World Cup 4 – Fort William, Scotland

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’t push it. Race time came and the crowd were out in force. It’s amazing that so many people travel all the way to Fort William to cheer us all on, it’s a very special opportunity to race in front of such a great home crowd.

I was loving it out of the start, pushing hard, in fact a bit too hard in a couple of places as I clipped my pedal on a rock and almost went over the bars ! I then settled into my run, but the further I got down the track the more fatigue set in. I came into the last wooded section before the big pedal into the finish and just dropped my front wheel too early, straight into a root and down I went. I couldn’t believe I had crashed again and this time it was going to be costly as it was flat to get going again so I lost all my speed into the pedalling section. I crossed the line in 5th and ended up back in 7th place, still only 3 secs off 3rd spot. I think I was more shocked than upset, I couldn’t quite believe that was my race run at Fort William and I had just thrown it away.

Sabrina put in another great ride and has now extended her lead over me. I still hung on to 2nd overall, but that was not the result I came here for. I think looking back I had maybe overdone my preparation coming in to this race, as I was just too keen to be in the best shape and started off the weekend already tired. Gutted. As I said on my homepage I hope you enjoy following the highs and lows of my race season in 2009, well this was certainly a low point ! I now have 2 weeks to put all that behind me and line up for the next round in Maribor with some work to be done to pull back the points.

Photo credit: Gary Perkin