National
Points Series 2006 |
Innerleithen,
Scotland Rnd 2 |
14th
May |
 |
Aidan & Gummy taking silver and bronze |
 |
| The second round of the 2006 NPS and what a great venue.... Innerleithen, surely even the NPS series can't make a mess of this well established venue? The all conquering Aidan Bishop, Paul May and myself took the long road trip to Scotland, we were all keen to see if Aidan could keep the dream alive by winning every round and collecting the £1,000 prize. |
| Well the waiting at the uplift was a bloody pain, 45 minutes after you have ridden 2 miles on a downhill bike up and down a windy road is a bit much, but all in all despite their best efforts the event was a good success. Sure the track was a little one dimensional being just tight woods all the way down but you have to have different types of tracks throughout the calendar. With a mainly dry weekend in store it was going to be enjoyable whatever happed. |
 |
In
a rare moment..... |
From a personal
point of view it's like someone took my weakest skill and made the longest
course in the UK out of it! I respect the course as being a tough challenge
and very hard on the old arms and the fitness....I mean you have a 2 mile
ride to the uplift, and very steep long push to the start, then a tight
technical long decent to the bottom. By Saturday night we were all feeling
a little battered to say the least. I good meal and a few beers help recharge
our batteries, although Aidan's 2 puddings was a bit much..... |
| Saturday practice went fairly well as we all tried to find our rhythm through the tight woods, Aidan and Gummy were ridding really well making mince meat of the switchbacks, I was making a real meal of it, it was just a confidence thing having broken many ribs hugging trees. It was time for seeding and unfortunately they don't carry points this year, this meant some like me couldn't get motivated about putting too much effort into it. I set off first and felt like I had a pretty clean run apart from a bit of a mishap at the final bomb hole section, I crossed the line so far down that even Barakuda Bob could have beaten me. Gummy was up next and had a pretty good run until he crashed that is, still he crossed the line in 10th. He wasn't too worried as his form was still pretty good and a clean run would see him climb the order. Aidan was off last being the winner from round 1 and his old advocate Neil 'Nelly' Arnold was already sat in the hot seat with an incredible time of 3:59, Aidan had an untidy run but no crashes and crossed the line in 2nd with a 4:10, a good result but plenty to do to beat his mate in the final. |
 |
Craig
before the crash...nice lid mate! |
| Sunday practice saw most getting faster and faster as their confidence grew, mine plummeted as I once again chose the fastest section of the course to lose the front end crash on my bad shoulder, even worst was I used my right shoulder to ride the stutter bumps with....ouch. I just could not find anything to inspire me to rag it as I struggled with everything. |
| The finals came and I was off first, I decided that the only problem was I needed to grow a pair of bollocks and hit things harder.....3 corners in and I found myself double unclipped as I overcooked it...great start. I gathered myself and clipped back in after what seemed like an eternity, the rest of the run went pretty well and I crossed the line 17 seconds faster than my seeding run with a time of 4:34, still an awful time but hey it was never going to be my finest hour. |
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Aidan
was so quick even the cameraman missed |
| The times at the top were very close with Si Paton and Colin William on the same second with 4:10 in 1st and 2nd so far, Gummy was up next and he nailed most of the sections well and crossed the line with 4:10 but a split of a second faster than Colin putting him into the hot seat, many more came down but none could beat Gummy's time. Aidan was up next and we all held our breath as he came into sight looking pretty rapid (sorry), he crossed the line with 4:00 dead and took the hot seat by an amazing 10 seconds with only one rider to go. Neil Arnold was last man down and looked very smooth, he crossed the line with an unbelievable 3:56 taking Aidan's grand chance with it. |
| Overall a fantastic dry weekend which is unusual in Scotland, 2nd and 3rd is a top result and keeps Aidan well in control in the masters category. |
| Special thanks to all our sponsors who supported us again this year. |
| Also thanks to zoolzedymond and rezurgence.com for the pics, absolutely top definition as usual. |