In the glorious sunshine of early September nine of the world’s greatest bike-handlers travelled to the stunning Dyfi valley in Mid Wales to ride and race on one of the most difficult mountain bike tracks ever created, Red Bull Hardline.
The 570m descent incorporated more features per metre than ever before.
When it came to Finals the atmosphere changed up a gear.Gee had qualified first so he was last on the hill for the big race. Danny was in 2, Loic was in 3, Brendan was in 4 and Dan in 5.
Dan put in a tremendous run to take the hotseat and neither Loic or Brendan could match him but second placed qualifier Danny Hart went ahead of Dan by 2.4 seconds. Gee Atherton was last man left on the hill and expectations were sky high for an awesome Finals run. Gee came out fast, he showed incredible speed to go up on Danny Hart by two whole seconds at the first split but he punctured in the middle section and failed to finish the race.
Speaking after his victory, “Danny Hart, said: “I was really happy to be a part of this awesome event, only a few selected riders were invited and I was ecstatic to be one of those! The course was incredible, scary and difficult; usually tracks of this kind have average sections linking up the jumps, but Dan did an amazing job of making the sections link together seamlessly and scaring the living daylights out of us!”
Results
1st Danny Hart 3:39.081
2nd Dan Atherton 3:41.491 +2.410
3rd Loic Bruni 3:47.432 +8.351
4th Joe Smith 3:47.479 +8.398
5th Gareth Brewin 4:03.870 +24.78
Comments (5)
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Blimey!
I reckon I could pin that on my rigid SS.
Is this hillside the one north of the A470 just past Minllyn on the way to Dolgellau? Down from the top of Glasgwm?
There’s a ladder drop you can see from the road over the rocks which I’ve always looked at in amazement when I’ve driven past….
I’m sure that after investing Christ knows how much money in the task of reshaping an entire mountain, Red Bull were elated to see the event won by a rider sponsored by a rival manufacturer of gut-rot and trembling-inducing beverages.
…I didn’t see a rider sponsored by Stella….;-)