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The Tissot/UCI - World
Cup MTB DH, Round 1
Fort William, Scotland - 31st
May - 2nd June 2002
 Good
grief, what a place. Aonach Mor ski centre has been transformed
into a complete bike spot with team vans, stalls, trade stands
and riders all dotting about the place in preparation for
this opening round of this year's Tissot/UCI Downhill
World Cup. This event was originally scheduled for Japan but
for some reason forgotten by myself, Fort William was now
the opening venue.
After all the publicity the event has been receiving it was
no surprise that expectations were high and the crowds huge.
I arrived on the Friday just before lunch to collect my Press
Pass and details.
The Sports Village was a hive of foreign language and some
very nice kit indeed. Although the riders were out practicing
the course, many of the riders were mingling and having a
nosey at the competitor's kit. Scott/MBUK had a big display
on showing off their team bikes and the XC and DH models in
the range. To top that all off you could also go and enjoy
a BBQ with the Scott crew and team. Cannondale were there
with everyone getting the chance to see the new Gemini bikes - Cedric Gracia and Anne-Caroline Chausson were to later
show how effective the new bikes could be. Team Global Racing
had perhaps the biggest stand on display, the bikes were all
there, and the team were tucked away nicely in their tent
getting prepped for an action packed weekend.
 After
running around the trade stands we met up with Chris Ball
from The Clan who gave us some info on the courses - he was up for the 4X the next day and was hoping to get some
new forks fitted to his bike in time. Both courses were promising
to be real crackers with plenty of chances to see some real
bad crashes, but Chris was more interested in talking about
anything other than the races as it was looking like it was
going to be a hard race.
Travelling up the gondola it was fair to say the DH course
was looking well prepped - the whole course was taped
out and the appropriate padding had been added. The ground
was looking surprisingly dry considering the rain that had
fallen over the past few weeks, after the gondola passed the
treeline it was a slightly different story - the track
was still just as twisty but more open and looked much steeper.
Already it was quite obvious where the brake bumps were forming
as we watched rider after rider practising sections to ensure
they got it just right.
The walk down proved interesting - although the track
was well made and drained well, the path was the complete
opposite - quagmire does not describe the way down, at
one point Malcolm lest his lower legs to the muddy puddles!
The walk down was very steep in places and it helped reinforce
how fast and tough the course was going to be for the riders.
 We
decided that after the walk down the course we'd go and
have a quick nosey at the 4X, just in time to see the practice - we were pretty manky and tired (due to a combination
of being stuck in a car with your knees by your chin, an early
start and not a lot of food!) but still managed to find enough
energy to shout encouragement and abuse at the riders. From
the off it was looking quite exciting - Steve Geal had
an unlucky landing off the set of triples and managed to land
face/chest first off his bike. Steve was hit pretty hard and
appeared to be winded, after 5 minutes of resting on the deck,
he moved away to the side of the track and pushed his bike
back to the team tent. The 4X was proving to be a superb show-off
location as the riders were testing the track but rewarding
the on-lookers with some seriously trick riding - Cedric
Gracia was the ultimate show-man and started the practice
with a 180 X-up with his pars spun completely round on themselves.
The crowd started to grow considerable as more riders started
to pulling off some flash moves - Martin 'Oggy'
Ogden of TwentyFourSeven was getting the highest air with
the slickest moves throughout the practice which seemed to
please the crowd no-end.
The next morning we got the site just after 9am, a quick
visit to The Clan van to see Iain Cookson arriving from a
warm up ride and Chris Ball already been up and down the course
on the Gondola with Paul Angus.
 Rather
than go up the hill to walk down again - the best we
got was just over 1 hour from the highest point to the finish
area - we decided to hang around the trade tents and
have a nosey at the new kit as well as wait for the 4X practice
and then competition to start. GripShift had the new XO rear
mech on display and on many bikes - the mech looks fantastic
but I still can't see why it costs almost £200
alone! Hope had their van there with a rather pimpy Giant
carbon fibre XC bike kitted out with the Hope Mini's - in gold. The callipers and levers were completely gold
and Hope had also finished it off with almost-golden braided
cables and gold cable housings. The rotors were standard sizes
but the rotors had the appearance of shark fins on the edges - it looked like the Poodles Plumz.
On the Sunday morning in between practice runs we did manage
to see one DH bike kitted out with the Shimano Airlines setup - it looked very nice indeed but the rider wasn't
hanging around long enough for us to get close enough to do
the touchy-feely thing.
The 4X practice started and it was quite clear that the spectators
were in for a treat - the trackside was lined at least
10 deep with bodies as everyone was trying to get to a good
spot to see some carnage as well as some trick moves and dirty
deals! The start gate had been changed from previous sessions - instead of allowing the gate to fall under it's
own weight, this one was pneumatically powered so it fell
with a force that would no doubt remove a finger or foot if
they happened to be in the way. During practice many of the
riders found they were hitting their helmets off the bottom
of the banner above the start gate, raising the whole banner
section rectified this. Franck Roman was out and about ensuring
the course was just right and that the riders were enjoying
the track that he designed for them.
We managed to find a good spot where we could see the start
and then everything up until the last drop to the finish line,
as the competition started everyone else thought of this as
well so the crowd was a mass of raised arms with cameras pointing
in all directions trying to capture the footage.
The racing was much fiercer than the practice and the qualifying
races - yes there were the usual tussles and the odd
bit of verbal abuse but this competition took that to the
next level - a number of mid-air tussles resulted in
one rider always hitting the deck, but the best crash must
go to Tara Llanes, she was unlucky enough to crash out and
need assistance walking off the course, again this seemed
to be a bad winding rather than anything else.
In the woman's event, Celine Gros finished 3rd with Anne-Caroline
Chausson taking the win. In the men's event, Cedric Gracia
took the win with Wade Boots coming 2nd and Brian Lopes taking
3rd place - even though Steve Peat got the 3rd place.
IT was later announced that Peat had a gate violation so had
the 4th place spot - even though Lopes crashed out on
the first doubles, he got the 3rd place prize. The only other
person to get disqualified was Oggy Ogden for not remaining
in his lane for the first 10 metres of the race.
 Sunday
was the day of reckoning for many of the riders. With practice
starting at 8am, the riders were up and running the course
to ensure they knew the last detail of every line and section.
The smell in the air had changed as well, the social friendliness
had been replaced with a more determined air, it was clear
that whoever won this event was going to have to fight long
and hard for it.
After travelling up the gondola to catch the very last rider
on practice, we waited for the semi-finals to kick off. First
up was Nico Voilouz who was going like a rocket; this seemed
to continue throughout the day. We decided the best course
of action was to just start heading down the hill and film/photo
as much as we could when we could. There were some really
nice looking bus-stops at the start and we weren't disappointed
with the action from these - the first few riders were
going so hard at the second one that they were sliding out
before getting to the bottom, the first bus-stop was a quagmire
and turned every clean bit of kit the rider had into a grime-laden
mud-bath - all good for the spectators but I'm sure
the riders would have preferred drier conditions. After the
bus-stops the course went into a series of berms which had
one rider flying clean over the edge at a ridiculous speed,
before hitting a couple of rock slab sections. This section
was the maddest so far and it was here that we saw our first
series of crashes...with regular occurrence.
 After
the rock slabs the track descended through a set of gates
which had a small jump after it - according to 2 Belgian
riders who were travelling up on the gondola with us, this
wasn't a jump but a small step-down - jump by any
other name in my books. The mist had provided a blanket from
the lower sections of the track but just after the last rider
was down for the semi-finals that mist cleared and produced
a very warm day right up until the men's presentation.
After some tight switchbacks the track descended into the
trees and it was here where we started being edged away from
the track, the only reason I can gather was due to the terrain - it would be far easier for a spectator to jump on the
track and use that instead of the path and that could have
dire consequences if a rider were to be riding that particular
section at the time. The mud was now transferred from track
to path and the spectators were starting to discover the joys
of mud baths!
It was quite apparent that with every new rider down the
hill the runs were getting faster, after we got ourselves
into a Press-only section of the Finish area, we watched Crawford
Carrick-Anderson flying in at 5 minutes 12 seconds - it was an impressive time but sadly was blown away by quite
a margin. There were a lot of riders coming in with broken
bikes - Steve Peat was looking like bagging the first
victory of the World Cup but came in 17th overall after a
crash left him without a saddle - just the rails and
some dodgy brakes.
Rob Warner - as much as I dislike the guy - was
rocking. In real-life the guy looms over his bike, but the
2 objects seemed to working in harmony and he seemed to be
showing some real form - hopefully it will continue and
Rob will get back to the top spots again.
Will Longden was powering through the 4X the day before but
only managed 23rd on the day, that's after posting one
of the quickest middle times of the day - he got to almost
the halfway mark in only 1 minute 59 seconds.
 In
the end the first place was looking made for Nathan Rennie
who knocked John Kircaldie off the top spot. But with 3 riders
left for the day, Christopher Kovarik came in trouncing the
competition - a blinding pace got Kovarik down the course
in 4 minutes 33 seconds, not only was he fastest down the
full course, he also posted the fastest middle time - 1:51:07. This mean that over the 1.65 mile course the average
speed was 21.72mph - pretty quick considering some sections
were simply rocks that the rider had to choose a line through.
The women's race was equalling exciting with 3 of the
top ten places going to British riders - Helen Gaskill
managed 9th, Fionn Griffiths grabbed 4th and Tracey Moseley
(who is much shorter than I imagined!) got first place - beating the nearest competitor by 7 seconds - Vanessa
Quin conceded 2nd place with a time of 5:52:47. The course
stats that Tracey put in were just as impressive as Kovarik's - 17:20mph average speed with a middle time of 2:20:06
and the final time of 5:25:99.
 Highlights -
- Press Passes allowing us into sections of the track that
normal spectators couldn't access.
- Steve Geal's crash right in front of us.
- Sharing accommodation with the Under-23 French DH squad - these folk are very good but also very approachable - they are happy to talk about the highlights and the
lows of the course and their days racing with you.
- The Maxxis guy who is going to send the 24" tyre
to Malcolm from Barcelona, as they don't have any in
this country.
- The Organisers for putting on such a successful event.
- Stephen Lockhart spannering at The Clan van - no
matter where I see this bloke he is doing mechanical things
(must be the joys of owning a Cannondale!!!).
- Andrea - for getting to sit in the official timing
office for the day.
- The Under-23 DH Team Manager (Emmanuel HUBER) - for
letting us watch his secret training videos and also telling
us stories about Cedric Gracia and Anne-Caroline Chausson's
training (nothing dodgy, just how they like to use the video
footage to study the course) - with any luck a copy
of the helmet-cam video'd run of the decent will be
with me shortly!
Thanks -
- Thanks to David Shearer for the loan of the digital camera
- even if it did do funny things over the weekend!
- Iain Nimmo for the loan of the video camera
- Chris Dempsey...
- Rare Promotions - for organising a seriously good event!
Richard Barton
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