Innerleithen Winter DH Series – Round 2.

The last round of the ‘fun’ winter series was on the 29th and 1st of the February/March weekend. The weather was holding up on the way over to the venue, was looking dry. Once we got there we set up the gazebo and I went for a wonder up the track so I wasn’t riding it totally blind. The first few turns looked super slick, on the edge traction. They were soon changed after many riders were injuring themselves at the beginning of practice. I only walked a small part of the track as it was time to get ready and head on over to the uplift truck. A 1.8 mile cycle each run to get to the truck, by the end of the day you really felt like you had done strathpuffer all over again.

I rode the top section blind on my first run and it was probably one of the worst ideas I have ever done. It was really steep and I was following Matthew Scott who had walked the track. So I didn’t know where I was going, and he was pinning it down. Probably helped me as throughout practice I was able to go flat out on the top section. The lower parts of the track were pretty straight forward, some really fast turn in tight trees. But was all really good fun to ride. I had no crashes in practice which was good, and I got some good lines for my race run. As soon as a drop of rain fell out of the sky, most people were putting on spikes, very bad idea on the roots. So I stuck to my dry tyres. By the end of Saturday the track was pretty badly beaten up. It was a lot more fun to ride. I took 5 runs which was plenty for me.

On the Sunday morning it was super wet on foot. It had rained constantly trough out the night. Leaving a lovely fresh surface of rain water. No way was I to be one of the first riders down. Daniel Carrigan, Robert black, Matthew Scott and me all went up for our last few practice runs. We all went one after each other, all just having a good time riding the track. It was really grippy just very wet. After the first run I got it quite good and was happy with my lines etc, but it was such a fun track to ride we wanted to go up for another run. I was just coasting down this run, so that it would be fun, and a good laugh. I was rolling down the motorway section when my back wheel slid out on the soft mud, sending me face first into a banking, and I wasn’t exactly going slow down the motorway. My finger got snecked under my brake leaver leaving me with a very numb finger. It Was difficult to hold on. My race run went well as i didn’t crash, although I wasn’t carrying speed thro some sections which cost me a lot of time. But that is something to work on for the next races.

Throughout 2009 I will be attending all the national rounds and all the SDA’s. I Hope to do just as good, and I hope to see you track side.

Michael Turnbull