At the Sharp end follows your Elite Women’s Downhill National Champ KJ Sharp as she tackles the 2022 UCI Downhill World Cup.
For the second part of At the Sharp End, we head to Fort William, Scotland with your current British National Downhill Champion, KJ Sharp, to take a look into what racing World Cups looks like through the eyes of an up-and-coming rider.
June, 2018 stands as my first dose of downhill. Taking a week off work, I popped up to Fort William to spectate at the 2018 World Cup. When looking at the track, my naïve confidence believed I could waltz in and be so much faster than everyone. The truth, however, laid in my ridiculous lack of experience. Many of my line choices, on return, were without doubt the slowest and longest.
Four years on and I’m finally on the inside of the tape, parted from that naïve confidence, led by a grounded mind, and increasing ability to strive for the things that matter.
May, 2022, having never rode the track, I took a week off work to race the nationals 2-weeks prior to the Fort William World Cup. It took 2-days (~10-runs) for me to initially throw the towel in. My hands were sore, arms pumped, and I was stressing over things that were out of my control. My time to the deer gate was ~3:20minutes, 30-40 seconds down from the top women. Additionally, I was too scared to hit the motorway jumps, meaning a full run was taking 7:30minutes, 2minutes behind the top women.
After a day off, I came back with a plan. Focusing on relaxing my arms/grip and controlling my braking points, I managed to reduce my deer gate time to sub 3 minutes. The following day I returned focusing on hitting the wall ride and the first hip jump onto the motorway. Still hesitant with my last injury, I continued to roll the rest of the motorway.
The following day came the British National Race Day. With hitting all the motorway jumps bar the last two into the finish line, my race run took 6:08minutes. Happy with my progression from 7:30 to 6:08minutes, I walked away smiling, however, wary that I was still a full minute from the top lady’s times.
The 2022 Fort William World Cup Week
The World Cup week was upon us. A small part of my family decided to join me. My Mother, myself, and Baby-cakes (our puppy) turned up for track walk around 10am Thursday. Grateful for the lack of midges, we took our first look of the course. The upper half, prior to the dear-gate and lower part, from the road gap onwards remained the same as the nationals. The middle section, contained more rocks, followed by soft mud, into a steep rooty mud fest before flying off the road gap.
At first look, messy. It was pointless to decide on lines as differing ruts would form throughout practice. Unfortunately, I knew I’d only get 1-2 laps on these fresh ruts. With being in B-group practice and outside the top 15-women, we get 2-hours less practice. Additionally, B-group practice is first, meaning we miss riding the track once ruts form and lines/corners erode.
Standing at the top of the road gap, I looked over to my Mum, ‘thoughts?’. Baby-cakes in her arms, she looked at the distance between ourselves and the landing, ‘I’d prefer it if you’d chosen golf’.
The 555 RAAW gravity racing team and I spent the remainder of the day prepping bikes. For my bike, the headset bearings needed replacing, a new back wheel building up, a fork service and rear shock replacement from Sprung Suspension. The bearings and wheel cost me ~ £400 pounds – Eeeek, being a privateer hurts.
Friday’s practice was from 8:45am till 12:30pm. I’d planned 4-runs, the first two I wanted everything hit, the last two memorising and picking up speed on my chosen lines. Other than the road gap, I’d stuck to the plan. 3rd run I stood for 30-minutes watching rider after rider hit the road gap. As each person flew by, I felt my heart race quicker and quicker, getting louder by the second, to the point where it started to echo in my ears.
Over the continuous pulse I heard a voice ‘KJ, pick your bike up and follow me in’. I turned to see Stacey Fisher waiting patiently to tow me over the gap. Picking up my bike, I’m sure she could hear my heart beat too. ‘Don’t worry love, I’ll go at our speed, get your gears into the middle and give it two cranks on the take-off, ready, let’s go’.
Without a second thought I kept my eyes on the back of Stacey’s back wheel, smoothly wading through the newly formed ruts, up high around the last corner, onto the boardwalk, two cranks and we were flying. A non-sensical safety brake mid-air, I quickly let go landing perfectly on the sweet spot. A whole load of uncontrolled celebratory words followed by a huge hug and thanking to Stacey.
Safe to say my last run felt a breeze, hitting all my lines, drops and jumps with no sound of my heart echoing through my ears. Once finished, I washed my bike with my Juice Lubes Cleaner, headed back to our pits for lunch, then back up the hill for another track walk whilst A-group practiced.
The dramatic track walk version:
Wind blew, rain poured, the ground below extremely treacherous. Elite men flew by, each going as fast as the next. The sound of their wheels crunched over the ground as they steamed on. Still walking, I looked up from the floor, a French rider barging by. In less than a second, a sharp crunch came from beneath foot, my ankle gave way, pop, and I was sat in a squat position whispering heated painful curses.
The truest track walk version:
I survived 4-hours of riding the Fort William World Cup track, however, sprained my ankle 2-hours later, whilst walking.
Unfortunately, that was the end of my race weekend. I continuously thanked my family for making the effort to come watch me. Safe to say I got my fair share of stick throughout the remainder of the weekend.
The eight of us continued into the weekend as avid downhill fans. We started with qualifying on Saturday followed by Sunday race day. It’s amazing to see how strong the women’s racing is getting. Once the men started coming down the rain was pouring. As always, the racing was epic. Epic enough for Baby-cakes to be fast asleep in my coat throughout, regardless of the tremendous chanting and cheering surrounding the venue.
My weekend evaluation:
From the outside, I feel I look to be having a bad start to the DH season, however, looking back at last year’s national championships, I would not attempt any of the jumps/drops. Due to fear, I purposely cased or went round every single one of these tiny features. Almost a year later and I’m gapping roads and hitting 20+ foot jumps.
Whilst I feel like I’m making a true ‘shambles’ of everything, the truth is, I’m learning. In time, I will ride a World Cup track free of that pestering heart thud echoing in my ears and I’ll be able to go about my racing in an effective and qualitative manner.
