2010 Alpine Bikes, Round 3, Innerleithen

14th March 2010


Results (281)Race report Photos (944) Videos (1)      


By Stephen Hardcastle (pics Ian MacLennan)

Friday rolled around and it was again time to load the van for the long drive North to the last round of the 2010 Alpine Bikes Innerleithen Winter Series. The first 2 rounds of the series both had big problems with ice so I think everyone was hoping for an ice-free track this time. I watched the weather forecasts all week and the signs were good for a warmish dryish weekend.

Jack Reading has sold out, and adopted the colourblind pyjama look for 2010

Arriving late on the Friday meant an early start Saturday to walk the course before practice. Pete Williams - who’s still recovering from an injury sustained during a crash at Hamsterley - had taped the course out and the general consensus seemed to be that he’d made a great track. The top was typical Inners, in the trees with tight sections, lots of line choices and loads of roots coming out as practice continued. Out of the trees the track headed down off the big drop (7ft according to the sign) and then into the Matador, which starts wide with 3 jumps then back into the trees with more jumps and bus-stops. This leads out into the open section near the end, over more jumps and then back in to the trees at warp speed before a difficult little tight section to get lined up for a very straight run in to the bomb hole. Out of that, around the first 2 berms at the bottom then cutting hard right (this little section was used for all 3 rounds) with an inside line over the grass or harder off-camber outside line leading into an awkward compression with trees. From here it was a final corner and a sprint over the road to the finish.

The last section after the bomb hole saw Sam Dale and Rafi Richardson trying an inside line to save going around both berms and then a hard right hand turn. I saw the line on my course walk and discounted it as too awkward to get on to. Top marks go to Rafi who stayed inside and used the berm as a jump, gapping onto a small downslope, which led straight into the next section. It’s hard to say how much faster it was, but it certainly looked good.

Mark Scott - best ever result, only 0.3% off of the fastest time of the day

Saturday practice went off with no problems, uplifts ran well and I got 6 runs in without any effort and lots of tea stops. With the road ride at the bottom and the push at the top I don’t think I’d want to do any more than that as I felt pretty tired at the end of the day.

I woke up on Sunday morning, opened the van door and went straight to check the ground, the mud was still soft and nothing had frozen overnight. We were finally going to get a race with some grip. A couple of runs Sunday morning was very easy with practice running slightly later than normal due to the one-run format.

Race time rolled around and the hardtails went first as usual and as ever Steve Larking riding for Wideopenmag won with a time that would have put him just outside the top 20 in senior men.

Following this the Juveniles took to the hill with Sam Herd riding for Perth City Cycles taking a very dominant victory by over 20 seconds from Joe Connell and Stuart Wilcox.

Fraser McGlone took a second victory in the youth men’s race and with a top 10 overall result it looks he’ll be one to watch in the coming years.

The junior men’s race was much closer with the top 2 guys split by only 0.6 seconds, these 2 also posted the 2 fastest times of the day beating all the elites and experts. Lewis Buchannan again taking the win with Mark Scott second and Ronan Taylor in third another 4 seconds back.

Old man time next with veterans and masters up. The veterans’ race was taken by ex-world cup racer and professional Crawford Carrick Anderson who still seems to have the same committed style I remember from years ago. Alastair Maclennan was second with Stevie Boyd taking third on the day and a podium place for the series.

Tally from Uplift Scotland took the masters race; all the work he’s been doing to the track at Ae for the National Championships later in the year obviously proving to be good training. Second was Jamie Smith just 0.7 seconds down with Si Baggott taking the third spot.

Martin Nairn on his shiny new Transition TR450

The senior men’s race saw another big margin at the top with David Young of I-Cycles taking his second straight win, this time by over 10 seconds. Tommy Ingham and Joseph Taylor filled the rest of the podium.

A race running ahead of schedule caused a few issues during the experts, elites and ladies with a very strange running order as they turned up in time for there scheduled starts.

All the ladies apart from the Elites ran in one category which saw Agnieszka Pomaranska taking third place, Bex Reilly for Uplift Scotland in second and Angela Coates riding for Fox Racing/Team CHR taking first.

Elite ladies next and Tracy Moseley had come along for the weekend to get a bit of early season race practice in. When asked how her run went she described herself as rusty, it was still enough to take the win by a convincing 12 seconds from Myriam Nicole with Harriet Latchem of Propain Bikes taking third on the day and 1st overall for the series.

Expert men were next down and again Ali Maclennan won but this time by a much smaller gap than at the last round, with only 2.5 seconds covering the podium which was filled by Tom Lamb in second and Gary Forrest in third.

This leaves only the elite men to talk about. A bigger category than previous rounds with 8 riders all of whom were looking good in practice. In the end the top 5 were covered by just less than 5 seconds. 3rd place went to Fergus Lamb for Perth City Cycles on board his new-at-the-previous-race Trek Session 88. Second and just 0.4 seconds off the win in his first elite race (well he came to the other 2 but injured himself at both so this was at least the first one he managed to finish) was Jack Reading for Ellsworth/O’Neal/SIS and Ruaridh Cunningham of CRC Intense took the win. Joe Barnes was 16 seconds down in 6th place but lost his front wheel in the berm at the bottom of the bomb hole jump and was riding his 5 all weekend so who knows what might have been.

Another good weekend was had by all at the race and I’m sure we’ll all be back again next year, complaining about the cold and the ice but there to race anyway. Thanks go to Mike Marsden/Borderline events for organising the series, Alpine Bikes, Fox, Trek, Buff and Go Fast for sponsoring the races, the medics and all the marshals, uplift drivers, timing crew etc who make these races happen.

More photos over on Pinkbike here.

Ruaridh Cunningham, fastest elite but pipped to the line by two Juniors