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