UK National Downhill Series: Fort William Race Preview

Fort William is always a highlight of the UK racing season, and this coming weekend of the 13th and 14th of May, Round 2 of the HSBC UK National Downhill Series will be taking place there on Nevis Range. We’ll be getting a full race report for next week, and of course we’ll be heading up in force for the World Cup Race in June, but if you can’t get enough of that Fort Bill atmosphere this weekend is a great excuse to head up and watch some racing.

It’s free to spectate, unless you want a ride up the gondola, and if you want to keep up from home you’ll be able to find live timing at Action Sports Timing. Current world champs Rachel Atherton (on an unbroken 24 win streak!) and Danny Hart will both be competing. They both won round 1, which took place early April in Nant Gwrtheyrn, with Atherton maintaining a very comfortable ten second margin, but Hart coming in with Gee Atherton snapping at his heels by less than a second.

Here’s the race schedule for the weekend:
Saturday.
09:30 Open Practice.
18:00 Course Closed.

Sunday.
08:30 Open Practice for all riders.
11:15 Timed Seeding Run followed by one timed race run.
17:30 Podium for top five.

(All photos by Yasmeen Green)

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.