Gravity Enduro Rd 3 Innerleithan

The series is starting to settle in to a bit of a routine, there are a number of things you can guarantee that are going to happen at the event. 1. It will rain, and more like monsoon rain than a light shower. 2. I will not be able to decide on what tyres to use and spend the whole weekend discussing choosing the wrong tyre. 3 There will be midges and fly’s, midges that creep up and suddenly you’re covered in crawling bugs and fly’s that tuck in behind you to shield from the wind when you go fast just so they can jump out and annoy you as soon as you slow down. 3. At some point over the weekend you will be standing at the top of a hill freezing cold in the heavy rain wishing you had more clothes on. 5. You’ll spend the whole week after the event cleaning kit of mud and rebuilding the bike, after digging the mud from those hard to reach spots.

Back to the event at the weekend – I managed to sort out a day off before so for the 1^st time felt slightly more prepared. The inners event was going to be the pinnacle of the series, full of steep technical wooded sections, fast open loose and scary corners and stacks of jumps, not forgetting the all important sneaky uphills. Inners did not disappoint, section 1 was steep and gnarly, full of tree roots and super tight steep corners. Section 2 was freshly cut, giving a momentum zapping section with deep mud and no defined line, not so steep but very tiring none the less. Section 3 was super fast and open with flat corners and perfectly placed rocks for pinch punctures. Section 4 was a killer - sneaky uphill sections, fast open sections with severe rock obstacles and a freshly cut section which when added to the heavy rain became a super fast steep muddy line that had zero grip. Section 5 was epic, a fast section with big doubles, tree clipping ‘star wars’ style middle section and a finish run that had massive whoops which combined with race speed made for an unbelievable ride. Flying over the whoops, holding the down compression before lining up for the next and on every other whoop you had a rock drop to contend with on the descent., fantastic.

I managed to stay upright at this event and even placed 20^th in my category. I’m not going to make the next event but I’m starting to think about Afan in September and the possibilities of no flies and maybe even some dry weather.