Northern DH series Round 2 2009 – Hamsterley Forest

After winning round 1 at Rothbury I was looking forward to racing at my home track. We arrived on Saturday morning to find a nearly full car park and just managed to get a spot for the van. From the start the track went off the northern roll in and left into the dark dense woods instead of the usual bermed top section. Here the track went round a series of flat and bermed corners with roots and mud scattered everywhere to throw you off line. Through the tightest trees on track and you go up and out into the open over more roots, keeping speed up with pure pedal power. Down a new inside line and over the second of the two drops leads you round the switchbacks and over the Infamous Hamsterley table jump where Dad nicely laid out the T2R banner. Good job Phil.

After landing you jump to the left, missing out the rock garden and you go round some more switchbacks and down the rocky chute to the road crossing. Back into the woods and it goes round some tight flat corners and round some muddy berms before winding down over some rougher rooty and rocky sections. Further down you go round the chicken route for the “Caersws corner” drop and then down to the big drop at the bottom. Before doing the drop you go up and drop down around a big stump. This was a bit of a steep roller and many riders ended up looking at the ground. To the left and off the big drop keeping all your speed around the big final berm and it’s a sprint along the last 40 metres of flat through the finish line.

On Saturday the weather was brilliant with bright hot sunshine and dust down much of the track. Typically on Sunday the heavens had opened over night and the cut down spikes were on in a flash. After 3 runs of practice on the new tyres I felt ready to race and I had all my lines just about dialled. In run 1 I made a few mistakes and seemed to be in the wrong gear for most of the track and came through with a 1.50 to put me in second. In run 2 I knew I could do better and I only had to make up 4 seconds to win. I got the top section mint and was all pumped up to let off the brakes more down the bottom. I got to the drop at the bottom and I knew my run was a lot faster. Then the inevitable happened. Pedalling out of the final corner my chain came off and my gears crunched jamming the cranks. I had to coast for the last 40 metres of completely flat, if not uphill ground and I crossed the line with a 1.48, just 1.5 seconds behind 1st. As you can probably imagine I was a bit gutted that my gears had given up when it mattered most but still 2nd place wasn’t a bad result and I got a spangly new fox belt. Wooo.