Ben qualified 8th, then crashed in his race run. Watch out 2010!

http://www.vimeo.com/6922591

http://www.vimeo.com/6196337

John Lawlors edit after Just Reid Race Team return from rounds 6 and 7 of the UCI World Cup series

Bromont is a small area about an hour outside Montreal, so it was a relatively short drive from MT ST Anne. We hit the road with fellow Gamut rider and Whistler local, Katie Holden (www.katieholden.com) and headed for Quebec city to grab a bite to eat. We ended up rolling into Bromont at around 6pm and started to get the bikes ready for the week ahead.

We did some riding on the water park side of Bromont on tuesday to get used to the dirt and then set up and walked the technical track on wednesday. The track was similar to last year with a few improvements in the slow sections by adding some hard pack to increase the rolling speed.

Practise started on thursday and the weather was a mixed bag throughout the week. Practise went well with Ben having a bit of a moment late on in the afternoon. He was testing out s new line in a steep rocky stairway section and slipped just before taking off on a rock. His front wheel jammed into a rock and he got ejected in spectacular fashion in to a front flip whilst the bike catapulted over his head and down the track. The front wheel was written off after that but luckily Ben got off pretty much scott free!

Qualifying came on friday and after the bike was repaired he set off and had a pretty poor run. He got pushed out wide on a tricky corner at the start and lost all of his speed just before an important section. He continued to the bottom and qualified in 57th spot, and miles away from where he knew he could have placed.

After walking the track one final time, it was time to race. The weather had been off and on all week but for saturdays race it look as though it was going to stay dry after all. Ben set off on his run and had a good top section. After being up at the first split, he struggled to keep speed in the lower flatter sections where the larger riders would do well, but he trucked on anyway and finished up 35th at the end of the day.

After the DH had all finished, most people headed back up the hill to watch some 4X action a few hours later. Baltic and myself stumbled across a couple of struggling photographers in hte form of Victor Lucas and Fraser Britton. Before we could say snap, we were both loaded up with their spare cameras and sub contracted into shooting some 4X for them from various spots. There was definately a bit of friendly rivalry between the big man and myself as Baltic thought he was some sort of photography wizard! perhaps we will see in next months dirt mag who took the better shots!

(Just Reid Photography services will be available at a race near you soon!)

More dirttv Mountain Biking >>

WC-RD 6 Mont Sainte Anne, Canada

After a long flight from Dublin, we pitched up in Montreal and immediately got lost trying to find our way to Quebec.

5 hours and a full tank later, we arrived at the accommodation 1st, ahead of some other Gamut riders who were going to be staying with us for the 2 weeks racing.

Practise started on wednesday and the track had a few changes from last year in the form of a flat pedally section near the bottom of the track. Baltic set to work getting to know the track and before long it was time for qualifying. This years schedule has allocated less practise time which means qualifying is usually a bit unpredictable.

Ben came across the line in 18th position after a steady run with few mistakes. He was confident he could scrub another 4-5 seconds off his time for finals, so after a few doughnuts in the rental/rally car, we headed back home to get everything ready for tommorrows final.

Saturday morning came around and we got set up in the new Gamut pit tent. After a couple of warm up practise runs to check the condition of the track after some rain fall, Ben headed up to the start line with a clean bike and some fresh tear offs.

His run was good, and fast to begin with, he entered the rock garden and must have clipped a rock, bending the cage on his rear derailleur. He popped out and continued on without noticing until the pedally section came up. His cranks were jammed up for a moment, then he was able to put in a few pedal strokes here and there. He pushed on to the bottom keeping speed wherever he could and crossed the line with a 4:55, placing him in 27th place at the end of the day.

He knew he was riding well and with a clean run could have been up with the big dogs so is looking forward to Bromont and hopefully a clean fast run to see what he can really do results wise.

We’re off to the go kart track now to lay the law down and make Juan from Gamut eat his words about the fastest lap times.

In 2008, fort William was a special race for us as it was as close as we get to home throughout the season. This year was no different.

The vibe was great from the very start of practise and the crowd were loud all weekend!
Madison had hooked us up again with more bright green tee shirts which flew off the shelf like hot cakes, along with posters that saw the two lads signatures unleashed throughout the event.
Practise went well for the team as they stuck to their lines from the start and egan to up the pace as time went on.
Qualifying came about very quickly with Adam unfortunately suffering a small mechanical near the top of his run which took away his ability to pedal the rest of the track. He had to push even harder on the steep bits to try and make up time but unortunately it wasn’t going to be possible on such a pedaly track. He came across the line just outside the cut off point for top 80 and was understandably gutted that he wouldn’t get to race.
Ben managed a clean run with no mechanicals ad qualified in 30th spot with a good idea of what he needed to do on race day.

Whilst Adam headed up the track to support his team mate and fellow riders, ben headed up to the start hut.
There were a few spots where he knew he could let the bag hang out and that’s what he needed to do to make up why he would lose on the fast pedaly sections.
He put a super smooth run together but infortunyely didn’t hang it out quite enough and ended up finishing ip with a big 38 beside his name.
Were headed for Slovenia now and will ave to try and push things that little bit further to get ready for the next world cup in Maribor.

Andorra, well known for being a tax free haven, was our destination for Tuesday night. We were almost there by late afternoon, all we had to do was drive through a few more tunnels and the customs checkpoint.

As we approached customs, there was a clear road through with no police to wave you in, this clearly meant that we could keep on truckin’ with no obstruction to the convoy that we had picked up. (more…)

After only one day of practise for most of the competitors, friday saw the qualifying runs which will seed the riders for sundays final. After an early start and a couple of steady practise runs, Adam set off up the hill leaving himself plenty of time to allow for the unpredictable uplift service. (more…)

http://www.vimeo.com/2099835Ben sums up his season and tells us how it went.

 

Schladming – Coordinates 47°23’39”N 13°41’21”E. This was to be the destination for the final round of the UCI mountain bike world cup 2008. After a busy season that saw the thunder truck clock up a total of 13’447 miles throughout the various countries in Europe, we were more than happy to have arrived in the small Austrian town on Monday evening. (more…)