The woods at Fort William – Hardest downhill section ever?

·Tuesday 6 June 2017

The woods at Fort William World Cup were an absolute nightmare – just watch the live stream and you’ll see rider after rider going over the bars, sliding out, paddling through the ruts or even (in Manon Carpenter’s case) running down on foot dragging their bike behind.

The guys at GMBN took a trip back up the hill on Monday morning for a look at the section and to ask why the woods were so hard and whether the section was the hardest of any race, ever.

Tahnee Seagrave was the first to speak out about the section on Instagram.

I don’t usually speak out about stuff like this because it is what it is and I don’t like moaners, but when something can clearly be helped I feel the need to voice an opinion. Yesterday was awful. To see even the top 20 male riders tripod down and struggle in a small 15 meter section on a 5 minute track was frustrating. The section was clearly a mess and dangerous- not because of its difficulty but because of its maintenance. All week riders were making suggestions to improve the quality of the wood section to make a better and more exciting race. We work so hard to be at the level we are, and for something as silly and easy as not listening to the riders was a little disappointing. I speak out for many athletes this week end- whether they were winners or back of the pack. This is racing- not an entertainment or joke for viewers. We all want the sport to move forward and progress, so why not work together? Never the less I was blown away by some of the performances out there and history was made. Mega happy for those who owned it. Hopefully we can all learn from this race and improve on future. Photo: @svenmartinphoto
A post shared by Tahnée Seagrave (@tahneeseagrave) on Jun 4, 2017 at 10:55pm PDT

We asked Aaron Gwin what he thought of the woods straight after he crossed the line … and his answer was pretty interesting.

And then we asked race winner Greg Minnaar what he thought …

While the riders may or may not have felt the woods were right for the race, there seems to be little chat from anyone else. Pete caught up with Mike Jardine from Rare Management to find out what his thoughts were. Mike is the man on the ground coordinating everything to do with the track, so there’s few better people to ask.

This is what he had to say:

“For everyone involved it’s a real disappointment that the wood section caused so many issues. The results shouldn’t be decided by survivability of such a small section of track, especially after so much work and effort went into improving the whole of the course. For a few years there has been a call for more natural sections (there is a UCI Directive that covers this). Natural is always going to be a challenge in Scotland.

The woods worked well last year – and would have been good again, if conditions hadn’t deteriorated overnight on Saturday. At the Team Managers meeting on Friday there were no comments on the track.

We’ll review everything and work out a solution that delivers a better, more consistent challenge in the future. We want a track that the riders like and respect.

Sunday did however cement Greg’s status as a truly amazing rider.”