2019 National Downhill Series round 1 at Rheola – Timed Practice Results

This weekend is the big season opener of the HSBC UK National Downhill Series at Rheola.

Saturday was practice day at round 1 of the National Downhill Series at Rheola.

Action Sports Timing ran live timing today from 10:30am and brought home some pretty interesting results.

The fastest man in timed practice today was, you guessed it, Gee Atherton on his brand new Atherton Bikes prototype. Gee banged out  7 runs, with a fastest time of 2.55.664. Interestingly, Gee’s fastest run of the day was his last run.

Second fastest of the day was Danny Hart with a 2.56.320 and then Matt Walker with a 02:56,555.

For the women, it was Rachel Atherton that went fastest by 3 second over Meg Whyte. Abbie Sloan took the 3rd fastest time of the day. World Cup pros Katy Curd and Tahnee Seagrave chose to keep their powder dry and not put in fast times.

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What does timed practice tell us?

In reality, not a huge amount as you see a mix of approaches from riders. Danny Hart has told us in the past that he’s happy to go hell for leather in timed practice where as others are happy to chill and avoid showing their speed with ‘proper’ practice times.

Gee finished the day happy and said he was stoked with the times he’d put in… and we’re pretty sure he put in a fast run to finish the day.

We’d also bet that the bunch of guys putting in sub 3 minute times weren’t hanging about – Matt Walker, Mike Jones, Jack Reading and Brendan are all looking for a spot on that 5 man podium.

You can view the full results from today’s Timed Practice over on Action Sports Timing.

Tune in for tomorrow for race day at our first British National Downhill Series race of 2019.


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