2009 SDA Round 2 – Fort William

This year for the SDA round at Fort William we decided to head up on Friday morning and arrive in the afternoon to get a good setup and chill a bit more than usual. We arrived at 2 in the afternoon and Steve shortly after. We got the village setup and then went for an XC ride around the Fort William trails. The weather was nice and I went for a 5 mile ride with Steve before dad’s speciality beef stir fry for tea.

The track this weekend was a lot more beaten up than the usual Fort William conditions. The top section was the usual board walks with the drifty berms in between. The first bus stop was a lot rougher than usual with a lot of the large rocks seeming to have disappeared. Down through pinball which was a similar story and round the big berms to the gondola pass. Going down to the deer gate the track was a mixture of old sections which had been filled in more and some which had some big holes and breaking bumps due to the snow on the mountain over winter.

Through the deer gate the track goes down the usual straights with some new lines round the flat corners, winding down to the woods. Into the woods section you go round the board walk and then to the left and down a new section made up of some deep mud which was easier to hit with some speed. Most riders however did not understand this concept and the red flag was up on this section for the main part of the weekend. Down through the old wooded section and past both wall-rides leads you out to the top of the motorway. Here the rock garden had been filled in heavily with hardcore which made the lines a lot faster and smoother. This allowed you to carry more speed into the motorway without the usual sluggish pedalling.

Down the motorway the first jump and berm had been rebuilt with slightly softer dirt. This made it very sticky and sucked any speed you built up as soon as you hit the berm. This meant the hip replacement jump was a lot slower and you had to put the effort in to clear the next two tables and double. After these there was the infamous Tissot jump and the off beat wall leading into the 4X jump and the triple to finish the track.

After practice in the rain and wind on Saturday I went for another XC ride with John which was a mixture of gruelling climbs and hardcore DH. Sunday came around and after 2 practice runs in the morning the sun was out and the wind was almost gone so the track was drying out a lot. In run 1 I got a decent time with little mistakes and got a time of 5:34.739. In run 2 I put in more effort to put the power down along the straights especially on the top and motorway sections. This paid off and I improved my time to 5:28.509 and 8th place in juniors.