Downhill goes Downtown
Sunday 15th October 2006, Bridgnorth
Report: Si Paton
Pics: Andy Whitehouse & Huw Davies
Last weekend we saw the 24Seven first ever official UK 'Downtown' style street race. Organised by Veteran rider Chopper Harris and Chris Roberts, the NPS4x.com Race Director we were guaranteed a successful event and we were not let down. On arriving at 09:00 in the official carpark in the Rugby Club we were already fighting for space as the cars and vans were there bumper to bumper. The big teams pits were all there, MBUK/Santa Cruz, Animal/Giant, Rocky Mountain/Scott Beaumont and Descent-World.
The track was a short 3 minute walk along the river bank and over the bridge and along the closed road. Wonder what the locals thought, all us lot turning up on a peaceful Sunday morning outside their beautiful houses? A massive 7.5ton lorry turned up with 2x huge speakers and a radio mic for the commentator worked a treat and kept the crowd of 2,000 up to date all day long..
Talk all around the pits was for tyre and bike choice. Bikes needed suspension for sure, how those hard tail boys felt I don't want to know. Rattling down those steps would have required a dentist's appointment the next day to check on any loose fillings. Most rode their DH bikes though guessing that may have been overkill. How about a 5-6inch travel bike, snapping outta the start and useful on those tight 180 corners and the short finish straight.
Tyres? Another good question, definitely Maxxis High Rollers upfront, maybe even cut down in the middle if you were really pro.. loading up 25-30psi. On the rear, definitely a semi-slick, fully pumped up to 40psi for fast rolling.
10:30am and practice kicked off on time. The 4mins push to the top wasn't that bad, after all there was a chippy at the top that your nose sniffed out. Where else can you stand at the start of a race as either a spectator or rider and have fresh fish and chips on tap?
The start was right by the Church and a flat bed lorry and ramp had been hired in to shoot the riders onto course. A quick 20yard dash before swooping into a 180 left hander. No skidding, keep wide to the rails and carve her in. A quick spin of the pedals and turn right into death alley. A scary looking place that seemed to narrow in the distance. Only 6ft wide all the way down and down it was, mega steep, off the brakes and you would be hitting 25mph plus. Littered with hazards all along this uneven and jagged wall on your right as people's back gates opened onto this alley.
If that wasn't bad enough on your left, all the way down was the remains of an old concrete post fence. Get it wrong here and bounce of the wall into these posts and you were in trouble. Did I forget to tell you there were 9 sets of steps, each being 5-6 steps down, landing flat bottom at speed meant split seconds before you were launching off the next set, half the time while your bike was still unloading from the previous compression. Frightening.
A tight right hander followed into a right hander and the crowds perched on every ledge and wall going before the last 180 left hander and wait for the cheers. A long curling right hander was a nightmare to hit fast. Some 20 steps long, they were low steps but spaced out, tempted to try and pedal here? I'm still not sure, maybe try and pump off each lip as pedalling meant either catching the right hand pedal as you carved the bike in. Clipped or flats we still saw loads slip a pedal as it was that bumpy and jerky even at speed.
The finish was just around the corner yet how many stopped 10yards short? Too many to the pleasure of the crowd and great annoyance to them. With over 3 hours of practice you could of had 4-5 runs if you'd stayed out of the chippy! The queues at the start were always going to be long. With such a short uplift and track the 250 riders were never going to be flying off the start with 20second intervals dividing them, the maths just doesn't divide.
Elites and Experts had a seeding run and who would of believed or even guessed what happened here! 19 year old Animal/Giants Rachel Atherton came down and clocked an awesome time of 30secs.. The Expert and Elite men all followed her and one by one they got close but no cigar. Even big brothers Dan and Gee couldn't catch her! Looking at the start list all the top boys were there except Mr Peat. I'd of paid good money to have been a fly on the wall back in their pits and the smile on Rachel's face.
O.K so that was seeding but that means nowt when it comes to racing and it seems the guys had their kick up their. By a girl so now had their race heads on and race they did.
Elite
1 Gee Atherton 30.0 Animal Giant
2 Matt Simmonds 31.1 Ancillotti UK
3 Scott Beaumont 31.42 Rocky Mountain
4 Neil Donaghue 31.44 MBUK Santa Cruz
5 Dave Smith 31.9 Yeti
Expert
1 Will Rowlands 31.6 Cloud Cover
2 Rob Breakwell 32.1 Dirt Magazine
3 Alex Stock 32.4 www.Descent-Gear.com
4 Ben Stephenson 33.7 Balfa
5 Simon Parkinson 33.9 www.Ticket2rideBC.com
Junior
1 Ralph Jones 32.7 Elan Bikes
2 Micky Boswell 33.1 Santa Cruz
3 Matt Parkinson www.Ticket2rideBC.com
4 Alex Bond 33.5
5 Sam Pilgrim 24Seven
Juvenille
1 Lewis Buchanan 34.8
2 Stephen Millyard 35.1 AstonHill.com/Millyard Racing3 Mark Scott 36.0
4 Reece Shields 36.5
5 Tom Knight 36.7
Women1 Fionn Griffiths 33.6 Norco
2 Rachel Atherton 33.7 Animal Giant
3 Helen Gaskell 34.8 Halfords Bikehut
Master Women
Lynda Davies 38.3 www.Ticket2rideBC.com
Nicky Belton 40.5 Astonhill.com
Masters
1 Colin Williams 32.9 Solid Bikes
2 Paul Mackie 34.5 Rapid Racers
3 Sion Jones 34.7 Santa Cruz
4 Dave Michael 34.9 Repack
5 Jamie Armitage 35.0 High Peak Cycles
Veterans
1 Adrian Hume 36.1 Meerkat Racing
2 Rich Abbott 37.3 Astonhill.com
3 Marcus Tett 40.4
4 Peter Marcroft 40.9
5 Alen Millyard 41.1
Youth
1 Joseph Smith 33.6 Ancillotti UK
2 Danny Hart 33.7 Balfa UK
3 Stefan Thomas 33.8 Pearce Cycles
4 Sam Dale 34.0 Goldtec
5 Harry Molloy 34.1 Muddy Fox
Hardtail
1 Lee Huskinson 32.8 DMR Bikes
2 Chris Hall 35.5 Four Eyes E11
3 Jayden Waddington Did Dirt www.Newhoneys.com4 Philip Evans 36.2
5 Chris Williams 36.3
Presentations were over the river back at the rugby club, indoors, dry and a beer on tap saw many relax and talk about the days escapades.
Last but not least, how nice was it to pack the bike away without having to clean her up? From now on for the next 4 months we'll have to get the hose out, on those dark cold nights with hands that have turned blue. Welcome to the winter..
Many thanks to Fraser from 24Seven for sponsoring the event and stumping up the £1,000.00 worth of prize money and the 24Seven goodies to all on the podium - http://www.24sevenbikes.com/
Big cheers to the Funn crew who flowed some very nice Funn parts as well. http://www.funnmtb.com/
