Harthill NPS and National Champs

The big news from last weekend was that Luke 'Limbo' Limbrick took home the Elite National Champs Jersey. This was a trully massive event, usually riding for in the Senior category he managed to step it big time and raced like a hero to beat the pro's at their game. In the final he had to fight hard with Pat Campbell Jenner as the lead swapped a number of times but Limbo wasnt having any of it at and held the lead at the finish taking the win. The crowd were on their feet screaming as the underdog thrashed it to the finish. Serious celebrations followed and a highly ecstatic looking Limbo was on the podium sending the Champagne corks flying.



Once again we had another very wet and windy weekend of 4X. This time up near Chester at Harthill. The track was an interesting one. It has the potential to be a really nice track but in my view it just falls short on the final touches. It is too narrow and encourages a single file procession and some of the lips and landings really aren't great at race pace. The short start straight lead into a 90 degree right hander which saw a serious number of collisions. One line leaving this corner and no room previously to separate the riders created a lot of four rider pileups and some heavy crashes. The track is very sandy and so the corners are super loose both in the dry and the wet which was a lot of fun to ride and livened up the racing with plenty of crashes. There was also a gusty cross wind to contend with down the pro line. A lot of riders were having their wheels blown out from under them over the second pro jump. It was clearly the quicker route but a heavy gamble due to the changeable weather conditions. The track and conditions came together for some real crash heavy racing. By far the most crashes of the season took place on this track which created some lively racing but not really for the right reasons.


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The national round went ok, in the motos I had a win two 2nds and 4th after Mop rudely took me down on the first corner. I was through to the quarters but this was it as I ate sand once again on the first corner taking me out of the comp. The national champs was a little more successful. I had a good qualifying run and made it through the first knockout round and then took 3rd place in my second knockout round leaving me in 20th place overall.


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The champs race was massively competitive and action packed. The Semis saw Will Evans take out both Nate Parsons and Jake Ward in the first turn. The finals followed and Scot Roberts and Scott Beaumont came together in the first turn leaving Luke Limbrick and Pat Campbell to fight it out for the top places. Somewhere through the proceedings Isaac was taken down on the first straight catapulted through the air using his head to smash through a marker post and bring him to a stop. Jono Jones held it all the way to the last rollers before choosing to throw himself over the bars and across the line. Dowie and a few of the other big guns were sent to the floor on the pro line along with many others during racing. There really was too much of this camera pleasing action to comment on, unfortunately most of the camera men were hiding this round. Duncan Philpott was out representing the togs and has put together a few awesome videos of both the racing and the shockingly sunny pumptrack challenge which went down on the Saturday night.

Another good weekends racing, with any luck the next round down in the south west will be a warm sunny event where we can stick on some fast tyres and see some rapid, dry racing, my fingers are crossed!

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Redhill NPS 4X and National Champs

Picture courtesy of Dave Thomason.

Redhill hosted another round of the national series and the 4X National Championships this weekend. As racing goes this was probably one of the best events I have been part of. The track was brilliant, perfectly manicured and with tons of line options that allowed some tight and exciting racing. The riders I think have really stepped it up a level. In my opinion the 4X scene is really thriving at the moment. turn out for events is really high and in Senior there are now a large number of riders that when on form can be contending for the top spots and who are putting in some highly fought battles out on the track.

Saturday was NPS day, the track was the standard Redhill track finishing with the flat out grassy left hander. Off the start there is a small start straight that funnels into a tight left hander. The straight gives no chance to spread out and so this corner determines what position you enter the next straight. The next section of track is fast, really wide and has 3 main lines. Loads of moves were made here, when ridden well the two outer lines allowed a stack of momentum to be built up and riders were using this to nip up on the race leaders. Morgan, the local boy, took this to extremes coming up behind Keeny shouting "surprise" as he did so, Keeny fell over due to the shock of this experience. the left hander following this had a high and a low line. Moves were made going both ways the top line being less risky but the main rat run while the bottom line when nailed could be really quick. Loose dusty corners lead into a sprint towards the massive table and the final grass corner. Will Evans was making some great passes down here with a move that looked a lot like slip streaming in motor racing. He would charge out of the corner tightly on the guys tail pull to the side on the table and sneak past over the table and round the outside of the grass, a very stylish move that he pulled off a few times on some very quick riders.

Motos were really fun I managed three seconds and a third. My quarter went well and I made the semis. It then all went wrong I literally forgot how to ride and hung up everything in my semi ending up positioned 8th overall in Senior.

The big race was the champs on the Sunday. This race uses the UCI format that is used in worldcup events. Senior and Elite riders are all mashed in together and have one individual timed qualifying run that leads in to straight knock out rounds. The qualification determines who you are lined up against in the knockout. The track was also altered to include a tricky grass chicane and an extra 180 degree hairpin into the finish.

The qualification is a totally different game and was really good fun. Line choices had to be made based on speed as to those that were easy to defend mixing up the tactics a bit. My qualification run was good despite getting lost in the chicane and making a mash up of my gear changes that I had been working hard on in practice. 46.3 seconds left me qualifying in 19th place. I was in the last 4 to go down and we could see a massive rain cloud blowing in, spots of rain could be felt as I was on the gate so the incentive was to get down before the grass corner received a soaking. Mop Head put in an absolutely storming run qualifying 11th, not bad for his first champs.

Between qualis and the heats the other categories raced motos as usual, it was great to be able to actually sit down and watch the action for a change. Mop was leading the crowds with some enthusiastic cheering creating a great atmosphere. Mid motos the showers came in a couple of torrential downpours completely changed the dry dusty track and made the grass insanely slippery as riders were going down all over the place. Some tough deliberations occurred over tyre choice. In the end I went for the Bonty "Jones wet X" which are skinny xc spikes and were getting some good reviews from other riders. Once changed the sun came back out and everything was rapidly drying up, it felt like an F1 race with riders struggling to decide on tyres and tactics.

First knockout round I was up against AJ and Will Evans, this didn't help my chances. I was kind of hoping Will would get a bit excited and fall over in the grass which I saw him do a couple of times earlier in practice. I had a good gate up with them into the first corner but was on the outside and got pushed out and was then behind for the rest of the run. No one fell over so that was my chances of getting through gone.


The weather caused a few major upsets allowing some of the senior riders to break through into the quarters and semis, they were representing the underdogs in this comp and put up a really good fight. Both Gareth and Scruby went through making it to the B finals, Mop Head just missed out on his chance slipping a pedal right at the finish.

As the A final lined up on the gate a massively aggressive shower came through thoroughly lubricating the track. This did not slow down the pace, the guys were absolutely hauling, Beaumont was in the lead, Will was flying up behind everyone and looking like he was ready to fly past on the left hander but wiped out leaving Duncan Ferris and Lee White left to battle it out. Beaumont took the win followed by Ferris and then White.

It was a great weekend and great to see the scene in such great form, hopefully 4X is on the way up and next year will be bigger and better. The quality of the track this weekend was absolutely first class so props have to go to Neil and the FoD boys for putting so much work into this place.

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Redhill Extreme 4X National Champs

Sorry bit of a late report! but here goes....

Having only ridden the new bike twice the idea of my first race being the National Champs was a bit daunting. Turning up at Redhill in the Forest of Dean was definately reassuring the atmosphere was very relaxed considering it was the champs. The track looks over the severn estuary a hay bailer was collecting Hay, a load of old V-Dubs were driving about and plenty of bottles of cider could be seen. The scene was a rural timewarp intruded on by the 4X race scene.

The track itself was fun and reminded me a lot of the Hornton Hill setup. The guys running the centre really are sound and have big plans for the place. Everything originally was built to cater for mountainboards but now they are planning to move in the bike direction and along with the track have started work on some trails and rumours of even a slopestyle setup. The mountainboard jumps are big and slack and well worth a visit if your new to jumping and want to try some bigger jumps without having to worry about trails and steep landings.

Racing saw all the action happen at the start. the first double was tight as everyone pushed for a good line into the first corner making it very easy to get squeezed out. This consisted of a loose drifty set of steps into a rhythem section or a sketchy big triple that only Will Evans and Yeomans were jumping come the race. A lot of good riders come down hard attempting it though! By this point everyone was fairly strung out and not much overtaking went on. The second straight lead onto a big berm with a sneaky inside line that was easy to over shoot. More doubles and into a tight right hander with a hip on the inside, down over a pair of tables the second definately being on the large side which charged you into a flat grass corner to the finnish. Overall the track is really good fun and its good to see some proper Pro lines but it definately needs some work to try tighten up the racing and allow more overtaking.

The Champs race was one of the scariest things ive done, the Elites and Experts all race in the Senior category so I was directly racing against the fastest riders in the country. The format is based on the world cup format where you get a timed seeding run and then straight knock out. The timed run was incredibly nerve wracking. Im used to timed runs but this felf a lot more pressurised not being up in the woods on your own. Wasnt my best run to say the least! I got knocked out in the first round and came 3rd in the moto. It was a good race up against fellow Swansea rider Will Evans which was cool though he left me chasing his tracks! I ended up coming in 3rd in the moto which I was stoked with. This put me 22nd overall.

Racing on Sunday was back to the usual format of 4 motos plus semis and finals, so plenty of racing went down. Motos was a bit of a mixed performance on my front. First moto was awesome got a good start charging in second and managed to cut in on the inside on the second corner to take the win. 2nd moto I lined up on the start gate and looked down to see my cranking hanging off, with no 8mm allen keys about I had to ride one legged (more challenging than it looks!) and came in in 4th, 3rd moto came 3rd. Last moto I won only to find they had called the wrong person and so it had to be re-run only to finnish in 3rd, I guess thats racing for you. Again quarters didnt go my way I got squeezed on the first jump which left me at the back of the pack and took 3rd in the moto getting knocked out in the process.

All in all it was a quality weekends racing. Id highly recomend checking out Redhill, Niel and the guys have done an excellent job creating an official centre which has both planning permission and insurance. The potential for the place is huge it just needs us to all turn out to get money to develop.

Check them out at www.redhillextreme.co.uk

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Rheola National Champs

What can I say but bit of an epic weekend. Driving back up to wales was an event in itself, torrential rain most of the way set the scene for the rest of the weekend. So far this season all the races have been dry hot dusty tracks, personally I prefer the challenge of a wet greasy track its what UK downhill is about, Rheola is always a washout! The forecast had issued a severe weather warning for Wales with persistent and thundery rain. I was feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement. Swansea got a bit frantic, I was trying to get a hardtail sorted out for the race, unfortunately mine hadn't arrived due to the postal strike, after a bit of blagging, trying to mix and match bits from a few different bikes and several trips to the bike shop it turned out even my bodging skills weren't up to the task, eventually decided to swap to the open category and ride the full suss.

Seeding runs took place on the Saturday. Rheola is definitely a gnarly track and more than worthy of holding the National Champs, Julian and Jason have done a great job of getting it ready for the weekend. The top section is flat out loose drifty rock then lower down there are tight channels between trees, huge numbers of roots, the infamous star wars section and a fair bit of welsh slimy mud. Definitely a scary track to ride. My Seeding run was super fun, I was riding really ragged and blowing most corners but it did put a huge grin on my face. I ended up going over the bars at star wars then again off the bridge jump landing too far to the left in some real soft mud and almost taking out a few spectators. Dumping the bike and grabbing the camera I legged it back to the track to catch the fast guys go down. Got there to hear Jason on the mic saying that racing was stopped due to an injured rider, who was most likely Jack Malone or Alex Roberts, the 2 guys I had come with from Swansea. It turned out the had both had mechanicals but didn't find out until after running up the track to check if they were ok. Watching the star wars section was mental, the speed that the pros hit this section was scary, very few riders looked in control. There was also a good crowd providing a bit of friendly abuse and amping up the atmosphere. Last rider down was Steve Peat looking super quick coming in but he came unstuck on the first lot of roots dabbing and getting pitched over the bars straight towards my camera. First thing he said was "f*@k Ive done my ankle" it was clear to see it wasn't pointing in the right direction. From what Ive heard it was a rare dislocation and nothing was actually broken. I hope he has a quick recovery and wish him all luck in getting back on it by the world champs.

Sunday was very wet, after me and Alex eventually got bullied out of the car by Julian and Jack I had 3 real fun practice runs. The track was running a lot nicer but it was too wet to be able to see much of it! After Saturday and with the thought of a holiday in france in less than a week, the aim was to get down in one piece. I managed to stay upright the whole race run but probably took it too easy, I only gained 10 seconds on qualifying which was pretty disappointing especially when this meant I was at the bottom of the open cat. Congrats to Julian taking the win in the masters, I watched him leave the start a few times and he was absolutely charging plus he managed to have a mental grin on his face all weekend, inspiring. Marc Beaumont ended up taking the win in senior and Tracy Moseley claimed it for the women.


Cheers to Jason putting on a great event, everything was really slick and the best uplifts Ive experienced at a race yet.

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