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Pearce Cycles Winter DH Rd2 Ludlow

So I finally went to a race. In the end there were 5 of us that made the journey early in the morning down to Ludlow's Bringewood for the 2nd of three Pearce Cycles Races.
I am reluctant to describe the course in fear that I would be accused of exaggerating, but, despite years of reading about, watching and looking at pro Downhill courses my gut feeling on my first run was that it probable wasn't normal to encourage people to ride bikes on this kind of terrain, in fact even walking most of the course was almost imposable.
The course itself was split up into 3 handy bite-sized sections. The first was in relatively open woodland at the very top of the hill, quite steep in places with lots of off camber, tree stumps and roots that only got faster towards the end of the day with ruts being opened out in the softer areas. Also in this area were a few jumps and drops, a nice little hipped tabletop early on, but few people were actually jumping it. In one of the best innovations of track building I've ever seen a tree that had fallen up the slope was approached at 90° then you had a choice of rolling over the trunk into a berm or turning sharply and using the 4-5foot high root "plume" as a jump/drop into the next corner. A balls of steal line if I even saw one, I only saw Rich Barlow do this line, dropping his back wheel with skill then jumping off a small stump and landing on the berm, fast, smooth and very MX. There was a steep drop onto the top fire road before dropping into the scariest section in the world…EVER.

part of the top section viewed from the first fire road.
right: some top section action from me at the hip jump.


It started as it ment to go on, dropping off some rocks onto a piece of single track made of rocks piled up along a steep drop, about 6" wide and very frozen and polished throughout the day. This opened out a little before descended in roughly a strait line for a time with roots, rocks and drops constantly keeping you alert. Due to its icy nature and technicalness only 1% of people were actually getting through without falling off. People were queuing up on the fire road as piles of bodies were removed so we could ride safly. In my second practice run this section took me close to half an hour as I fell of every few meters on the ice and had to climb back up to the track from the brambles below and carry on to the next off camber ice patch and fall off again. This section ended with a jump that landed you onto some whoops and a broken tree you rode under, nice.
The last section was even more mind-boggling than the middle one, at least a good rider would blast through that section (if you didn't touch your brakes you were OK if a little scared). This section was totally dark, important trees were highlighted in white, and it was totally whoops. No kidding. The whoops were as deep as a wheel and not particularly spaced out, the closeness of the trees also ment that you no choice but to pick your way throughslowly like a trials fairy and hope for the best. The very last flurry was a drop off a stump down over the stream then up and over the finish, most people collapsing due to the burning lungs and arm pump.

The last drop proved quite photogenic.

The first runs started at 11 and only a 15-minute delay had accumulated by the end. By the second the top of the second section had been salted, whether this made any difference or not I don't know but I wiped out just after and had to do with out my back break of the rest of the section as my lever had bent round, this resulted in my using my front break way too much and that was very bad indeed.

Scot Beaumont came second in Pro Elites complaining he was "all over the place" leaving the win to an impressive Richard Barlow. Mark Beaumont, who now rides for Royal, took the Junior win in 2:54 the fastest time of the day went to Barlow with 2:52.
As for my mates, Tom Blakeman wiped out on his first run and stopped to offer encouragement (thanks) as did Danny who unfortunately blew a tyre. Both had only slightly better luck on their second runs still clocking up below par times, Danny losing his chain. Tom Holland had a bad first run also but stayed on the bike through his whole second run (respect) and got a respectable time. Mark Readyhough finished his first run in 12th then fell to 21st in his second run after losing his chain on the middle section andjamming his cranks. Over all I came 30th out of 32, not brilliant but I was happy to have survived to write this report, I was happy me and my bike were in one piece, almost, though I wish I could say that for my watch (ouch).


Tom, Danny, Me, Mark R..

By Mark Hemmings (Junior Men, 240) 5:46