A very soggy Ae Forest was the venue for the opening round of the 2016 British Downhill Series, with all the British Elites in attendance, this was set to be a clash of the titans.
Nukeproof took up a fair number of the podium places and here is how they got on.
Our own Morgan Tyrell, Kye Forte and Charlie Hatton brought home the goods, landing on the box in all their categories. Morgan took 3rd in Youth, Kye squeezed himself onto the last step of the Expert podium for 5th and Charlie took a hotly-contested Junior win. Charlie was kept honest by his CRC PayPal counterpart, Elliott Heap, coming in a close second.
Wideopenmag weren’t the only Nukeproof team in attendance, with CRC PayPal’s Joe Smith and Mike Jones joining the fray, finishing up 7th and 12th respectively in a stacked Elite field.
Nukeproof Development Team rider Chris Cumming slotted himself neatly into second in the Juvenile category behind a flying James Elliott. Jack Crowley landed himself in 11th in Junior despite a messy run. Factory rider Jacob Dickson took 15th in Elite with a stack in his race run after a lacklustre seeding run.
Here’s what FilmSmith’s main man Taylor Smith made of the BDS opener:
FilmSmith were on hand to capture all the rain-based action from Ae Forest, doing a good job of picking riders out of the crowd in their black waterproofs.
Once again the Scottish weather left a lot to be desired. It seems all I’m reporting on at the moment is rain and it doesn’t look to good for Lourdes in a week’s time. From the very start of track walk on Friday, you could see the riders nervously picking their lines through what can only be described as a bog of a race track.
Saturday came around and people slowly made their way to the top of a hill and practice got under way. With people cautiously started trickling down the hill. That was until one of the coaches wanted to have a small pit stop in a ditch. Practice resumed after the stranded riders had been rescued and by the end of the day, people were absolutely loving it. Probably not the weather, though.
Sunday was a different affair, the rain decided to stay away for the most part and the sun even showed its face for a short while. Although the conditions on the track left a lot to be desired, I think the riders won that fight. The ruts had got deeper, the lava-like mud flow was out in full force and more than a few people took a dip in the finish line jacuzzi. All in all some solid results from the lads with more than a few of them on the podium.