World Cups Fort William and Leogang

 

I was super excited going into the Fort William world cup because it’s my local track and it was my first time racing there in a world cup so I couldn’t wait to get riding!

 

First day of practice went really well, nice and dry for a change! Was having fun on the track and had the luxury of having top 80 practice and it was nice to have that extra bit of time for practice. Went home for some dinner and a good nights sleep ready for qualifying day!

 

Woke up nice and early to get some practice in before qualifying started, practice went good had two solid runs which set me up good for my run. Qualifying didn’t go to plan for me, had a crash in the woods which caught me off guard because it wasn’t a place where I had any issues in practice so I ran to get my bike and carry on but by that time my chances of qualifying were gone. I was totally gutted because I knew if I had a good run I could of made it in, but that’s racing for you!

 

 

 

I stayed to watch the finals and it was an awesome experience and it was super cool to see Danny and Brook on the podium!

 

Went home to get ready for a day of packing ready for the next round in Leogang.

 

My dad drove me out to Leogang which was cool because it was his first world cup experience away from Britain, and our first experience of being on a German auto ban, pretty scary when you have to overtake something and two seconds later there’s a big Merc right behind you flashing it’s lights!

 

We got to the venue in the dark so didn’t know what kind of place it was, when we woke up I was really surprised about how nice a place it was. Awesome mountain views and cool chalets half way up huge mountains.

 

Walked the track and it wasn’t what I was expecting, there was a lot more bike park in it than I thought which was a bit of a shame because the bits in between were awesome. The top had a few soft extremely slippy when wet berms which looked really good, the middle woods looked fast with a couple of tricky sections and the bottom woods looked amazing with loads of roots and sweet corners!  Couldn’t wait to see how it would ride.

 

Practice went well and was feeling good on the course, it rode faster than expected which made the flatter parts good fun. There was two sections that I stopped to watch for a while to see what were the fastest lines, so once I was happy on the lines that was me settled for line choice and took it from there! I finished practice then went to walk the course while the top 80 were doing their practice just to see the fast guys riding, I met my coach Chris Ball near the top of the track so I walked the track with him which was cool to spend a bit of time with him.

 

Qualifying day, there had been a lot of rain during the night so I done three practice runs just to see how the track was going to change and where the holes were going to come out and mainly because I was loving it! Had some tuna pasta after practice which filled me up nicely ready for qualifying. The track was drying up all the time but I decided to stick with spike tires on and went up for my run nice and chilled out. Got to the top and the gondola hall was full of people on turbo trainers! All you could hear was the buzzing sound of turbo trainers, I warmed up then headed to the start hut.

 

The top half of my run didn’t go well at all, stalled in a few corners and lost loads momentum but I kept going and had a good bottom section but it wasn’t enough. I missed out by 1.5 seconds which was pretty disappointing, but the times were really tight so if I had a good top half I would of made it in which was good news to know that I’m on pace and just need to work on banging out fast runs!

 

So I’m really looking forward to the next two rounds in Mont Sainte Anne and Windham, can’t wait to get racing again.

 

Fraser McGlone

 

 

 

World Cup Round 1, Pietermaritzburg

 

This was my first time racing at a World Cup, and only my second time going on a plane with my bike so when we got to check in our bike boxes were way over weight! So had to ram some Five Tens, race jerseys and race pants into my hand luggage.

 

Walked the track on Wednesday, top looked good and the bottom looked good, only thing that looked bad was the huge sprint in the middle of the course but it was the same for everyone so just had to get on with it!

 

First day of practice went well, started off pretty moist then slowly dried out as the day went on so by the end of the day the course was a lot faster. Got all my lines sorted out within a few runs then gradually built up speed on them.

Friday, qualifying day! Managed to get two good runs in before qualifying so I was happy with how I was riding. My run went well, it was my first full run of the course so I didn’t really know how hard to go on the pedalling, I came across the line into 74^th position which I was super happy about! Was a really cool feeling qualifying for the first time.

 

Had four practice runs on Saturday, changed a couple of lines to ones I was more comfortable on and overall just picked up some speed.

 

Race day, it had been dry for the last two days so the course was baked solid. I went up for my race run feeling pretty good, it was one of the hottest days so when I got to the top I went straight for some shade to warm up. My race run went better than qualifying, went a lot harder on the pedal which was so hard to keep myself going, thought it would never end! I ended up 64^th so it was a good start to my world cup season.

 

Fraser