Northern DH series Round 1 – Rothbury

After many months of building, Carl, Phil and some of the locals from Hamsterley had been up the hillside at Rothbury, building perhaps one of the steepest and most technical tracks I’ve ridden in the UK. On Friday afternoon we headed up in the van along the roughest gravel track imaginable and set up camp for the weekend. Walking the track was difficult enough and even Dad came along to see the hard graft put in by Carl.

At the start of the track there was a small but essential start ramp which allowed riders to build up some speed before getting thrown into one of the most enduring starts on a DH track. Winding through some very tight trees you have to pump to keep speed over the whoops whilst the slick and prominent roots keep you on your toes. Crossing a bridleway you jump through the open and back down through an off camber muddy section before winding round 2 sharp hairpins and over some off camber gulleys where finding the right line over the roots was the only way to keep up speed.

Dropping down into the middle section out of the dark woods the track goes across the hillside before winding round tight trees and some very fun berms, loose ground and the type of track where us kids bring our car park drifting skills into play. After some dizziness round this section you drop down onto a straight section with some surprisingly hard, rocky ground making it hard to pedal. Along this you go up over two bus stops before going down onto the final steep section of the track.

Here the track drops down several steep off camber bankings, each one having a flat run out so keeping your balance and controlling your brakes was essential to ride this section well. Towards the bottom of the track you go round some tight gravel corners and then you drop through an interesting ‘V’ shaped tree and round a blown out corner filled in with rocks. From here you go left round a flat corner and keeping the low line you jump down over the roots and sweep round to the right dropping through the finish line.

After several practice runs on Saturday the new track was holding up very well with only minor changes being made. I walked the track that evening to change some lines and find the faster options. A few practice runs on Sunday morning let me agree or disagree with these decisions and then suddenly it was time to race.

After run 1 I felt fast but was placed in 2nd a whole 5 seconds off the pace. In my second run I had some friendly banter with Adam at the start and my adrenaline was pumping ready to prove myself right. I sprinted where I could and concentrated on making sure I got all of my lines right. Sprinting down the open sections along the bottom a bit more paid off as I came through the line and took my first Junior win of the season and was proud to stand on the top step for Ticket2Ride.