Friday 19 April 2013

2013 British DH series round 1 – Combe Sydenham – Race report.




Photo by Barney Samuel


Just a day after arriving home from a weeks training trip in sunny Malaga I was packing up and getting ready for the three hour drive south to Combe Sydenham in Somerset for the first round of the 2013 British DH series.

Photo by Barney Samuel

The track was similar to last year and was in good condition on Friday; dry, grippy and lots of pedaling! Rain was forecasted for the weekend so we knew it wouldn’t last long, with Schwalbe Dirty Dan’s most likely being the tyre of choice come race day. I prepped the tear offs and mud guards that evening ready to battle the rain the next day!

Photo by Dirt Mag

As expected Saturday was extremely wet and the track got really torn up, making some sections really hard to even keep moving through, let allow try and get up to race pace.

Photo by Joe Hayhow

Sunday was race day and the weather was slightly better with a few sunny spells. Due to the slow uplifts I only got one practice run in before seeding, which wasn’t ideal. We had some high winds as well that meant that the track was drying fast and would make it very gloopy and even more physical come race run. A solid run in my seeing put me 17th.

Photo by Aspect Media

A few hours later and fueled up with Performax Sport sachet, I was back on the uplift to battle out another run on the mess of a track! Hoping to shave off a few more seconds and get near the top ten as that was my goal for the weekend. My run did not go quite as I planned! I knew that I needed to make it down clean and not to stall through the slower woods sections. I managed to take 3 seconds off my seeding time but had to many mistakes in my run for a good time and finished 22nd in the finals. I’m disappointed with how this first race went but its made me hungry to train ever harder as I know how much better the up coming tracks will suit me so cant wait for the season to get into full swing! 
Big thanks to Diego from Schwalbe UK for the pit and support all weekend. And Performax Sport, Mondraker Bikes, Quench Cycles, Crankbrothers, Evolution Tools, One Industries, Schwalbe tyres, Drift, Kore, 100%, Formula, MRP, Clif Bar, OGIO E13, Lizard Skin, The Bike Shuttle. 661, Fox, Kinesio.