Words and Photos: Dave Thomason
Back in 1889, a fella called Jerome K Jerome penned a little book called Three Men in a Boat. It’s effectively an account of how he and his two mates sailed down the Thames, enjoying the sites (and pubs) en route and generally having a rather spiffing time.
Last week, a similar trip took place, albeit with more of a ‘three men in a van’ kind of outlook. Ash Brown, Matt Wilson and myself roadtripped from Leamington Spa to Fort William (and back) via Harthill, the Lake District, Innerleithen and Glentress. Unlike J.K.Jerome (I’m gonna call him Jezza), I’ve not been given a novel to tell you about all the awesome stuff that happened, so I’m going to have a go and thrash it out right here.
Day 1, Friday pm, drive to Harthill. Day 2, Saturday, race Harthill national. Day 3, Sunday, race Harthill Euro.
Well, that was the plan at least. We rocked up on Friday evening, set up camp and walked the track. Nothing had really changed since last year, except for the first straight…where there was a set of little drops, there was now a flat sprint right out of the gate into a 22 foot double. This wasn’t a standard double – kind of a cross between a double and a step down, with a vicious land to flat if you pulled up short. However, it was deemed too dangerous to race, so the gate was pulled forwards to prevent it from being jumped. Not great foresight, but ah well.
With Ft Bill being the following week, there were a number of pro 4X racers at the races – Both Slaviks, Beckeman, Prokop, Weiss etc – plus all the regular Brits. The racing was mint and the weather was incredible. Cracking weekend. Oh, and we got a bit bored on Saturday night so we goaded Matt into playing in the foam pit (can’t remember how Ash and I managed to avoid it) – the pit was outdoors and looked a bit ropey, but Matt manned up and hit it a couple of times. Then he tried a cheeky backflip, failed to rotate properly and smashed up his shoulder. On foam. What a guy! Fortunately it was only a minor hit, but it put him out of action on the Sunday, so he got some practice in as tour photographer. Then Ash went and pushed hard in Euros and crashed out – he’s only just come back from a pretty serious shoulder injury, but he too survive relatively unscathed.
Sunday evening we bombed it (hitting the vans top speed of approx. 56mph) up the M6 to the Lake District, and set up camp again. On Monday Matt and Ash were pretty sore so we stayed away from the bikes…we toured a few towns, chilled a bit, and then stumbled across a pitch & putt place. Enter the golfers! I stepped up to go first, noting that the hole was a mere 50- yards so I hit the ball at only ~50% power. Turns out this is still too hard – I ploughed the ball across two holes, nearly killing another player. Oops. After a later incident firing a ball over the guarding fence, we quickly decided that we were too manly for pitch & putt, so we went and found a proper course.
Now it must have been a slow day at the golf course, as they let us in – even though there was a clear ‘no jeans’ sign, and we broke at least 5 of their other rules on conduct, appearance and talent. Ah well. Step up to the first tee. Practice swing. Real swing. BOOM. SLICE. Ohhh. Ball in the rough. Golf’s harder than it looks! Four hours later and we’d lost 5 balls and got round 10 holes, but it was good craic anyway. Luckiest shot goes to Matt, worst drive goes to Ash and I took the longest putt award. Winner.
Tuesday was riding and messing about on some natural trails around Grasmere, then hitting some DH and Whinlatter trail centre. Well worth a visit for the alpine style switchbacks. Matt entertainingly crashed out twice, but he seemed to get away with it. If only he had his go pro on at the time. We then took some photos in the trail centre car park, and were subjected to the greatest ever photo bomb – see below!
Tuesday evening we then drove up to Inners (allegedly hitting 702mph on the way, quality satnav Ash), decided that it was too remote for camping (showers are appreciated when you spend a long time in a van) so we headed to Glentress and hit up a campsite. We then started a nitro circus watching trend that lasted the rest of the tour. What a show!
Wednesday involved some casual sessioning at Glentress followed by a drive to the Fort. Casually bumped into Gwinny and Brosnan in Morrisons on the way – cue Ash texting us as he’s walking round the shop ‘LOOK WHO I’VE FOUND OH WOW MY HEROOOOOOO’ or something like that. I think.
Thursday we signed in and practiced. Friday we practiced and qualified. Saturday we raced and Sunday we watched the downhill boys race. I’m not going to lie, being a racer at Fort William is incredible – full access (plus shortcuts), queue jump, unlimited gondola, free buff, onsite parking etc. Everyone up there is so stoked on riding, seeing all the kids getting super excited was phenomenal. Matt even had a fan visit him in a car park down in the town – fame at last.
You probably know the results by now, but if you’ve never made it to the Fort, I urge you to try it. The atmosphere at both the 4X and the DH is pretty much indescribable, especially when the Brits win (Yes Katy Curd!). I feel like I should also mention that Ash hit a roller on the second straight and landed it to flat not once or twice, but five times over the course of the weekend. The 5th time he dislocated his shoulder. Well done! No finals for him unfortunately…and hen I picked a fine time to crash, right under the finish arch in final practice, and destroyed my shifter, meaning I had to singlespeed it in finals. Matt did the best out of all of us, but he still couldn’t progress past the first round. Ah well, we’ll put it down to experience and try and step it up next year.
So, we then had a cheeky 9 hour drive home, arriving at 2am and being in work for 7 – killer. Still, what a week – not a drop of rain, which was pretty outstanding for GB in June. Great times, great people, maybe if I get a chance I’ll pen down all the antics that I couldn’t write here and make my own copy of Jezza’s book. Who knows!
Cheerio.
