5 years.
That’s how long ago it was when I last raced downhill in the Woodlands Winter Series. I did the first two rounds of the series at Chipshop back in 2011 and even managed to bag a podium in what was my first ever solo race. Ah, I remember that muddy slop-fest of a day well!
Half a decade later, I decided to sign up to the round 1 of latest Woodlands Winter Series, this time located at Gawton, just for a bit of fun really. Also, I figured, it’s a good bit of ‘training’ for next year’s race season…coz, you know, it’ll be as wet come race weekend in the summer, as it is at race weekends in the winter.
So, with registration open from 8.30am, I set my alarm to get up at 6.15am on the Sunday morning. Now, the words “6.15am”, “get up” and “Sunday morning” should never be seen or heard in the English language together. Unless of course, the word “bikes” is also in that sentence, in which case it’s just about acceptable. An hour and a half drive later, watching the outside temperature in the car dipping down to 4°C under tree cover on the A38, I rolled into a packed car park at Gawton Gravity Hub, signed on and then walked the track.
For those that don’t know, HSD is the ‘easier’ track at Gawton and largely hard-pack stone surfacing, but the organisers dug and taped out a few off-camber, loamy, rooty sections to make it interesting. The track was also damp at the top and had the potential to be a bit slippy it seemed.
I met up with mates, Nick and Lawrence, got the bikes out and headed down to get familiar with track at a bit more pace. Practice went well and I did five runs down I think, pedalling back up in between (#endurotraining ;-p). The track was damp but grip wasn’t a problem I found and was plenty fast enough. Line choices were minimal except on the fresh cut additions where there was some room to play with. On the second new section, I kept missing the first the line up on to the off-camber bank, struggling a little to see it in the sun-dappled shadows and just couldn’t quite get it right before the end of practice so hoped I’d hit it in my race run.
The queue for first race runs was a chilly wait and by the time I was in the ‘start gate’, I just wanted to get going and get warmed up! The first quarter of the track was a series a nice and fast flowy turns before opening out into the first new bit; a choice of longer but faster turn or a shorter but tighter corner. I stayed tight and then at the next new section further down, the one where I couldn’t find the entry, I pointed my front wheel in the general direction of where I though it was and…it was good! Down into a tight left-hander and braking on slick rock slabs, the front wheel washed out a touch but I unclipped quickly, dabbed a foot and caught it in time then cranked it down some more flowy trail and across the line. With first runs in the bag, I was sitting 5th in Masters with a time of 1m 51.744s which was a bit of a surprise!
Run 2 felt like it went better, I hooked up a few corners better, kept that front wheel upright on the tight left-hander and stayed off the brakes longer towards the bottom…though surprisingly I only knocked six tenths of a second off! Whaaaa?! I was sure it quicker!
Thankfully, no one below me managed to better my 2nd run time so I finished 5th in Masters (field of 27 riders) and 39th overall out of 150 odd riders so happy with that result.
It was definitely a fun day out on the bike and good to be mixing it up with some downhill racing for a change. I expect a few more of the big boys will be out for Round 2 on Super Tavi but I’ll see how the dates for the rest of the series pan out, as I’d definitely like to do a few more in the series.
Big thanks to everyone involved in organising the race. It was a sold-out race and was great to see a packed ladies class, as well as a packed groms class too – a good sign for the future. It was also nice to hear a load of money was raised for charity in honour of local rider Jordan Fry, who lost his life recently to cystic fibrosis. I didn’t know him, but RIP dude.
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