Friday 20 May 2011

BDS 1: Nant-Gwrtheyrn, North Wales 20th March 2011

The first round of the year was in North Wales at a pretty cool venue finishing by the sea shore! The track was great fun up the top, real tight, steep, rocky and rooty, suiting both Nick and Angie’s riding styles perfectly. The bottom was pretty flat with a few drops and jumps, it was rather pedally and quite tiring. This was also Angie’s first race in the national Elite category, she took it all in her stride however.

(Angela Coates at Nant-G, photo courtesy of Iain Mcconell, www.turniptowers.co.uk)

Weather was good for practice on Saturday, the track was still a little wet mind and probably aided the grip if I’m honest. The day went really well with Nick managing to squeeze in about 8 runs with no real dramas.

It soon became very obvious during practice that both riders’ winter training regimes were definitely paying off, they were both looking good, fast as hell.

Unfortunately through the night the rain came, you all saw it coming didn’t you?! It was a bit of a sticking point whether to change the tyres, especially with quite a few people swapping things over. Nick figured with all the rocks and roots there would be little point.

Nick made two more practice runs on Sunday morning which went really well and if anything the rain made the track quicker by getting rid of the thick mud. The seeding runs had to be called off due quite a serious accident involving one of the Juniors (hoping for a speedy recovery). So there was quite a wait between morning practice and the race runs. Nick’s race run didn’t go to plan, he was making some silly mistakes which he hadn’t done all weekend, and as a result was off the pace. Nick added that his practice run was far better than his race run.

Angie was soon off, hitting all her lines perfectly until the bottom jump where she crashed of all places. C’est la vie, as they say, and she had a right old pearler of a bruise on her leg as a souvenir of the weekend! She was happy to break through placing 7th in the Elite however.

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