The tallest man in downhill brings us up to speed with goings on:
The world cup is in full swing now and Team MTBcut is getting involved. The big race of the year at Fort William was an important one for the team being the local round. The Orange mountain bikes wagon rolled up and gave the team some pro pits as a base and allowed us to get involved with the fans.
It was a hell of a race and brought mixed fortunes for the team. Young Fraser McGlone started off the year on a high in South Africa pulling an awesome 64th place. Unfortunately things didn’t go his way at Fort William. Fraser was feeling really good in practice and was looking forward to getting a good result at his local race but a root grabbed his wheel in a technical section and before he knew it he was on his head… game over.
Joe Barnes was another to suffer some seriously bad luck. A spring in Joe’s rear mech failed causing it to loose tension and fail. Unable to pedal Joe let off the brakes and tried to smash the course to pieces to make it through qualification. He came into a crucial corner before a flat section and tried to hit it full speed to carry speed but his front wheel washed out and he hit the deck.
I was sporting the number 42 at the weekend and I was looking to bring that down into the top 20. After a solid run I came down into 3rd eventually finishing up in 19th. I was annoyed that I didn’t get the top 10 I was looking for but in hindsight it was a solid result.
The following weekend was the 3rd round of the World Cup in Leogang so we packed up the wagon and started the 30 hour drive to Austria. Many bad jokes, some awful smells and lots of sugar later and we rolled into Leogang.
We were greeted by an angry Austrian campsite owner and a lot of moisture but things got better. The sun came out at times and the track was amazing. Qualifying was a bit of a disaster for myself. I had a rather painful crash just before my run. I smashed some painkillers and decided to take it easy and do a smooth run. Turned out that smooth equalled slow and I missed Qualifying. Words cannot describe how gutted I was.
Fraser had a solid run but just missed qualifying but 1.5 seconds. A bit more experience of these bigger tracks and he’ll get the pace figured out and start posting some amazing results.
Joe was team rider number one at the weekend. He qualified solidly and was on an amazing run in his final but he got caught out by the increasingly wild track and hit the deck. 70th position on the day. Not the most successful race for the team but we’ve all learned some lessons in these hard times and we’re looking forward to the next races.
Myself and Fraser will be smashing the world cups out in America and Joe is heading to Europe in the landship for some enduro action.
Cheers,
Ben.
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