at the end of racing.
Never the less despite all the weather issues the racing was quick, the Elite field was lacking a bit, something to do with a big race in Spain? Now onto the results..
William Swinden put a huge 17 second gap between himself and second place in hardtail to get down in a crazy 2.41 - seems you dont need full sus all the time?
Racing was very tight, with a lot of podiums split by a second, the ones who went home confident they'd get a position often fell down the ladder as the course got faster and many riders were very close to the 2.17 fastest time set by Phil Ashbridge in Elite.
Full results can be found here. Many thanks to Pearce Cycles, the uplift drivers, ExtremeMedics, the marshals and most of all the farmer for letting us hold a race on his hill! Next round is at BALA on the 9th and 10th of June, awesome track so lets hope the weather holds out. See you there..
|
|
|
|
