UK Bike Park Race

This weekend we headed down towards the south coast to race at the UK bike park in Dorset. We arrived on Friday afternoon and set up the van before going to ride the different tracks in the park. That evening we had the field to ourselves until about 10pm when only a few more cars turned up. Saturday morning came and I went to practice on the race track although it was an unofficial practice day.

From the huge wooden structure which is the start ramp you go to the left and through the top section which consists of berms, small fast drops and a lot of whoops to put you off rhythm. Down through the two last berms and you cross the fire road and go over the fly off drop. This lands into a berm with loose gravel on the surface which kept you on your toes. Over a small double jump and round some switchbacks leads you into the steeper parts of the track. Here you go over a small step down and back up the banking to sweep down round the trees and across the off camber banking.

Now you’re into the hardest part of the track. An off camber chalk corner where the surface is almost too greasy to even stand on. The only line which was possible this weekend was the inside on the dirt rather than the rocks as this provided much more grip. Coming out of the corner you almost stop dead on a shelf and then go down a series of big steps in the ground. Round to the left and over a big set of tree roots leads you down to the right again and onto the fast section.

Through a series of dead tree stumps leads you through a tricky root section where getting across the roots and onto the high line was essential to keep any speed up. After this you go over 3 small but fast doubles and then slam the bike into top gear and sprint like Speedy Gonzalez. Over the road gap and you hit the final berm at warp speed to cross the finish line.

On Saturday I used the freelap timing poles to see what sort of times I could get down the track. As the day went on I got the time down from 1:24 to 1:19 before the final uplift went up. Sunday came and after 3 practice runs in the morning I got ready for my race run. In the first run I only made one mistake on the chalk corner but still got a time of 1:19.24. In my second run I knew I could go faster and at the bottom it felt a lot faster and smoother. However it was slower with a 1:19.33, the classic race run which feels faster but isn’t. This placed me in 3rd in juniors just 2 seconds off the win and well within the top 10 overall.