Venue - Innerleithen
Report by: Craig Bromley

Aidan Bishop - Silver Medal

The first National Points Series race of the year is always interesting as everyone turns up with their brand new bikes and team kit, and RapidRacers were no different. Although this year we were a little close to the wire as the Troy Lee gear and the frames only arrived a few days before the race, phew! This year our sponsor Chain Reaction Cycles were again the main NPS sponsor which was great to see, even CRC’s Michael Cowan turned up to kick some ass and show us his skills, Michael was one of the many riders who made their way from the Expert or Elite category into Masters.

Sponsor Michael Cowan from CRC

Once seen as the old man’s category, the Masters is now serious and credible, it’s starting to look like a who’s who of DH mountainbiking. Mark Weightman dropped out of Elite and Darren Howarth from Expert and into the Masters they go….not forgetting legends like Chris Whitfield, Julian Polffley, Andrew Titley, Colin Williams, and the recovering European Masters Champion Joe Ward….the bloody list goes on and on, it’s fantastic for racing but god awful for anyone who isn’t a bit special…like me!

Team Kit & Equipment
Aidan, Gummy, and me received our brand new gorgeous Intense Socom frames Wednesday night and were frantically building them before we left for the big drive up to Scotland on Friday night, there were some nerves that everything would work okay on the first run down, especially as we were also running brand new Marzocchi forks, shocks, and brand new Hope Moto V2 brakes to boot….so there was a lot of untested and unfamiliar kit to put your faith into and 30mph on your first run!

Craig's Intense Socom

Aidan's Intense Socom

Registration Problems
We were dealt our first blow when Gummy rang as we were on the way up to say he wasn’t going to finish the build in time, this was a big blow as he was a podium hopeful for the race. We would have had more riders at the event but for the registration debarkle, most of our team didn’t get their registrations accepted as for the first time ever the NPS was fully booked without warning a month before the event, the second round is already booked up 2 months in advance. It looks like the downhill scene in the UK is exploding, the SDA series in Scotland was fully booked in 11 hours! Fortunately with some last minute negotiating our Aidan Bishop (current NPS title holder) got in along with me.

I offered to sacrifice my registration to allow a faster rider in my team to ride but the organisers wouldn’t allow it, so that was set, only one real prospect of a podium and me….the fastest and the slowest riders on the team what a combination.

The weather was great for the whole weekend which is unheard off in Scotland, the course was excellent and pretty gnarly, and with the new organisers promising an unmissable event the prospects looked great.

Craig 'Crash Master' Bromley

Course
The top section was very tight steep and technical and full of rocks....big ones that moved when you ran over them, not good when your trying to brake hard because your riding a very steep section. This section was very challenging and in my opinion the race was won and lost here, some just buggered the consequences and were sideways a silly speeds all the way, others overbraked and stayed in control, the others just crashed. The middle was fast and a lot of fun ram packed with bus stops, table tops and doubles, most you just cruised up to and cleared, although the first casualty of the weekend came when Bickley shattered his leg in 2 places off one of the jumps, get well soon fella. The bottom was fast with the traditional massive jump into the final section, this jump claimed my first and probably Aidan first and only puncture of the weekend to. You can take massive air through the RedBull arch landing 30 odd feet away from a great height, if hit hard you needed landing permission to come back down...when repairing the puncture there was 3 holes in the brand new tyre from one landing!

This was a course that suited the technical rider who had finesse and some balls….The first run down was very challenging as none of the big rocks had cleared yet, braking was difficult and grip levels were low. We were using the new Hope Moto V2 brakes which were nothing short of vicious, serious power which is what I have always been looking for some time and would take a while to get used to, when you are not expecting it. Me and Aidan both created overbraking moments on the steep section which was extremely rocky and loose, and when I say rocky I mean big ass rocks and lots of them rolling around the place, all on really steep bits where you are desperately trying to slow down anyway. Aidan nailed all the jumps on his first run as they were well prepared and required little effort to clear due to the speed of the section they were on, I took a little longer to grow a pair of bollocks but nailed them all before my final practice was over.

The new NPS event organisers Simon Paton and Steve Parr were pulling out all the stops to try to solve the historical uplift problems at Innerleithen, they tried to get rid of the 2 mile ride to the uplifts by picking us up from the car park, but this created delays as the trucks had a long route to travel to get back round to the start, they also tried to reduce the queues by having loads of trucks and minibuses, unfortunately nothing worked and the delays and queues were probably worst than last year. In the end we ended up with only 3 practice runs on the Saturday (the final being cut short by a red flag when Bickley crashed), and only 2 practice runs on Sunday before your race run. I have to say that they tried everything to make it work but it didn’t, £60 for 7 runs over 2 days didn’t seem quite right but hopefully future rounds will be better value for money.

Race Organiser - Simon Paton

Seeding / Racing
Seeding began, this is a good benchmark for where everybody is this season, I was off before Aidan and was very nervous given the lack of practice, the new kit, and the fact that I hadn't been on a DH bike for 6 moths. I successfully managed to crash twice on the steep section and missed every conceivable line I could, a mixture of trying too hard, lack of confidence, and above all lack a bloody skill. I posted a crap seeding time of 4:09 and set about feeling sorry for myself. Aidan was off the line last owing to the fact he is the current title holder, I watched at the finish as he crossed the line seeding 2nd fastest of the day. He manages to overcome everything like only the top riders can, he also hadn't been on a DH bike for some time, he was also running a totally new bike, and this was also his first time on this course. Aidan had a conservative run with no drama's, he said the run was solid and there was plenty left in the bag. Previously unknown (to us) Scottish rider David Tallontire posted the fastest time overall and gave Aidan something to worry about, especially as Aidan can't attend round 2 at Ae Forest due to his wife giving birth around then, this is actually where David Tallontire comes from so it's down to Gummy and Stef to try and overhall him on his own local track, in fact, he actually runs the DH uplift there so it’s fair to say that he's already the hot favourite.

Aidan Bishop

So all to play for in the race, again it was me off first due to my legendary seeding run, I had a theory that if I could go steady on the top section where I was crashing constantly all day, then it would repay me with a good solid place, a theory that was fundamentally flawed as everyone in our category is flying……I got most of my lines on the steep gnarly section, and let fly over the jumps and rough stuff, unfortunately it was too little too late. As I crossed the line I set the fastest time and got my very first 12 seconds in the hot seat before the next rider came down to take the honours. I crossed the line with a 3:56 and more questions than answers, is it time for me to hang up my boots and leave it to the talented boys, or should I just recalibrate my personal targets and forget about the top 20 places?

Craig Bromley

Aidan was off next and I don’t mind admitting I was a little nervous for him, never short of confidence he knew he had plenty in the bag, but did the other guy? The times were astonishingly fast considering everyone was over 30, many well known and fast riders didn’t reach the podium including Darren Howarth and Mark Weightman, even 2006 Dragon Series title holder Julian Poffley still could only manage 8th. Aidan came into view looking fast and powerful, he took the hot seat with a fantastic time of 3:26 shaming many Expert riders, surely this was enough, he said it was a scrappy run with a few mistakes and he looked tentative waiting for the last rider to cross the line…..in to view he came, David Tallontire came over with an incredible time of 3:22 to take the win and the first round of the Chain Reaction NPS.

Aidan - Nervous wait....

New Equipment Overview
Aidan and I took the time to review the new equipment on the long drive home and this is what we think:

Intense Socom Frame – Absolutely fantastic, I have difficulty separating it from the M3, except to say that it is very manouverable and extremely light (37.9lb). The geometry was spot on and it cornered like nothing else, pedalling it along the 2 mile ride to the uplifts was a breeze.

9.74 with a steel spring

Marzocchi 888RC World Cup forks and Rear Shock – Without doubt the best forks I have ever ridden, they somehow sag under their own weight but don’t dive like a blamonge under breaking, the travel seems endless but they still don’t feel sluggish of soft…..how did they do that? The rear Rocco WC rear shock was also beyond my expectations, very plush yet again didn’t sag badly or blow through it’s travel, very good small bump sensitivity from front and rear. I would have expected and accepted some trade off with this sensitivity in terms of pedal efficiency but nothing was evident at all.

Super plush Marzocchi 888 WC

Hope Moto V2 – These were shockingly powerful, epic in fact. Although I had some leaking issues early on which required a quick bleed, both Aidan and I couldn’t get over how powerful they were. This is what we have been waiting for from Hope and now they have delivered, they were so powerful that even though I got some brake fluid on the rotors following a rapid brake bleed when it was windy, the brake just ploughed through this regardless braking as normal.

Immensely powerful Hope Moto V2 brakes

A big thank you to all our sponsors for supporting us for yet another year giving us some of the best kit on the market to keep our title aspirations alive, hopefully we can reward you with even more team podiums throughout the year.

Thanks to Joozle for the pictures, visit her website for cracking action footage from some of the premier events around the UK.