The last round of the British Downhill Series was held at Cearsws last weekend. It seemed like it would be a relaxing weekend. It was until race run!

When I walked the track I thought it looked quite mellow, there were no super-technical bits but a lot of what looked like really fun sections, and that was right it was a really fun track. I like to be really challenged by a course, but this track was more laid back and still really good fun. As a result I had all my lines dialed pretty fast. The uplift was good to I did nine runs and could have done a lot more. It is a good venue for racing.

This is a helmet cam run I did. But you will have to bear with me as the angle of the camera was not perfect, it will be better next time…

There was a threat of rain over the whole weekend but it held off all the way through Saturday and Sunday morning. With the rain came some strong winds and strong winds are a downhillers enemy, especially when it is wet. You are already struggling to stay on line and keep your balance and then whenever you get airbourne your bike acts as a sail and it can get blown out from under you. My race run, though, was in the wet and I changed from my usual faultless setup of Shimano clipped pedals and Maxxis High Rollers to a pair of good old Maxxis Wet Screams (referred to on the downhill circuit as ‘spikes’) and old-school flat pedals.

It worked well as I felt I was as quick in the wet as in the dry which would have put me in for a really good finish until… near the bottom as I was loading the bike to hop down across a big root the front wheel caught another smaller root and just dropped away from me. I fell into the next compression, landing backwards and was winded. It took thirty odd seconds to get myself together before I could go on. I finished in 26th out of 37.

Looking on the bright side I felt good on the track, had all my lines sorted and if I had held it together looked as though I was in for a good finish.

Cheers Finn