European Title for Alastair & Nukeproof

Nukeproof Vet rider and Fort William local Alastair Maclennan took the trip to Kranjska Gora in Slovenia for the European Masters DH Champs last weekend and brought home the Gold Medal on board his Nukeproof Scalp. Here's his round up of the weekend.

Kranjska Gora in Slovenia was the venue for this years European MTB Masters Championship. The small friendly town with backdrop of massive rocky peaks made an ideal location for this years event. We were even greeted with massive downpours and thunderstorms to make us feel at home.

The track was essentially 4 of the rootiest possible tree sections strung together with flat out berms, drops and off cambers finished off with a flat out top gear death pedal to the finish over a flat long jump , open piste and a bridge jump.

Starting out for the first day of practice in the wet was not much fun as the rain had made the track treacherously slippy and my riding felt quite awkward on the harsh terrain, but by the end of the day things had slowly dried and I felt I was getting to grips with things.

Second day of practice I made a couple of suspension set up changes which instantly changed my riding and I was feeling very comfortable with the track and could feel the speed coming as I let go more in the gnarlier sections. I also changed the gearing by putting on a bigger front ring as the course was so fast towards the finish.

By the end of practice I had all my lines dialed, but the rooty tree sections still had to be treated with respect as one small mistake would soon ended in disaster.

Qualifying day came as well as the sun and a drying track. The wetter slippier track of the day before would have probably given me more of an advantage, but I much prefer riding in the heat and am quite partial to a bit of dust!

Tactics were to put in a good solid run leaving the oposition wondering what I had left. It went well and I didn' over do it on the big pedal section and coasted in with a time of 3:08.866 with Giuseppe Lividini 2nd on 3:19.119 and Jiri cila 3rd on 3:32.759.

I woke up to an unusual amount of nerves on race day. One of my goals this season was to win the European Title onboard the Nukeproof Scalp and today was the day I had to make it happen.

After a good warm up pedal and some last minute collaboration with broken fellow traveller Paul French I headed up for my race run.

The usual mind games/tactics were being played out at the top of the hill as riders waited for their start but I didn't get envolved.

I powered off the line and dived into the first steep rooty section to be soon spat out into the open and into the super fast berms. Everything past quickly as I hit all the right lines with just enough aggression to keep the speed going but not over do it too much. Section after section passed and I soon found myself powering for the finish with everything I had to take the win with Lividini finishing 7.281 secs behind and Cila 20.656 secs.

Really happy with the win and to have given the Nukeproof Scalp its Euro Title. Thanks to all at Hotlines for the support.