Dragon Downhill rounds 6 & 7

Aidan takes Gold once more.....

Into July already!! The season seems nearly over and we’ve hardly raced! Anyway Mynydd Du, known to be a hard but great track (as Craig can testify!) for rounds 6 and 7 of the Dragon downhill series. With the NPS failing to win any support and enthusiasm from many riders, the Dragon and Midlands series’ are proving to be more popular races to compete in nowadays. Which is why this weekend was a little bit of a disappointment, don’t get me wrong Jason does a good job and to comply with new forestry commission ruling on rider safety we have to go in uplifts separately to our bikes, to satisfy this Jason has come up with impressive trailers for the bikes towed behind town buses, great in theory as the bikes don’t get as scratched up and we get to sit on comfy seats. Unfortunately this weekend varying transport issues resulted in riders only getting 2 practice runs per day, far from ideal on a track that demands 3 or 4 runs before you are confident of being able to put together a decent race run in.

With Craig out with a broken finger (on this very track when he was on a cheat/uplift day the previous weekend!!) it was down to gummy and myself to represent the rapids for this weekend. Gummy was flat out in the run up to the weekend trying to build up his new Giant Glory DH bike, and finished it the morning of practice Saturday, so was tired and sceptical about getting used to the new bike in time to race it.

So to the course, I don’t have a spare month to detail it fully so I will abbreviate it to being very technical, starting pretty fast, then lots of tight and rooty turns, opening out and speeding up before another steep and technical section and finally speeding up toward the finish. Having been an established track we knew the 3min barrier was a fast target to get near.

So to racing, two practice runs under our belts, Gummy was not confident on his new steed, changing suspension settings after every run. First runs passed and Gummy placed 8th with a 3:34, still not at home on the new bike. I got about a minute from the finish and caught my 30 sec man, after several ‘rider’ shouts he didn’t seem to be bothered about letting me pass and so I had to follow him in, posting a 3:30 putting me 5th…not happy!

Second run time, Gummy had a crash and went 5secs slower leaving him wondering if the Giant was gong to work for him or not, although he held onto 8th place so not a bad result first time out with only two practice runs. I asked to be seeded this run and had no passing to worry about. I managed to knock 8 secs off of my first run, unfortunately a leap of faith to keep me on course near the bottom resulting in a smashed rear mech and not being able to pedal to the finish, so a 3:22 placed me 2nd which I was pretty happy with but just feeling like I wasn’t ready to race the course to the full.

Sunday and having had a good nights sleep we were ready to go for it. First runs saw Gummy post a 3:31, although he still wasn’t feeling at home on the Giant and was pondering his second run on his trusty Orange. I had a good run, only minor mistakes made and a time of 3:13, a much more satisfactory time and a comfortable lead going into the second runs. Gummy made the switch back to the Orange and went 6 secs quicker and ended 5th (anyone interested in a new Giant frame!!). I had a shocker, making mistakes everywhere and going 5secs slower, fortunately my first run kept me in first some 7secs clear of second and keeping hopes of the overall in my sights.

Overall a good weekend’s racing in the sun on a good testing course. Gummy is now frantically giving the glory a go in preparation for the masters Europeans in Italy (good luck Gummy!). I’m kicking back until the next Dragons at the end of the month.

I'd like to give a personal thanks to all sponsors who keep us kitted and rolling, allowing us to do our thing!