BDS Rd.2 Fort William
Fort William BDS Rd.2 – Race Report – Joe Connell
The Weekend started with emails and Facebook notifications warning of bad weather for the weekend at the Fort Bill BDS. Me and my mate Gaz drove up on Friday afternoon and the weather was looking pretty nice! I got in a pretty good track walk- the track looked great, fast and rough as per usual, so I couldn’t wait to get onto the track on Saturday morning.
Saturday practice started off well, the weather was surprisingly nice and it was definitely hard to believe that Sunday was forecasted to be terrible! Saturdays practice was my first time taking the Zerode G-1 on a proper rough track, I’ve always had a rough ride on Fort Bill in the past but this time I just felt comfortable and relaxed, combined with the bike feeling sick, practice was just a whole load of fun. The rearward axel path really came into its own on the super rough parts of the track and just seemed to smooth everything out. On the top loose turns, the Intense ‘Edge’ Tire was hooking up sick which gave me great confidence to get my lean on!
Everyone’s suspicions of the race run taking place on the Saturday afternoon instead of on Sunday were confirmed by the race organisers at lunch time on Saturday. Due to the race run being on Saturday rather than on Sunday, it was important to be efficient in practice and to not do too many runs to conserve some energy for the afternoons race run.
After a late lunch and some Clif Bar electrolyte drink, I headed up for my race run. At this point the weather was starting to come in, the wind was picking up and it was starting to rain so I knew there would be plenty of grip on track for my race run. Despite the track being wet, I had my RRP mud guard on so I decided not to run any tear-offs for my run. Straight out of the start gate, a few corners in and I nearly lost it all, I was so close clipping a massive rock on the inside of a turn! After that close-call, I started to get into the run; I was just having fun and letting the bike do its thing underneath me. As I came into the lower section of the track where it’s important to carry good speed I felt that being able to change gear without pedalling helped me out a lot for setting up for up and coming sections. I came over the line with a 5.07, which put me in 1st in the junior category and 18th in elite. Overall I had a great days riding on the Zerode at Fort William! Thanks to Prestige cycles for their support during the week and to all my sponsors, Si and all the BDS crew, and Gaz and my Dad for their race support! JC
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