Fort William delivered yet another memorable weekend for me. This was the 10th World Cup race I have raced at Fort William and every time I feel so lucky to get the opportunity to ride in front of such an amazing home crowd. It is the best race of the year and it does have the best crowd and organisation and yet again 2012 delivered the same great mix of weather, atmosphere and midges !!

Moving away from downhill racing in 2012 meant that I only got on my DH bike for the first time since the worlds last year at the beginning of May and only had chance for a few days out on it to try and get up to speed ! I felt pretty good during the practice at Fort William but I just didn’t have the same upper body fitness that I have had in previous years and I was starting to feel it by race day ! I would loved to have won for a 6th time in Fort William but realistically it was going to be a lot to expect, so I set myself the goal of making the podium and that would be a great achievement.

After qualifying in 7th I knew I would be able to ride better in the final but the weather conditions set in and after a lot of overnight rain the mist and rain was set for race day and setting faster times was going to be hard in these conditions.

I managed to have a pretty safe run, riding the top section pretty well and then I started to make mistakes as I got further into my run. The new section at finish turned so soft after the rain I was sure I had a puncture, even looking down to check as I pedalled into the finish area ! It wasn’t flat, the ground was just so soft