Top 10 for Rich at National Champs

The good times keep rolling with the team and Rich T is pinning the MWT Nukeproof Scalp on the mountains of the UK at the National Downhill Champs, while on the other side of Europe, in Romania, Team sponsor and Rider Jonny ‘bravo’ Kingston together with Jason ‘the destroyer’ Eccelstone have been smashing their way through the Evil Carpathian Mountains in the famous Romaniacs Extreme Enduro.

Jason has managed to turn a brand new 2012 KTM 300 EXC into what can only be described as…‘destruction’… I have worked on and ridden bikes all my life and I have never seen anything like this amount of damage. The race is one of the toughest on earth and both guys have put their all into it and come out with heads held high, if not a little battered and bruised. Jon nailed an outstanding 17th place in the super tough expert class and we are still waiting to hear the result from Jason’s efforts in the Hobby class. The tough Australian maniac was the fastest guy in his class, but a couple of navigational errors cost him time, and in the end the bike, as it flew 250 feet off a mountain side landing on rocks and costing Jason the chance of riding into the finish on the last day. Like I said before… Molson World Team DESTRUCTION…

Well done Jon and Jase for a great job and roll on next year’s event.

Back to the MWT downhill mtb action with Rich’s take on our awesome National Champs weekend.

Rich Thomas

British National Champs 2011.

Well it seems it was only a few weeks ago when we were packing the van for the Halo BDS round at Llangollen… Though here it is and we’re off up the road again, this time for the big one! At the BDS I was on for a top result but decided to press the Nukeproof eject button near the finish and crashing out finishing in 25th….. Not for me really, so this time it was on.

We arrived Friday to set up the Molson World Team pits and walk the track; we did this in horrendous rain… The track slightly different for this race with a proper gnarly top section, like, ridiculous steep, big respect to all the younger riders, because when Steve ‘Sheffield Steel’ Peat leaves the start hut and is over the bars within 50 meters causing a red flag situation, you know things are wild! Anyway, the forecast for the weekend was promising so all good. The weather app doesn’t lie and we woke up Saturday morning to clear skies and what would become a hot weekend.

So the interesting part, the start of the riding, Saturday morning was tough, learning the track and hitting some of the big lines, it is hard to put things together on a track this steep because there are crashes, stricken people and bikes all over the place, wild times and Saturday with lots of uplift queuing and waiting for red flags to clear. Never the less, we got in some good runs on the awesome drying track and with some new factory Mojo Suspension parts the MWT Nukeproof felt better than ever!

Sunday, race day……

We had an early start eager to get some final practice for the race, with limited time unfortunately we only managed one run before the qualification run, on a rapidly changing track this is not ideal but that was the hand that was drawn. Because of this I was cautious during my quali run checking out the track for new lines and blown out sections, I came across the line in 12th position, a solid basis for the final and a confidence booster in the 160 rider deep British senior men field. With a quick ISO2 Recovery and re-hydrate, a prep of the Nukeproof and chill it was time for the final… A tough and fully focussed couple of minutes of riding to determine your National Champs placing for the next 12 months, I was up for it!!!!

Within no time I was sat in the start hut waiting to go, I had a great first half, crossing the first split in 7th place, I knew I was riding well and had flash backs of what happened at the earlier BDS round, because of this I just eased it off slightly at the bottom to make sure I didn’t have a repeat of the eject button incident and made sure I got to the finish, I managed this crossing the line in 9th place, only dropping a few places in the second half of track, so I was pumped, reaching the teams goal of a top 10 in the massive field felt great!
A massive thank you to all the sponsors for their help and support.

Top banana! RT