NPS round 2 – Llangollen

Round 2 of the NPS series was held at the new venue of Llangollen. They said it was steep and boy were they right. Even driving up to the hillside you could tell we were in for a bit of a laugh. We arrived on Friday evening and set up the village and then walked the course. After hearing some of the comments of other riders dad decided it was best to have a pint instead and up I went.

From the start of the course you have a very rare flat straight consisting of about 5 pedal strokes before descending into the abyss. The first few corners were steep and loose where the outside lines were generally faster as you could hit the berms with more speed. After this you go into the steepest section of the track where there are 3 or 4 long and steep chutes, braking just about all the way down and trying to hit the berms at an angle to avoid T-boning every one of them. After here there is a short straight where you could actually pedal a slight bit, a rare occurrence on this track. Dropping back down into the steep stuff you find a series of 3 switchbacks before hitting a tricky steep corner onto the fire road.

After here it’s onto the loose section where you have to attempt to drift as much as possible to knock off some speed and keep the bike in the right direction. Down the steep rocky slabs and into the arena area you go down some long straight loose corners with big bankings to hold you up. The final corners were tight with loose ground so getting round them and onto the right line was tough. Out of the woods it’s a sprint down the off camber field and over the hip jump over the finish line.

After practice on Saturday some riders were so scared they retired from the race. I was confident with the track and certain about tyre choice. Sunday morning left only enough time for one practice run and then it was all or nothing. With points for seeding I tried a fair bit and managed to stay on getting 6th place. In the race run I was confident that I could improve my time so I let off the brakes as much as possible and tried to push it in places. This proved to work for a majority of the track until a tree jumped out in front of my wheel and I knew that had ruined my run. However I got back on and tried to make up for lost time at the bottom. I came through the line and got 16th place with a 2:23, a whole 7 seconds off my seeding time. I was pleased with a top 20 to say I had a crash and to sum it all up it was a fun weekend with a pretty unreal track. Well done to Steve Parr for managing to run a smooth race on such a nuts track. See you all at the next round

Ben.