Venue: Dragon 2008 Round 4: Rheola

Report by: Aidan Bishop

Dragon DH Series 2008
Round 4 Rheola

Sunny September…NOT!! God damn it what is going on with this bloody weather, I think it’s time I looked at taking up a water sport. Anyway this is the UK; you have to expect the weather to be unreliable. The season has nearly ended and I have yet to have raced a downhill race this year, so I decided to get out of bed early and travel to Wales with a recovering Gummy (knee operation and hangover) for round 4 of the Dragon series to blow off the DH cobwebs.

Rheola was the venue for the penultimate round of the series; the same venue used for the 2007 National DH championships. The venue was also used for an earlier round of this years Dragon series, and the course was the same except for a new little chicane roughly 15 seconds from the finish which slowed it up a little. It’s a good course, one which has all elements a good DH course should have, fast, steep, tight, rooty, jump sections so everyone would like or dislike some of the course.

Practice and I was on the first lift…for once! The course is well established so the recent wetness didn’t make it unbearable to ride. Don’t get me wrong it was wet and muddy but the rain held back all day and it dried out a little so it wasn’t horrible conditions, but I am glad the team are kitted with Neoguards (although I think white race tops might not have been such a wise choice!!). The turn out seemed to me to be a little low and so the first two runs I got done quickly, and I quickly realised how out of practice I was as I was struggling to hold on for a full run! I managed four runs in the morning without mishap, so that was a good start and I was enjoying being back on my Intense Socom downhill bike again, I had nearly forgotten how much fun it was to ride.

My first run came around quickly and as I wasn’t present for Saturday’s seeding run, I was first man down in the master’s category. The run was pretty good, I made a few mistakes and got sections slower than I had in practice, but that’s normal, and crossed the line with a 3:44. That time held first place until the current series leader Joe Bishop (no relation!) came down and posted a 3:42, so that left me 2nd which I was happy with as I didn’t have a clue if I would be up to speed or not after such a long time off my bike.

Second run was delayed quite a bit due to red flag situations, subsequently re-runs had to be sorted out. This meant I was sitting around at the top of the hill half-sleeping and getting cold waiting to go. Time to go and I had to get my mind up for it. I set off determined to better my time and the run went well, pedalling harder and cleaning sections faster than my first run. I crossed the line and felt pretty happy about the run I had just put in, then Jason announced my time and it was 4 seconds slower than my first run!! Now this happens a lot in downhill racing where you can go smoother but end up slower by a half a second or so, and it has happened plenty to me, but I was sure that my second run was blatantly better and faster than my first and was in disbelief by the time but that was what the clock was saying and I wasn’t interested in disputing it…just one of those things maybe it was maybe it wasn’t that’s the way it goes sometimes.

I went and got cleaned up then went back to check the final results, not sure if I had held onto a podium spot or not. It turns out I did and held onto 2nd place, Joe had put in a very impressive time of 3:33, one which I don’t think anyone was going to beat, for the win and Steve Russell went quicker in his second run to post a 3:46 for 3rd place.

Although my arms and legs are feeling it two days later, I am happy I haven’t completely lost my speed and am now looking at seeing if I can mix it at podium level at the last national in two weeks time, I’ll let you know how I get on.