Fort William Downhill World Cup | 10 shots from Ian Lean

·Saturday 3 June 2017

We’re in Fort William for the 2017 UCI Mountain bike World Cup!

Today is the big one for riders to squeeze in the last bit of practice and then put in the all important qualification run. Race runs win medals, but if they can’t get through today they’ll be on the side lines.

Here’s 10(ish) photos from Ian Lean – our man on the mountain at today’s World Cup

Photos by Ian Lean, words by Jamie Edwards

Kaos Seagrave spent the Fort William British Downhill Series steezing it up for the cameras … and it’s good to see the World Cup is no different. Fast, stylish and one of the few guys to toboggan the Scotland Arch. Loving your work mate!

The weather has been pretty kind so far this weekend – we had a decent bit of rain on Friday night which helped slow the track down and up the grip. The forecast for today is pretty gnarly though – rain, high winds and the rumour of thunder.

The consensus in the pits seems to be that the rain won’t cause too much bother for riders … except here in the woods. When it rains they’re going to get pretty flippin gnarly!

The new section of track starts just below the Deer Fence and freshens up what riders are describing as an otherwise old, tired and beat up track. The new section is fast, rough and stars two pretty gnarly jumps into rocks. Above you can see Ian, Dave and Vero on the take off … hoping to land into the big rock garden in the foreground. Wild.

I don’t know who this rider is sorry, but he looks good so he’s in the gallery. Answers on a postcard!

Intense first dropped a 29″ downhill bike in 2009 – calling it the Intense 2951. For whatever reason, it never caught on and the bike faded into obscurity. Roll forward eight years and you can’t move for them.

Here’s the 2017 version of an Intense 29″ downhill bike – piloted by Jack Moir. You can read more about the bike here.

Brendan Fairclough is over the moon with Deathgrip – which is currently doing its best to beat the Lego movie for the top spot on iTunes. His bike isn’t 29″ but he did tell us to “watch this space”.

The World Cup is the place for cool, one-off, custom bits. Here’s Bren’s custom mudguards for his Scott downhill bike.

It takes about 10 seconds to get from the big blue arch to the finish line … and come Sunday there will be 20,000 screaming mountain bike fans cheering the riders to make it less. Some riders get remembered for going fast, some (like Scotty Mears here) for looking good.

Brendan has the number 13 plate on today … and came 14th at last year’s Fort William World Cup. Here’s hoping he can chip some places off that tomorrow.

Loic had a tough weekend three weeks back at the British Downhill Series in Fort William. He ended up in hospital getting stitched up and then had to rush back for race runs. Despite the drama, he landed 2nd. Loic will set off 33rd today in seeding – dropping in at 14:15.

Alongside hassling pro-riders and spotting 29’ers, we’re helping Veronique Sandler with her first race of 2017 this weekend. Vero rides and stars in videos for Wideopen … but is also a solid World Cup racer and qualied for every World Cup she entered in 2016.

Vero had a strong day yesterday on her Intense M16c (650b wheels of course!) punching out a tonne of runs and getting the lines down that she was hoping for. Here she is doing what she loves doing best. Good luck today Vero!