Ater blistering heat in Somerset a couple weeks ago, Aran returned to Havok on a contrastingly wet and grey weekend for the third race of his season.
For those that don’t know, Havok is located just North of Singletrack HQ in Todmorden and features some fast, handbuilt flowy downhill tracks that ribbon down the (still farmed) sheep fields of Cornholme. It’s a pretty unique place to ride, out in the open with some pretty spectacular views. I have been doing a lot of bike testing and evening laps here now the weather has been getting nice again so I’ve been really looking forward to racing this weekend on a track that I already know is a lot of fun to ride.
The track
One thing that immediately springs to mind racing here is just how different a race run down this place is to how I would normally ride here. The corners are supportive, the hill is open and it’s been designed to flow nicely. As a result the average speed of a race run is flippin’ high and is much quicker than I would usually ride here on the day-to-day. It almost becomes a completely different track when ridden at race pace.
Last time at Havok the race run involved a jigsawed mix of their black, red, and dual slalom runs with a fresh rut track to finish. This year the Havok crew have opted for a more conventional (with a brief fresh middle section) race track down the Red run.
The race track started with some short table tops which required racers to really get their scrub on at race pace. This top section wasn’t just about scrubbing and pumping though, there were two tricky high lines that required more of a precise and delicate approach. Both of these lines involved hopping up on the grass to set up wide into the next corner. They allowed riders to carry much more speed into flatter sections, and essentially skip a few corners. But they also meant turning on wet, chewed-up, grassy surfaces so you had to be careful to not overdo it here. In the end we decided (after some extremely accurate Cathro-style analysis) that the first of these high lines made very little time difference. The second high line however, was decidedly quicker and quickly became the main line.
The race track then entered the woods and took a variation away from the main red run. The track here joined the double black run for a couple of corners before rejoining the traditional red run. Although short, this section was really tricky to get right with some loose cut lines and some slippy grass to catch you out. From here on down, the corners seemed to just get more and more supportive, finishing with some tight but fast switchbacks into the final jumps. Riders shot out of these corners into a triple roller, which could be cleared with a good yank, a small but tricky wooden drop and one final scrub requiring step up into the finish.
This track really trod a fine line between scary and fun with such high average speeds but such supportive corners. The weather also played some interesting games over the weekend. Brief pockets of rain kept the track moist through practice on both Saturday and Sunday.
Results
Thankfully riders were set off for race runs in category order, this allowed for slightly more consistent weather conditions within each category. Without this I think race results may have just been decided by the conditions, as it got gradually less windy and wet through the day. By the end of the race for the younger racers, the wind had died down and the track was pretty much dry with rumours of dust in places – a stark difference from the harsh winds and light rain for the 19+ category.
This however, didn’t stop Tom Mynott setting the fastest time of the day as one of the first riders down the hill in the track’s wettest and windiest format. Ian Forsyth and last year’s winner Pete Watson joined Tom on the 19+ podium showing their 4X and BMX skills with some seriously quick times.
A quick word on bike setups. Ian and Tom were running completely different set ups on similar bikes, with Ian running his Santa Cruz 5010 rock hard matching his BMX / 4X style and Tom running a much softer Enduro style set up on his Santa Cruz Hightower. Yet in the end both riders were separated by the smallest of margins. To me this highlights the importance of getting the set up right for your style rather than a generic “race” set up, whatever that may be.
The Juniors saw a very tight margin between Leo Ransom and Myles Blakey who were separated by 0.01s at the line. Myles Blakey managed to squeeze just a tiny bit more out of the track to take the win in the U18 category with Fred Walmsley joining them on the podium.
In the U14 category, Leo Priestly took the win with Max Abbott in second and James McDermott in third.
As for my race run, a mix of playing it too safe and picking way too high of a gear to sprint out of the start put me in 4th, once again behind Pete in the 19+ category.
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