World Mountain Bike Championships Day 4

 

MTB Worlds Spectator Diary - Friday 7th Sept

www.everydaycycling.com editor Eddie Allen made the mad dash up to Fort William on Friday morning to spend the weekend working on the British Cycling stand and reporting for us on the event. He sent us his account of his first day at a Mountain Bike World Championships.

 

Phew! What a day that was. Up at 4:30am, still dark outside. Headed out onto to road with taxis still bringing revellers home from the city centre. But for me the event had just started. 330 miles away lay Fort William and the climactic weekend of the UCI MTB World Championships.

An epic 6 hour journey, capped by an amazing journey across Rannoch Moor and Glencoe, ended at Fort William, on the banks of Loch Linne. I parked up at the hotel car park and pulled the bike out of the boot, packed my bag and headed out onto the excellent Bikehut sponsored traffic free trail from Fort William to the Nevis Range site.

 

I'd never been to a major MTB event before, apart from NPS series events and boy, was I in for a big surprise. Forget your preconceptions of cycling events - think V festival with knobbly tyres and you'll be nearer the mark. I was greeted with a huge event village, music, food of every description, from hog roast to venison casserole in a bap. TV helicopter circling overhead and a few thousand people checking out the event village and soaking in the atmosphere.

As I arrived, the Under 23 Mens XC was kicking off and I scrambled through midge infested mossy undergrowth to get a good vantage point to watch the riders power up extreme rock garden (pictured, above right) and North Shore sections. All around me, cowbells were chiming like the soundtrack to a downhill skiing event and pleas in a dozen languages were urging respective riders on. Too soon (though not too soon for the riders) the XC race was over. So I decided to do a bit of retail therapy. 2008 models from Kona were on display. Clothing from Fox, Plain Lazy and others, plus steel and ti creations from Charge bikes. Another sweep of the giant catering marquee resulted in a coffee and a few hundred more calories in the shape of a delicious slab of carrot cake.

Retail therapy is a big part of any trip to the worlds

Suitably refreshed I made my way back over to the 4X course, where riders were training for the evening's showcase event. It amazed me that even in practice, the riders were pulling huge tabletops and flairs just to keep the crowd pleased. And pleased they were, with the whole course lined two deep even for the practice session.

Dusk and the lights are beginning to come on for the 4-Cross finals

But this was nothing compared to the heats and finals later in the evening. The scene was epic in proportion. Floodlights and strobes. Pumping music, the drama of low cloud covering and revealing Ben Nevis in the evening light, and the world's best 4X riders battling for supremacy. No team orders - GB riders shoulder to shoulder racing to win. Drama, big crashes and the over-riding aim to keep the crowd happy, no matter what the outcome of the race. In the end, the USA's Brian Lopes romped away with a comfortable victory in the Mens Final, with fellow USA rider Kintner taking the Women's honours. Funny thing was, the winner's and losers were upstaged by the sheer magnitude of the event, and the drunken and vocal supporters of all nationalities greeted the worthy champions with thunderous applause when they donned their rainbow jerseys.

Fireworks capped off the 4th day at the championships

Can't wait for Saturday and Sunday!