This is a report from my second visit to Fort William’s World Championship in DH.
Initially we spent some time around Scotland and punished ourselves by walking to the summit of Ben Nevis on Saturday. 2h:07m is certainly not the best time in the world, but I overtook most of the people going up and managed to do it without one single stop – it is shame I can’t pedal up hills with the same enthusiasm. Then we celebrated our existence with a couple of litres of vodka, gin, vine and others….
Sunday – the big day!
Arriving at World Cup village at around 11am, we started cruising around the exhibition stands.
One thing that has caught my eye – an all mountain bike frame machined out of single block of alloy – no welds! (see picture A). The complete bike is around 14kg and the price of the frame is around £2500. The guy told me that it takes 25 hours of machining to make the main part of the frame – what a job!
This year I decided to do it opposite way – walk up the hill and take the gondola down for the descent (saving painful knees from the day before). Good idea it was – no queueing for gondola at the bottom and no sliding down on extremely messy and muddy paths around the course.
Immediately after the race started I realized that racing times were longer (+15secs) than the last year and I wondered why….
The course went through few changes just before the World Cup and those changes made it quite brutal. Seeing the course last year and being riding for the whole year, I was under impression I might be able to do it, but…
NO mate! NO way!
Brightonmtb.org 