Not long to go now before the Singletrack Classic Weekender, and on Wednesday evenings leading up to the event, Ed Oxley from Great Rock will be leading free pre-rides around Lee Quarry.
You need to have pre-booked your Weekender ticket to come on the pre-rides. Please contact Ed direct at ed@great-rock.co.uk to book your place on a pre-ride evening. Rides are on the 23rd and 30th June and start from the parking area at Lee Quarry at 6.30pm, with riding until around 9pm.
The pre-rides are your chance to scope lines and get some inside information on the three race courses. As well as running skills courses at Lee Quarry, Ed was part of the trail building team that built the new trails. He will entertain you with stories of how he suffered through the snow with his shovel to bring you the trails that are so much fun to ride, as well as giving some inside information on the best lines to take.
The Downhill race will be on a specially marked course, which will be laid out by trail designer and top rider Rowan Sorrell. Rowan designed and built all the new trails in Lee and Cragg Quarries with his company Back on Track. The course will be challenging, but not so hard that it will be unrideable by anyone except World Cup racers. Rowan will be using a mix of built trail and marked out open ground to create a unique and classic old school downhill track. This will be just like the ‘back in the day’ courses that the Weekender takes it’s inspiration from.
Don’t be put off by the idea of the Trials competition. It’s all about being able to ride technical sections of the skills area. You won’t have to hop on the back wheel or do Danny Macaskill style stunts!
The XC race will use a specially chosen loop of red grade trails from the quarry which will test your fitness as well as bike handling skills. Or you can just spin round and enjoy the ride. The Weekender is all about having fun on bikes, whether that means racing like a greyhound or mincing round like Cinderella, so get your entry in now and get set for a weekend of bike riding fun.
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Deejay on the Slab !
Have confirmation emails gone out yet as we aint got ours !
Did I read that Ed’s doing guided rides every night of the week leading up to the event?
There will be 2 pre-rides of the course. Wednesday 23rd and Wednesday 30th June. I’ll be showing the DH course and the XC course. The ‘trials’ course will be parts of the skills area and will marked out on the weekend itself. getting your lines sorted will help you to win!
Rowan has done a top job sorting out a DH trail for us to use at the weekender. He’s picked out some lines which I hadn’t even considered. It’s going to be quite a wide course with lots of line choices on it Rowan flew down it in about 2.20min (I suspect he will be even quicker once it is all marked up and he has his racing head on) I had a roll down it and was closer to 8 min! (hangs head in shame) I did muck up a couple of sections and pretty much come to a standstill. What I have now is lots of opportunity to improve on my time! I reckon I could take 4min off that time and I would be happy! Rowan surely can’t take more than 10seconds off his time?
It will need looking at carefully, breaking up in to sections and lines choosing. I found myself concentrating on getting through a section without considering what was coming up next. Resulting in a stall or leaving the course. More thought required!not just to get through whats imediatly in front of you but what its leading in to as well. It will be one to walk or roll through slowly first. We shall get it marked up during the day on Friday so its ready for people to practice.
Its going to be a great addition to the event, last years timed run was fun but this takes it up a step I expect to see a much wider range of times from riders. There is nothing massively difficult on it because it is such a wide course so even a wheels on the ground type rider like me can get down it fine just a lot slower than some one who just jumps sections of rocks rather than picking their way through them. I rode the top sections with Ranger Bill today and he had a smile on his face at the end!
I have also decided on the XC route now tried to get a bit of everything in to it and keep it flowing! There will be a chance for the more XC orientated riders to beast the DH guys on the climbs???
I would recommend getting along to one of Ed’s pre-rides if you can to have a look at line choices and get some advice from Ed (he was watching Rowans choices pretty closely)
I won’t be down till the preceeding Friday – will the Quarry be too busy with event prep for practice riders?
I’m sure it will be fine with a bit of common sense thrown in,