Dragon Downhill Round 1 Cwmcarn – 5th/6th April 2008

Having finished 12th at the BUSA’s 4 weeks ago, I went into the first dragon round at Cwmcarn feeling pretty confident of the track. It was slightly different this weekend, a few corners in and a few taped out, just to make things a bit interesting. I cruised down my first couple of practice runs, learning the new bits of the track and picking up a few fast looking lines. By the time seeding came round I was pretty excited about riding the track against the clock, I put in a conservative run, not wanting to push too hard and wipe out, but putting in enough effort to post a competitive time. I seeded 3rd with a 3:17 which I was pretty pleased with, but I knew I’d have to improve a lot if I wanted to keep a podium place on race day!

After walking the track on Saturday evening I found a couple more fast looking lines, which I tried out in Sunday morning practice. They seemed to work pretty well and felt quick so I was confident I could post a faster time than seeding. Waiting for my first race run I started feeling the usual pre race run nerves, but as soon as I left the starting gate they were forgotten. I hit all lines I wanted to and pedalled through the bottom section, leaving me in 3rd place with a 3:10. I knew I could shave a second or two off with a bit more pedalling, but worried it might not be enough to hold on to a podium spot.

After a long wait for the second race run I was back at the top and knew where I needed to put that bit extra in to make up some time. I pedalled hard out of the start gate and felt smooth through the top section, I stayed off the brakes as much as I could through the wooded section at arrived at the bottom section feeling ‘on it’! I knew that now I had to pedal hard so gave it my all, the big crowd at the bottom was awesome to see and gave me an extra boost as I pedalled hard to the line. It felt quick but I was slightly surprised to have taken 5 seconds off my first run time, finishing with a 3:05. I was well chuffed when I realised that it had bumped me up to 2nd place, my first podium finish for team ibike, and hopefully the first of many! Next up – round 1 of the bikepark series next weekend.

Joe

UK bikepark Round 1 on Sunday April 13th 2008

Oversteer was the dish of the day, as the April showers took there toll on the first race of the 2008 UK bikepark race series. With such a bleak forecast I decided against practice on Saturday, and didn’t enter the race until Friday, deciding against a day in front of the TV in favour of manning up and braving the elements. The track was monumentally slippery, but great fun!

I got off to an early start on Sunday to make the most of the morning practice, I had a rough idea of the track and spent my first run down sectioning it. The top section was flat and pedally, with the bottom section so steep and slippery that pushing up was near impossible. I used the rest of the morning to put in full runs, towards the end of practice the track was starting to dry out and get fast. Que the rain/sleet/hail! I sat it out in the car, trying to keep myself dry for my race run. Luckily there was a break in the weather around my first race run, so I padded up and headed for the start. Not having ridden the track since the rain I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I pedalled hard through the top section and held back through the slippery sections. The track had held up to the weather really well, it was really slippery, with a layer of mud covering the whole track, but it still rode really well. Sliding round from the first to the least pedal stroke was great fun, and I ended up 2rd in category and 5th overall.

With a light splash of rain between the race runs I hoped that the track would be drying out again. However, reports from the majority of people were that the mud was getting really sticky and slowing people down. I went all out for my second run, pedalling hard out of the start gate and keeping it going through the top section. I made a mess of one tricky corner, nearly coming to a stop in the track, but apart from that it felt a fast run. My legs were burning and lungs out of breath as I pedalled through the gloopy mud at the bottom sprinting for the line. But it was all worth while when I found out that I’d held on to second place. The podium was separated by 0.7 seconds with just 4 tenths of a second between me and 1st place. Had I not made such a mess of that corner at the top it could have been the top step. But without my sprint finish it might have been third.
It was a fun days racing and I was well happy to get a 2nd podium in two weeks.

Must say a big thank you to the guys at UK bike park, they did a great job of organising the whole weekend, and did a fantastic job of keeping the uplifts running in such adverse weather conditions, on an uplift route you’d struggle to climb, let alone walk up!!

Joe

National Points Series:Round 5 Innerleithen - THE FINALS !

The big weekend started off for me at eleven o’clock on Friday morning, (just after a maths test. I couldn’t concentrate at all but don’t tell my parents, I told them I did well), when my dad came to pick me up from school.

Now all that stood between me and the biggest race in my life, the final of the national series, was a five hour car journey down, well technically up the motorway. When finally we got there we didn’t waste any time and got straight up the hill. The bottom half of the course was similar to round 1 fast with lots of jumps and flow. Most of the top was new, it looked pretty hard especially this one steep bit with a very tight switch back at the bottom. The hotel we were staying at seemed very posh, BUT I had to share a bed with my dad, well he’s on the floor you know its all about the racer - that’s me. No I was more of a pain than him I guess. I had one of the best nights sleep I had had in long time, but my dad moaned about “noises” coming from the room next door. I slept so well that night, the best I had slept in ages.

Practise was so good, well practise wasn’t any better than normal but the track was so much fun. Unfortunately there was a two mile bike ride to the up haul most of which was up hill and a ten minute push up to the start so I couldn’t do many runs before I got knackered and had to stop.

Saturday night was the rugby world cup semi finals so I watched that in the hotel. How good was that. Another world cup final for England. Next morning I did some real good practise and was really excited for my race run but because the course closed for a crash I was a bit late for the start and as soon as I arrived I had to go. my brain just shut down. I wasn’t in race mode. When I should have been pedalling I wasn’t and when I only needed to dab the brake I slammed them on. Needless to say I did shit. I did so shit that I don’t even know where I came. The biggest problem was that I wasn’t sure whether I had done enough to keep my overall series fifth place. The series was to be decided on the best four results from five. Dad and I stayed for the podium praying that I had done well enough in the first four rounds. Obviously I was bloody nervous we waited with fingers crossed, Wow - my name was read out.

I let out a huge sigh of relief and headed on up to the podium.

Fifth overall Juvenille NPS 2007.

Charlie Beach Oct 2007

UK bike park Round 3 – 1 / 2 September 2007

The first weekend of September saw the 3rd and final round of the 2007 UK bike park series. With nationals in Wales and a relivily small entry of around 120 riders I had high expectations and hoped for a podium finish. I took some time off riding on Saturday morning to walk the track, as I hadn’t ridden the pedally top section before. I got about 6 or 7 runs in during Saturday practice and was feeling confident of some good race times.

Sunday morning came around, and after a reasonably good night’s sleep in the back of the car I padded up to start practice. I tried a couple of new lines but ended up sticking with the lines I was riding on Saturday and concentrated on trying to ride them faster and faster. After 4 or 5 runs in morning practice I was feeling confident and ready to race, so took some time out to have a wander down the track and prep for the first round of race runs. Standing on the top of the roll in I didn’t feel as nervous as I usually do at the top of a race run, I new exactly what I wanted to do, where I needed to pedal, brake and even change gear, I was ready to get on and do it.

The first race run went pretty much to plan, it felt a solid run and I knew I could give it more in my second run. I arrived back at the top of the course, where the times were printed, to find out I was lying in 4th place overall and 3rd in seniors with a 1:55:0, which I was happy with. At the top of the second race run I felt the usual pre-race nerves. Knowing that I had to go faster to keep my podium place was playing on my mind. The worries were soon forgotten though, and after a couple of corners I was pedalling at every opportunity trying to make up those seconds, after sprinting over the line I felt id gone quicker and just hoped id done enough to hold on to a top 3 place.
There was a lot of confusion when I got back to the top, the computer had messed up and the run times couldn’t be printed off. The organisers eventually read out the podium places and I was gutted not to hear my name. It wasn’t until a few days later I checked the results on the internet and found out that I’d actually got 2nd place in my category, and the 3rd fasted time overall with a 1:53:6. It was a good race weekend at a really cool and unique place. I was pleased to have got my first podium of the year, despite not actually getting on the podium! My name was spelt wrong on the result sheet too, I was number 125 and it says Joel Winston instead of Joe Winston. It was me though, honest!

Rosie Rides to 28th in Spanish National Road Race

Quick Bit of News.
Rosie Remedios, the wife of Eduardo Remedios, Managing Director of iBike, has placed 28th in the Spanish National road race championships, held in Cuence, Spain, June 29-July 1st, 2007.

With two team mates in the winning break, Rosie covered attacks and neutralised the efforts of others to bridge the gap.

Held in sweltering 38 degree heat in the mountains, the 108KM were covered in 2hrs 42 min at an average speed of 39.873 KMH.

Rosie was riding her Cyfac Cadence, equipped with a Campagnolo components and Fulcrum Racing 1 wheels.

Her teammates placed 7th and 8th respectively. There were 70 starters and 57 finishers.
Photos to follow !

For more information see: http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2007/jun07/spain07/spain072


The mens race was won by Joaquín Rodríguez riding for Caisse D'Epargne in a time of 4.13.06 (44.899km/h), his teammate who placed second, was none other than Alejandro Valverde 7 seconds a drift. His from bodes well for the start of next week's Tour de France. In third place was Eladio Jiménez (Karpin Galicia), a further 3 seconds behind the winner.

Pearce Cycles Rd2 Bala - We Shall Overcome.

The week-end before Bala I broke my brakes so we went to a local shop to get them fixed, my mech was making a funny noise to so we asked them to take a look at that as well and they said they would do all that and then drop it off on Thursday.

Both my parents were away, my dad in Russia and my mum in Miami so a woman that looks after me in the hols while my parents are at work called Gemma and her boyfriend Mike picked me up from school. It was about 7o’clock when we got home, the first thing I did was go straight to the bike shed to check on the bike.

Sh#t it wasn’t there. It was seven at night, I was leaving at 6 the next morning and I had no bloody bike. In a desperate rush I give Cristian at iBike a ring in the vein hope of possibly getting a bike. Guess what he got me one, what a legend.

The weekend was back on. The track looked fast. Who could touch the levers on the front the least in the top section. Then there were some tight berms, big roots and again some fast bits. The bottom was flat with dusty counter camber turns, pretty fast and fun. First I had to wander round the camp site trying to find Alan who had my bike, as soon as I got it and set it up (badly) there were no more problems and I was able to get on the hill.

Practice went really well besides a big crash over the front on my first run. It took quite along time to do a single run from the up haul and back to the bottom and it was so hot I only did three runs. I saw my mum for the first time in a week at the B&B we were staying at in the evening. We had an early start on Sunday to get to the race in plenty of time. I got two really good practice runs in and felt good coming into my first race run. The first 100 meters or so went well until I went way to fast into a dusty bus stop and my front just washed out and knocked the chain off.( the bike was a free ride/cross country bike with two front cogs and no chain device) So far I have no chain and then about a quarter of the way down was a jump which I jumped bigger than in practice and my rear tire blew out, so no chain and a flat back tire. It was really fun run trying to control the back end but not my fastest run.

I changed the tube and went up for my second run with not the greatest confidence. I just went for it. I lost my chain again, not quite sure when but I did not crash and even without a chain I was still a minute faster which was good. So all in all it was a great weekend and a huge shout to Cristian for getting me a bike.

Charlie

PS. The bike was a 2007 model Commencal Supreme Mini DH. Wicked.
see http://www.commencal.com

A dad's perspective...NPS Round 2 AE Forest

It's Wednesday and Charlie has swaned off up to London with Louise (Yes
Charlie has a mum and I have a wife) so I thought I might nick the laptop
and bang out a blog from the working side of the team .

Well the forecast for AE was a shocker, and to make it worse it was a bank
holiday weekend. The AA route planner said about 4 and half hours, I
normally trim about half an hour from that. We took about 6 to get to
Dumfries. Others I know fared worse. Any way we got there late afternoon,
having pinged off my last work email and picked Charlie up from school at
about 11. We walked the course and it looked great so, so far, did the
weather. From the top there were a couple of steepish descents. The decision
was: stay in the grass or down the gravelly lines. I like the grassy lines
but with Charlie's suspension I'm not so sure for him. Anyway he can try
both. After that a quickish open traverse into the first set of woods. I
can't remember the exact order but there were some loose bends, berms,
doubles, a treble which will probably be a pump in and double out. Any way
nothing as daunting as Innerleithen so Charlie was freer to pick lines he
wanted rather than for survival like the top off Inners.

There were some tight switchbacks and a drop to the fire road after which
there was a rock drop to a rock garden. This looked OK, it was just a matter
of looking for the least impacting line as good speed in and out was fine.

The next wooded section had an interesting section where there was plenty of
line choice. Straight over a stump and gap or round and through. Probably
the latter. After a few other turns and jumps there was a cool coffin gap.

Charlie seemed undaunted, so fine, on we go. After a downhill berm there was a
new section of off camber traverse. With rain forecast it didn't take a
physicist to work out that this could be trouble.

After this a couple of off camber turns and then a humungous drop , followed by berms which make the ones at Cwm Carn look like ruts. Finally a near vertical grassy 50 ft run
out to the finish.

Generally it looked fine so off to the B& B. Saturday started badly. I had a
total mare . Having prepared the swamp things it was still fine so I went
for the high rollers. I have a thing about tyres. I need help or therapy.

Four, yes four pinched inners later, and I have to say Charlie was
incredibly patient and calm, he was ready albeit a bit late for the first
uphaul.

I managed in fact to climb to the top before he got there via the up haul
and we sectioned the track down. His line choices of the night before seemed
fine. Charlie said loads of people stopped to look at the big drop but he
had already decided before seeing them that he would just hit it. I took my
hat of to him it was absolutely the right approach, and I had said nothing.

As a parent you want them to do well, but I certainly draw back from telling
him how to do the rider frighteners. They had to scrape carcass off the
track between last practice and the seeding run at which time we had sun,
rain and hail. The poor juvies had to go down on the track with a load of
rain and hail on it, without the benefit of the wicking action of riders on
it the time. It was like Vaseline; especially, you guessed it, the off
camber traverse. It became a bit of a lottery, but Charlie was cool about
it. As he said it was only seeding and did not count.

After seeding Charlie met up with a load of other kids ( I really like that
about the race circuit) and went up to some free ride jumps built by the
forestry commission in the woods. It was a case off who could pull the
coolest whip.

Race morning looked OK the forecast was still poor so it was fingers
crossed. There had been rain in the night so back on went the Swamp things.
Better this time, nothing damaged, I think the tyres had given up being
spiteful after yesterday. Practice went well but Charlie could not dial the
traverse so went up and watched the elites/experts in their private practice
hour. Actually it had dried out so much that a good groove had developed and
Charlie was confident that he had a line through, but would still go steady.

Charlie seeded 7th out of 8 which he expected as all the 6 above him had
beaten him at Inners, The guy in 6th made the error at the top of telling
Charlie to pull over when he caught him up. Sod that for a game of soldiers.
Fair play Charlie pulled it out, over took the guy in front, and beat the
gobshite by a second, so he made 6th. . A great result.

Oh I forgot to say; on Saturday Jamie Smith came over and gave Charlie the
gayest looking top I had ever seen. I then looked round and realised that fashion had moved on since Chariots of fire.

Actually the new iBike strips are really cool. Charlie wore his for seeding and it looked even cooler with mud splats on it. Jamie saved his for race day but graced the iBike Ae Forest photo shoot which can be seen on Flickr.

The tops are so colourful they did not look out off place against Charlie's red and black Azonic
shorts but wow when they get matching strides as well the boys will be the
dogs bollocks. On that note I'm off to bed.

John

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Another Podium Finish for Charlie - Pearce cycles Summer Series rd1 Caersws

This was my second Pearce cycles summer series. My first was one of my first races ever at Pennybontfwyr last year, although I did ride a Pearce cycles winter series at Bringwood in which I got my first podium so I was feeling quite confident coming into this race.
My hopes where raised again when I walked the course. With every corner my smile grew bigger and bigger seeing a combination of jumps berms and tech bits. It seemed a dream come true.

My first practice run was insane but in my second run I had a bad crash and my confidence wasn’t knocked but for some reason I felt like I was riding sh#t. It took a while to realise that I was not riding that badly but I was just not used to the slow and tacky mud, when I realized this I began ride better again. We have been spoilt by the dry conditions this year. As soon as practise stopped it began to tip it down with rain. We decided to run the Swampthings.

On Saturday night we tried to watch the euro vision song contest which was quite honestly a shocker so I got an early night going to bed at nine. I slept really well but my dad complained that he was woken up by a group of drunkards threatening to show each other their arses. We were in Wales !

Sunday was wet, very wet and slippy but practise went really well.
In my first run I was placed behind a guy who had only done one run and so he was quite slow. My run was going well until just as I was catching the rider in front he crashed and I had to stop and had no momentum into the next section. I lost a fair bit of time but still managed to be third. The second run was a river run because it had not stopped raining since my first run. I just got to the top with the aim of having fun. I knew it was going to be slower. I had one big crash which hurt a lot but apart from that I was clean and came second in that round, the guy that beat me did not crash and only beat me by one second. So over all I came third which was a good result. I was very happy to get another podium.

iBike Limited
212 Duke's Ride,
Crowthorne,
Berkshire RG45 6DS,
U.K.
Tel +44(0)1344773015
‘Retail Therapy For Cyclists’
www.ibike.co.uk

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Dragon Dowhnill Round 2

Dry and dusty dragon downhill events are few and far between, but this weekend that’s exactly what we were treated to! Mountain ash is one of the longer tracks on the dragon downhill calendar, with a mix of flat-out straight’s, lightning quick ‘bus stops’, technical single track, berms, off-camber corners, jumps and even north shore! Pretty much all you could wish for, crammed in to 4 or so minutes of welsh hillside.

We arrived early on Saturday, just before practice started at 9 and were soon en route up the hill for our first practice run. Unfortunately my riding buddy got a flat on the 2nd run so I spent most of the day flying solo. I used the first couple of runs to cruise the whole course and familiarise myself with the track, after that I knew where I was struggling and used the next few runs to section parts of the track I was finding tough. Watching other riders doing the sections helped me loads, learning from their mistakes and picking out their quick lines. I used my last couple of practice runs to do full runs of the track, trying out the lines id been investigating. They seamed to be working as I arrived at the bottom of my last practice run feeling that it was my best run so far. This gave me confidence going into the seeding run. This year the seeding runs are being done chainless.
As I imagined it was quite a challenge to keep speed up down the track without a chain, but I was quite pleased with my run and seeded in 14th.

After getting a puncture in my first practice on Sunday, I used my second practice to make sure I knew my lines for the race run. I stopped and rode a couple of bits I was finding difficult and, despite a crash on one of the last berms, reached the end of practice feeling confident about my race runs.

Race time came round and nerves started to set in, I started to question my lines and think ‘everyone else looks much faster than me!’ Once I’d set off on my first race run most of these doubts had gone, I was concentrating on my own game and all was going well, I felt smooth and fast. Then, coming into the bottom section I looked up to see I was catching the rider in front of me, this gave me a boost and a pushed hard to overtake him. However, while concentrating on where I would overtake I forgot to think about my own riding. Coming over a jump at the bottom I got all sideways in the air and crashed out on the landing! With my body armour taking the brunt of the impact I jumped straight back up, spun the bike round and got back on it! I don’t think this cost me too much time, but the overtake was off as the rider infront was now too far ahead. I reached the bottom in 4minutes 11 seconds, this left me in 14th, but having crashed I knew I could go faster.

After a long break between the two race runs I had time to chill out and reflect on where I could make up time. On the way up to my second race run I felt more relaxed, and was thinking about my own riding rather than worrying about what everyone else was doing. I was confident starting my second run, knowing I could go quicker than first time round. Despite dropping a foot and slowing in one bit I felt quick all the way down. I reached the bottom section, where the majority of people were watching, and was tiring. I didn’t feel id be able to pedal to the bottom but knew id have to step it up to beat my first time. I heard some mates shout and cheering me on as a passed them, and with a jump into a berm coming up I decided to style it up and pulled a big whip. As I came out of the berm I heard more people shouting. This gave me a boost and an extra bit of energy to pedal, round the next couple of corners more people were shouting and cheering and I went all out. I felt quick and with people egging me on I felt even quicker! I pedaled wherever I could in the bottom section and sprinted for the line, crossing it in 4:06 putting me in 11th in my category. I was hoping for a top 10 finish but was pretty pleased with the weekend being only 6 seconds off the podium. Bring on the next race!

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ibike.co.uk Scores Two Top Ten National Results!

NPS Round One Innerleithen



My dad and I arrived on Friday the 20th at about four o’clock after missing a day at school (oh yeah), with great anticipation for the on-coming weekend of racing. As we began to walk the course we met non-other than Mr Steve Peat (again oh yeah), I knew there were going to be big names there, but it only really hit me when I was stood there talking to my life long hero. We continued to walk the long and gruelling track with me getting more and more worried with every corner we turned.

The top was very very tight and mostly pretty damn steep with big roots, ragged rocks, exposed stumps and extremely loose soil making it look bloody tough and leaving me wondering whether I could ever get down it without crashing. Also what didn’t fill me with confidence was overhearing Brendon Fairclough saying on one of the toughest bits of the top section “this is where I broke my ankle last year.”

The middle section was very fast and flowing with loads of jumps and fun bus stops. There were no less than ten tabletops, drops, doubles, fly offs and a drop road gap (well path gap), (note to self: more air in rear shock tonight).

The bottom section was slightly different from the original Red Bull run. There was an absolutely massive fly through through the Red Bull arch and down into a rather large switchback and right angle grass+dust counter camber turn into a bomb hole and then a flat out sprint to the finish line.

Practice was impossible with the top of the track getting harder and harder with each run I did. I got a bit embarrassed when I heard a rider coming storming up behind me and as I threw myself off the track I just heard “cheers” as Steve Peat disappeared off into the distance.

My seeding run did not go at all well, I had not yet done a full run so I just wanted to get down without crashing, but I went over the top and went way too slow.

Practice on Sunday was hard. Because of a delay there were 200 people waiting at the top, so when we finally got to go it was a mad rush. I was constantly being caught up and catching up other people. But apart from that I was riding well.

Going up for my run was fun talking to Steve Peat and Berty at the back of the bus.

My race run went really well and I knocked 20 seconds off my previous run time. I managed a 7th in the Juvenile category.

All in all a great weekend, thanks Dad.

Links: More photos on our Flickr Site

Many thanks to our sponsors:
www.magura.com
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Report Summary:

Charlie Beach 7th juvenile

Jamie Smith 9th seniors

Well done lads.
Cristian Tomlinson - iBike DH Team Manager

Jamies blog coming very soon ! Stay tuned.....