BDS Round 2: Results, And Gee Atherton In Hospital

The BDS Round 2 hit Fort William this past weekend, with dry trails and surprise absences from the results for both Rachel and Gee Atherton. Nevertheless, UK racers gave a very strong showing, with five of the top ten Elite men and nine of the ten Elite women.

Elite Men:
Danny Hart (UK)
Loïc Bruni (France)
Greg Williamson (UK)

Elite Women:
Manon Carpenter (UK)
Tahneé Seagrave (UK)
Lucy Drees (UK)

You can see full results over on Roots and Rain, and don’t miss George Thompson’s full race report too, with sneak peeks of some 29ers and Jack Reading’s 46lb downhill bike clad in pieces of lead…

In his first run, Gee Atherton had a massive crash near the top of the course, landing him in hospital with a dislocated hip. It’s back in place and he’s recovering, though no word yet on how serious this might be down the line. Healing thoughts to Gee, we hope he makes a fast and full recovery.

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Took a bit of a hit from Fort William again yesterday during my race run. Dislocated hip meant a rough 6 hours, but already the morphine fog is lifting, il be back in no time. Thanks for so many kind messages, you're a good bunch.

A post shared by Gee Atherton (@gee_atherton) on May 15, 2017 at 6:26am PDT

Manon Carpenter topped the women’s podium, followed by Tahneé Seagrave and Lucy Drees. It must have been a particularly satisfying win for Carpenter after her massive crash at Fort William in 2015, and having to chase Rachel Atherton ever since.

After slipping down to 76th place with a lot of crashes in the sudden rain at Lourdes during the UCI World Cup race a few weeks ago, Danny Hart was back on form in the Elite men’s BDS, coming in more than a second ahead of Loic Bruni and putting four seconds into fellow British rider Greg Williamson.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUE0DC5gTaf/

Rachel Atherton practiced for four days, with BDS organiser Si Patton even uploading a helmet cam run from her, but didn’t race, leaving the field wide open for the people who’ve been snapping at her heels for so long.

(No video? Here’s a link)

David Hayward

David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly. Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.