Holy smoke – how good was the Fort William Mountain Bike World Cup?
Alongside being a great race, we thought it was a pretty interesting lesson in World Cup here and now.
Here’s a few things we learned from the weekend’s racing:
Vali Höll is going to be World Champion
As stating the obvious goes, this is World Champion of the Things That Are Obvious Competition.
Fort Bill was another reminder that young gun Vali Höll is the future of women’s racing. In her race she was fastest through the speed trap, fastest through every split and fastest in qualies and finals. She beat 2nd place by 28 seconds in qualies and by 29 seconds in finals. She would have been 4th in elite women’s and was just 1 second off Atherton
If she doesn’t win an elite World Championships in her first 3 years of trying, I’ll eat my knee pads.
It’s really, really hard being a privateer racer, but it’s not impossible.
There’s some really amazing riders at the World Cup and some of our favourites are the guys that aren’t on big dog Factory Teams. These guys have a really tough weekend.
The guys on the big factory teams have cooks, mechanics, phsyios, line-spotters, team managers, drivers and a whole team of people keeping them on track and going fast. They have a hard job, sure, but they can focus 100% on going fast.
The privateers are the polar opposite. If they’re lucky they’ve got a mechanic. They’re often pitting out in the midgie-filled woods, they’re changing their own tyres, cooking their own meals and washing their own bike. They’re doing all of that whilst trying to beat Aaron Gwin!
By our count just seven privateer racers qualified for Sunday’s race and Sam Dale was fastest in the final race with an awesome 26th place. Of the top 30 in finals there was only Sam Dale on a privateer deal.
29’ers got the top results but they’re still not necessarily faster
In the men’s final race, the top two riders and fourth place were on 29’ers. The fastest qualifier, Luca Shaw, was on a 29’er. But does that mean they were faster?
The fastest riders through the speed trap were Emyr Davies and Marcello Guitierrez Villegas, both on 27.5″ wheels. Tahnee won the women’s race on 27.5″.
In seeding it was Gwin who was was fastest through sector one and Danny Hart through sector two, both of whom had little wheels. Luca Shaw took sector three on his big hoops.
Finals were a more even race with consistent dry weather through the whole men’s finals. Luca Shaw went fastest through sector one on his wagon wheels, sector two went to Aumery Pierron on 29’ers and three went to Brook Macdonald on 27.5″.
Looking purely at the results, it’s an even tie of three split wins to the 27.5’ers and three split wins to the 29’ers.
So yes, 29’ers got the two top results but with changing conditions in qualies and plenty of crashes and upset results it’s still almost impossible to make a clear judgement in favour of one of the other.
If you were to take a punt the odds are probably in favour of the 29’ers… but there’s no hard evidence in favour of that based on Fort William.
Downhill is a young man’s game
There was a time when downhill was dominated by World Cup veterans. We used to see riders consistently killing it after years on the scene.
Fort William wasn’t like that. It was a changing of the guard and it was a race dominated by fresh faces and youngsters.
In fact, of the top 20 in the men’s field there were only three riders born in the 80’s. The old dogs were Sam Blenkinsop (1988), Gee Atherton (1985) and Aaron Gwin (1987) and everyone else was born 1990 or later.
Downhill is unpredictable and bloody exciting sport to watch
OK, we knew this one already but Fort Bill was a bloody good reminder.
It was so easy to assume that the race was going to be the Aaron Gwin show… but who would have predicted the final results come Sunday?
Luca Shaw’s qualification win was a total surprise. Well deserved but I don’t think many people put their money on that one in Ladbrokes Fort William on Friday night.
On Sunday, the race was a machine gun of downed champions. Minnaar was out from day zero, Gwin crashed in the woods, Danny had a surprisingly poor sector three (22nd place), Gee Atherton didn’t go fast enough and neither did Loic.
Over in the ladies race, Rach was in with a bloody good chance. She’s won every race she’s started at Fort Bill since 2012 and betting against her would be mental. But, bang went her chain and down she went in the woods. Myriam was another safe bet, but down she went and couldn’t get back into first place.
It just goes to show that downhill throws together a hundred different variables and there’s no safe bets or sure-fire wins. A done-deal race can quickly turn into a changing of the guards, just like it did at the Fort.
People are getting itchy about Fort Bill
GMBN’s question about “what would happen if Fort Bill stopped being a venue” didn’t come from nowhere.
The weekend was full of rumour mongering about 2018 being the last time we’d see it on the circuit. In fact, Fort William and Mont St Anne are the only venues that are run year in and year out and most other venues have to have a couple of years off between races.
Whilst the rumours didn’t materialise into anything concrete they did teach us two things.
First up, people LOVE Fort Bill. You’ve just got to watch the GMBN vid to see the reactions from riders. They love it and they’re happy to race it every year. The crowds. The back drop. The atmosphere. The town. The piss-up. They all make Fort Bill an amazing place to visit.
But, we also noticed a bit of fatigue with the track. It’s old. It’s been raced for years. It’s techy bits are being replaced gradually with man made bits. The riders didn’t seem overly chuffed with the Woods and Aumery Pierron, Rach Atherton and Gee all told us they didn’t love them.
Fort Bill rules but the feeling from the riders seems to be that the track needs a freshen up.
Myriam Nicole is deadly
So Myriam Nicole crashes in sector two and STILL comes second in a World Cup race, just 8 seconds back?
Absolutely flippin deadly.
