After the disappointment in Maribor I decided to use my free weekends at home and race a few local races. The lovely July weather turned up every weekend and rained as soon as I set off for a race, so I had some pretty good mud riding practice which would come into good use for the National Champs as we had some pretty heavy downpours during the weekend at Innerleithen.

The track for the National Champs was a really good mix of the all the trails they have on the hillside. Some old school flat out sections and some more steep tight technical stuff, I really liked the mix and was having fun in practice. With Cross Country on during the same weekend there was a lot of people around and a pretty good atmosphere over the weekend. I had a solid qualifying run, and would start off as the last rider down the hill. By the time the final runs came around I was back on the dry tyres which rolled a lot better on the top half of the track. I made a few little mistakes on the way down but still went 6 secs faster than in qualifying which was enough to take the win and my 7th National Downhill Title, ahead of Helen Gaskell in 2nd and Jess Stone in 3rd.

Now back to world cup racing where I hope to be back on the podium and riding well.

After the problems I had at Fort William I was keen to make amends in Maribor. I was really enjoying practice on Saturday. The weather was so hot it was almost unbearable to sit on the chairlift as you could feel your head burning in the sun ! The track was wicked, bone dry and really hard pack, it felt so fast and rough it was crazy. I did 2 timed runs at the end of practice and posted the fastest time so that made me feel confident for the next day.

They had forecast rain for Saturday ever since we arrived in Maribor and they were spot on, it poured down with rain all day till about 4pm, enough for our qualifying runs to be cancelled as there was too much lightning in the area for the chairlift to run. The track was also pretty damn hard to ride, suddenly all those dry roots turned absolutely lethal ! Fortunately we were lucky with the weather and it stayed dry over night, the track however was still really slippery for practice on Sunday morning. I was really enjoying the challenge and it was great for the race as these conditions make the racing so much more wide open as it

Having been riding at Afan Forest for a number of years now and also being quite partial to some good food after a long bike ride, I got to know Ian Luff the man behind the Drop Off Cafe quite quickly!! Drop off Cafe is based at the new centre at Afan at Glyncorrwg, right at the start of the Skyline and Whytes Level trails. Not only do they do great food for hungry mountain bikers there are also showers, a campsite and Skyline Cycles bike shop onsite so it

Having a couple of weeks at home was great preparation for Fort William as I worked hard digging tracks, riding downhill and riding my little TTR motorbike all with the aim for getting the strength you need to do well at Fort Bill. I was really looking forward to riding here this year on my new bike with the Fox suspension. Having had what may turn out to be our 10 days of summer in the run up to the race, the weather was looking good for Fort William!!

Driving up in beautiful sunshine just makes the drive even more spectacular. The track was definitely dry and dusty and the guys had worked hard to groom it and it was looking good. There was a new wood section as well just to keep things fresh. My first couple of practice runs were good, the bike felt great and the track felt fast. The new wood section was taking some time to cut in, and it required quite a lot of work to get it flowing well. I tried to do a couple of full runs over Friday and Saturday morning but I was struggling. My arms just felt fatigued and I decided not to push it.

Right before qualifying on Saturday we had some rain, which made the track more slippery than I expected. I just touched my brakes as I exited the new wood section and the next minute I was on my back going down the next section of track ! Not ideal as I lost some very valuable time, but was very pleased to still end up in 3rd spot after that. I walked the track on Saturday evening and found a few new lines I wanted to try for Sunday.

Sunday morning the weather looked settled and the track was really dry again. I did a couple of practice runs, but again felt quite fatigued so didn

We took 2 days to drive down to Andorra which was a pretty civilised way of doing it. It also allowed us to be able to take in the impressive views on our drive into Andorra from Perpingnan. The last 160km must have taken us 3 hrs as we winded up and down the valleys, but it was a blue sky day so it really didn

As it was only a short drive from Calais I decided to drive down to the second world cup and I think we were there almost as quick as I could have flown, arriving into the beautiful green hills of La Bresse on Wednesday afternoon in glorious sunshine. Having seen the track on the dirt website it looked very old school with lots of off camber grass and not the most exciting track. It

One of the advantages of flying so much is that I get to accumulate quite a few airmiles over the year and I decided to use some of them and upgraded on my flight from London to San Francisco. What a joy that was. It makes the whole flying experience so much more bearable when you have edible food, that you can eat with proper cutlery with space to actually move your arms well enough to feed yourself and a seat that turns into a flat bed. It was luxury !!
However I still arrived at Sea Otter feeling pretty tired after the last couple of weeks of travel. Not only did my body have some sleep deprivation it also had to adjust from a hot humid 30 degrees, to a freezing windy 10 degrees ! For the first 3 days we were there it was freezing and so windy it made riding back from the race venue one night quite a challenge just to stay on my side of the road ! Thankfully the weather only got better and we were basking in hot sun by the weekend.

Sea Otter is as much a festival as a race, as the downhill course has been the same terrible track for years ! Another weekend of pedalling and jumps, just this time it felt easy as it was half the length of South Africa ! It

By Wednesday the pits had transformed into a World Cup site and riders were beginning to show up. It was great to have been here for a week already as I was already used to the humidity and I had already ridden the track so I was able to conserve some energy during the run up to the race. They made a few alterations to the track from the national, just adding an extra line at the top and putting in a few extra corners and lines here and there, otherwise it was pretty much the same.

Practice took place on Thursday and by Thursday afternoon it was already time for timed practice. This year the world cup schedule has been changed slightly and we now qualify the day before the race, and just have one race run on the Sunday. For this race it was actually qualifying on Friday, so you had to be up to speed pretty quick.

I worked on a few sections that I hadn

A drive to Heathrow marks the start of my long haul travelling for this season. This year

Gouveia is quite often the first big race of the year, a warm up for the world cups. It