Great start to the UK BDS series

Even with one World Cup already done this year it still doesn’t feel long since the last round of the 2011 series. For this year Si from the British Downhill series has added another round making it a 6 round race series and with a new venue in as well which would be the setting for the opening race of the season. It’s great to have a new venue, Combe Syhenham was an old national track from a few years back, I have never been there before and after having a walk of the track on Friday I was very excited to ride it. It looked like it had a great mix of section to it and kind of reminded me of the Pietermaritzburg WC track. Of the start was a couple of cool rooty bus stops before some flowy switch backing turns leading you in to a open jumpy field section before a cool technical and rocky woods section to the finish.

After a bit of rain on Friday night the track started off quite wet and slippery with a lot of riders riding spike. I have moved over to Schwelbe tyres for this year and have been getting on with them really well. I played about during practise with the Dirty Dan and Muddy Mary and found both tyres working great but went for Muddy Marys as the track was rapidly drying out as come Sunday morning we had blue sky’s and sunshine.

After seeding I was sitting in 11^th place with a solid and clean run. In my race run I put another 2 seconds in to my seeding time which was happy with and finished 15^th. I’m really happy with a great solid start to the year and looking forward to Round 2 in Fort William, Scotland in 4 weeks time.

Here's a run down the track from Sunday morning practise with DriftHD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLhHMw-Hm60&list=UUtmP2_EQIZkrlt7ly1PJSXQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Big thanks to Norco, Fetish Bike Co, One Industries, Gamut, Adidas Eyewear, Kore, DriftHD, Sun Ringle, 661, Schwalbe and Sram.