UK National 2 –Innerleithen, Scotland

Scotland was again the best place to be this weekend as we had another dry and dusty race ! I just hope that we have not used up too much of the sunshine quota so when the world cup heads to Fort William in a couple of weeks there will still be some sunshine left !! There was still a cold wind and unfortunately with the 1hr wait for an uplift each run it was pretty chilly at times. I think transport for downhill races in the UK is always going to be a problem and is going to be a factor that will discourage people to spend money to race as you really don’t get that much riding done on a race weekend which is a shame. I only managed 4 practice runs on Saturday and really felt like I had not got all my lines sorted. However Innerleithen is always a great venue and there are so many good tracks that it will always be a good race. This weekend they used a combination of new and old tracks to make a challenging 3min course. It was a very typical tight and twisty trail that is very common at Innerleithen, with a few steep loose shoots which eroded and changed throughout the weekend. Negotiating through the trees was tricky and I even tried running narrower bars to fit through for a couple of runs !

My seeding run was a little scrappy as I still wasn’t 100%sure of my lines, but after walking the track again on Saturday I felt much better. I finished 2nd in the seeding run behind Rachel Atherton and I knew I would have to go a lot quicker in the final to challenge Rachel’s time. My final run was certainly better, but still not as good as I know I need to ride. I also unfortunately got held up in the last 30secs of track by the rider in front of me who had crashed and I could not get passed, so I lost a little time there. However I still was not fast enough to challenge the riding of Rachel Atherton this weekend. She has really raised the level of the women’s riding this year and I now have a challenge to step my riding up over the next few weeks to get back on top. So in the final I finished 2nd to Rachel, with Katy Curd taking 3rd spot.

I then spent Monday doing a quick media session in Glasgow doing a couple of interviews with GMTV and the Daily Record newspaper to help promote and advertise the World Cup in Fort William. Then it’s a quick trip home to wash and pack and then straight off to Andorra for the next round of the world cup.