Halo Wheels Ad!

Check out the July edition of Dirt Magazine to see the new Halo Chaos DH wheels advert featuring yours truly!

Thanks to Matt@Ison for organising the ad!

BDS Round 4 Llangollen

For BDS number 4 we returned to North Wales for the rider scare-er that is Llangollen. With it's steep gradient, amazing corners and deep ruts it was always going to be an awesome race regardless of the weather, which luckily was brilliant!

Come Saturday practice we were up early like excited little puppies and heading over to the track to get cracking, they were using the new-ish squirrel track. First run down (even though I'd walked the track) I got a bit wild trying a new grass chute line and incidentally went over the bars on a tiny little double, luckily I got away with it but my pride was off to A+E!

Chilling... 3 Minute Gaps and putting the steed to bed.

 It didn't seem to be going too well on Saturday so after 3 horrendous runs filled with carnage and crashes I decided to call it a day, pack up and have a re-grouping session with a couple of mates... dorito and foster!

Waking up Sunday morning, the Sun was still shining and I was feeling pumped for a day of racing. As the morning unfolded, the impossible happened, and not only did most people (myself included) get 3-4 runs in, it was 3-4 runs at Llangollen!

After quali was done I'd come down in 5th place but I knew that I still had a bit more in the tank... i was still yet to win a BDS this year so was hungry for some gold! My race run probably turned out to be the ride of the year so far for me, it was a little loose but generally felt smooth and fast, the track was getting rougher and more blown out after every run so it was difficult to anticipate what would be laying around every corner.

Top step!

I sprinted through the line and went into the hot seat with just 4 riders to go, probably the most intense 2 minutes of waiting ever! But as it happens I stayed in the hot seat and took my 1st BDS win of the season!

You can see me racing at Llangollen from about 16:03.00 in the stream above from Extreme.com.

BDS Round 3 Innerliethen

Innerliethen was the chosen venue for BDS number 3 of 2013 so back up to Scotland we headed to get our race on! The weather was incredible all weekend, the sun was out, it was hot, the track was dusty and the pits and track-side were busy with hundreds of spectators all trying to catch a glimpse of their favorite riders.

Haunted house...?

 Just to change the subject briefly, here's a picture of the house we stayed in, not to be a complete girl but every time I look at this picture  I'm expecting to see a face at the window! It was probably just me but staying up on 3rd floor of this place in the attic gave me the chills a bit!

Coming into the weekend I was feeling really good for the weekend of racing ahead and couldn't wait to get on the track, it was tight, twisty, fast and pretty steep so you couldn't take your eye off the ball for even a second or you'd find yourself catapulting at mach 10 into a tree or similar obstacle.

Coming towards the end of seeding

Unfortunately in my race run I suffered a rear flat in the first minute of the 3 minute track so that destroyed any chances I had of making a podium! Still, it was an amazing track and a great weekend, I still managed to go away with a top 10 (10th) and had a good watch of the elites as they hurtled down over the final ski jump and down into the finish area, those boys were on it!

BDS Round 2 Fort William

Fort Bill... rocky, gnarly and long. This one sorts the men from the boys, get it wrong here and you're gonna know about it! It's always cool racing here though as pretty much everyone makes a holiday of it, so we all jump in our vans, drive up on Thursday night and prepare for a long weekend of shredding the longest course on not just the BDS calendar but the WC calendar too.

Fort William's dramatic skyline

The week we arrived the Fort was also host to the Scottish Six Day Trial so the town was heaving and every morning hoards of riders were tearing around from the pits on the Lock-front to the venue for the trial, which I think Peaty rode in, as well as racing the BDS on Sunday, what a legend!

Such an amazing venue...

After qualification had finished I had ended up 3rd overall so I was happy with that result but pumped to see if I could go even better with my final run and put together a killer run. The track was getting loose and pretty ruined, not to mention the continued rain throughout race day so it was going to be interesting!

Hooning down the home stretch towards the motorway jumps

My finals run was so much fun, I'd been feeling pretty beaten up after 3 days of training on one of the worlds gnarliest race courses so a  little bit of me of happy to get it over and done with! Coming into the small woods section before the 'Event Scotland' wallride I almost had a race run ending moment dabbing and getting super squirly on a steep chute but luckily this didn't come to anything. 

As I crossed the line I went into 2nd place and this was my overall result at the Fort Bill BDS, and my best BDS result to date so as you can imagine I was over the moon to do so well at that venue.

Podium...

Bring on Innerliethen!