Aston Hill - September 5th
MTB Berko at the Eastern and Central Downhill Champs
After last year's lockdown of the mid-field rankings honour dictated I return and defend my resolutely average performance at Aston Hill and the Eastern and Central Champs.
This year would be different though. For starters I had a proper downhill bike. Sponsorship from Tring Brewery. And a team-mate in the form of nearly-new MTB Berko signing Chris H. Like Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, superficial camaraderie was but a paper thin veneer over intense rivalry. There might have been nearly 300 riders taking part. But the battle twixt Trent and Hendry was the one the crowds were really gathering to see.
And what crowds! Hordes of loyal MTB Berko supporters duly made the epic journey to just past Tring to come and see their heroes do battle. For honour. For glory. And, of course, for bragging rights at the Riser.
Learning from past mistakes I'd neglected to remind my fast mates about the race, Chris summoning an impressive squad of reinforcements from his uni days in case things turned really ugly.
Up at the start the tension was palpable. Chris looked blindingly fast off the startline but with Lloydy's words 'pressure is for wimps' ringing in my ears I set this aside and focused on the run ahead of me.
The 30 seconds twixt the previous rider and the three beeps signalling the start of your run drags on forever but finally it was time to heave the Demo off the line and into the fray. I made a reasonable start, boosting the road jump and into the swoopy bit nice and quick. And then it started going wrong. I missed my line. The next jump was a bit flat. The third was just wrong. And then I found myself on the deck, cursing. Someone shouted "Come on Dan!" and I was back up and running.
A bit further down I heard a supportive shout from Rich III to the effect of "go on, pedal yer useless bastard!" but my heart was no longer in it. My mood wasn't helped by seeing Chris's grin, his 1:14.71 sounding ruddy quick. All to play for on the second run.
Just before he came off and ploughed into Lloydy, Brennan and Steph ....
Amusing ourselves watching a couple of huge crashes on the road jump it was soon time to get our racing heads back on and return to the startline.
How to play it? All out for glory or a conservative run to bank a solid time? It was more of the latter in the end, a 1:13.53 as good as I could have hoped. But what about Chris? He was looking fast but the fact the rider after him was close behind could mean only one thing. Sure enough he'd had an off, the roles reversed this time round and the best of two rankings mean I'd narrowly pipped him, his pal Tim making a huge improvement in his second run and going from a 1:17.48 to a 1:13.73 to split us.
Meanwhile, as the eyes of the world's cycling media focused on MTB Berkhamsted's mid-field lockdown at Aston Hill, Brit downhiller Tracy Moseley was wrapping up a magnificent World Championship victory over in Canada. Sorry for stealing your thunder Tracy but there was only one downhill race that mattered this weekend.
Many thanks to all those who came along to cheer us on too - the support was greatly appreciated!
Dan
Many thanks to all those who came along to cheer us on too - the support was greatly appreciated!
Dan
Some more pics below, kindly donated by Tina Ingram RMR
