Round 4 of the Pearce Cycles 2010 race series went down at the weekend at Rhyd Y Felin, aka ‘Bala’, near Llangynog in Wales. The pictures are now up.

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Day 1 Saturday Pictures (12th)

Day 2 Sunday Pictures (13th)

Round 3 of the Pearce Cycles 2010 race series took place a Bringewood near Ludlow. The weather was warm and generally sunny on Saturday morning with just the top section of the track still a little damp. The track for this round was the old nationals track, turning right off the start hill, with two interesting corners in the top section before crossing the fire road and then down the long (now tree-less) straight before another mainly new section in the bottom woods. This had a steep section, some what reminiscent of race at Kidland Forest a few ago, then the trademark stretch limo of a table before the finish.

Within the first few hours the ruts got cut in and the faster more skilled lines emerged, this was especially true on the corners near the top and at the steep section at the bottom. The jump above the fire road gave some good action, I even saw quite a good suicide no-hander (unfortunately while I was getting my camera out – d’oh). There were only a few hold ups through out the day with the Pearce crew keeping things moving and the uplifts giving riders plenty of runs.

This time Irwin and I were camping with the rest of the lads – no Travel Lodge luxury this round. It was excellent weather for a barbecue, but unfortunately someone at Tescos had disguised a hand warmer as a barbecue so we waited ages for everything to cook. Luckily we had a camping stove so once we’d transfer some grub to that and we were cooking with gas (quite literally). The evening’s entertainment consisted of a track walk, in depth analysis of whether Brendawg really did jump from the fire road and land in the first woop at Round 1, Matt’s birthday cake, a quiz around the fire and watching Dogman digging a hole with a small machete and waiting for him to accidentally cut something off.

After a reasonable nights sleep, although not as good as a Travel Lodge, we awoke to find that mist had descended, but the forecast rain hadn’t materialised. This was good, for the most part, but had it rained it would have made for great footage on the steep corner on the top section. The uplift started early and I headed up for some flash photography in the woods and was impressed by the height some riders where getting off such a small roller.

Things soon warmed up as the sun came through and I got to the top, quite knackered, ready for the first race runs and trying to plan my filming and pictures to get the Monkeyspoon team and friends as well as the fastest riders and the, quite small, elite field in the best sections. I was shocked to discovery the organisers had not synchronised their watches before this operation resulting in races runs starting 3 minutes before 11:00!

As the temperature rose in the open section so did the speed of the riders, pumping and pedalling their way down the long straight. I got some good long shots of mates coming down, although I could have done with binoculars for spotting them dropping in 200m away. One thing I didn’t notice at the time but later spotted on the footage was the heat distortion of the air when filming down the straight.

For the second race runs I got to the bottom section in time to see the fast guys flying through the steep sections and dust ponds on the last corner in the woods. A lot of the bottom section was about pumping at high speed and with precision, and all this after 2 minutes of full on riding.

Ashley Maller won the Elite with 2:04.38 and Kurtis Knowles won Senior with 2:08.62. Out of Irwin, Josh (Hay), Nat and Tom, Tom beat Nat by 3 seconds, Irwin came closer back to form; 2 seconds behind Nat, with Josh, not quite upping his performance as much as the others, 0.7 of second behind Irwin. Roots and Rain analysis.

All in all it was another greater race weekend; Dave Pearce rolled another fat one.

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Day 1 Saturday Pictures (15th) – 561 pictures in 14 pages

Day 2 Sunday Pictures (16th) – 396 pictures in 8 pages

A selection of the best, edited, 48 Pictures by Jeff

Hopton Castle located north of Ludlow was the venue for the second round of the Pearce cycles downhill series. After a dry week leading into the weekend the track was extremely dry. The track used started from the none trig point start, heading straight into a fresh tech wood section. Before hitting the open section, which had the speed trap on it during race runs. The track took the left hand fork towards the bottom of the open section, twisting down passing over two fire roads before the step down to high speed berm.

The uplift queue was kept short all weekend, meaning most riders could get 10+ runs in on Saturday and 3 on Sunday morning before race runs began.

The open section of the track which covers a large part of the hill was running extremely quickly, making it an ideal spot for a speed trap, and Jeff to film! Pearce said that they didn’t use the speed trap at the first round as there wasn’t anywhere suitable on the bringewood track. It made for a great addition to the timing ending the age old argument between riders of who was going to fastest (on that section anyway). With a prize available for the quickest time through the trap on race day everyone was pushing hard. After the result of round one I was looking to build on it but come race day I record what felt like two of the slowest runs I had ridden all weekend. I blame it on the long wait it in the sun between end of practice and my first race run!!

After the star studded first round the elites were a little bit thinner of the ground. With Matt Simmonds taking the first place in Elites, he also recored the fastest speed trap of the day at 44.40 KH.
Round three is less than a week away, see you there.

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Pearce Round 2 Hopton Best (24+25th) – 45 pictures in 1 pages

Day 1 Saturday Pictures (24th) – 486 pictures in 12 pages

Day 2 Sunday Pictures (25th) – 483 pictures in 12 pages

Sorry it has taken me so long to sort out a proper write up.

Thought i had better do something as the second round is less than a week away. Like always this series is as popular as always, and as soon as Pearce cycles opened the entries the rounds very quickly became full. Showing what a huge support there is for racing in this country. With a number of Elite riders in attendance in both the men’s and women’s category’s keen to test out how there winter training had been going.

Anyway the track was changed at last minute due to the poor weather conditions in the week before the race. So the track used headed down onto the bomb holes followed by the left hand open section into the legendary super flowly bottom section. After an early start we arrived on the Saturday morning and after a good slide around in the muddy field i headed up to begin practice. With most riders opting for wet screams. These were the most use on the top of the course although during the day the track did begin to dry out with some riders starting to switch.

Pearce sure know how to put a race on, and i dont think anyone else has go an uplift anywhere as good as them. With specialised design trailers carry you and your bike, not only is it speedy but it is also safe. With most riders getting 10 runs in on the Saturday you cant complain.

The weather across the whole weekend was great with only a couple of short showers on the Sunday, and as always the spectators were lining the course giving encouragement. Jeff had his work cut out aswell with alot of photographers on course all weekend.

The open section was one of the hardest parts of the track with a series of rollers/doubles on the way in and a tricky rooty right hander to exit back in to the woods.

Some riders kept it low over the rollers others doubled them up, possibly even tripled them. A section to make or loose quite alot of time.

My own race runs went okay, after catching someone in my first run I posted a time just outside my own target of 3 minutes, which put me around middle in my category i was feeling good and though I could push on a many get inside my target. But after a so so run I posted a time about a second slower. But still pleased and looking forward to the next round and improving.

With such a large number of world class elite riders it did bring a heighten excitement with various rumours circulating thought the weekend of elite riders taking various crazy lines.

Day 1 Saturday Pictures (27th) – 308 pictures in 8 pages

Day 2 Sunday Pictures (28th) – 473 pictures in 12 pages
(None are edited.)

Pearce Rnd1 Bringewood Best – 36 pictures in 1 pages

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Here’s a little summary of our recent rides over the snow Christmas 09 period. With a video with footage left over from two rides from the latter part of 2009.

24th Dec 09 – I (Jeff) went out for some Christmas Eve riding on Win Hill, with the group of young people collectively know as ‘The Kids’ (this name could stick til they’re well into their 30’s). There was a reasonable depth of snow at that height and we sessioned a corner, with mixed results – some slid like a squid, while others went down like a clown (editors note Jeff wrote this bit!). We also went up and rode the root section below the steps – knowing where all the roots are here pays off. It was signification colder at that level, once out of the woods, so it wasn’t long before we headed home.

09-12-24 WinHill JK+The Kids, 16 Pictures by Jeff

26th Dec 09 – The Epic Christmas ride was even more epic than normal! With a serious amount of snow even at lower levels the full epic route was going to be a serious challenge. But we (James), Shane, Jeff set off with that route in mind. It soon become obvious that we might have to rethink the route! Although the snow made for a very picture perfect December calendar shot. It wasn’t so great for riding in with the up hills being rather tricking epically once we had made it up onto the western side of Win Hill where the drifts were even deeper meaning that pushing and carrying your bike were the only options in places. Once we reached the ridge we had hoped that the gradient might be enough to all us to ride the bikes. We headed off down the ridge just about staying on the bikes. After stopping off to test how deep the snow was in some of the bomb holes (answer very deep). We carried on down towards hope cross. Where the snow had completely filled in the bridleway approaching the the start of the Hope Cross bridleway. So although it was rather nice to continue the tradition of a Christmas ride we might have been better heading out on the sledges or just making a Giant snow man somewhere!
See the the footage from this ride in the second half of the video at the bottom.

Our route – roughly 11km / 7miles long, plus some road afterwards
09-12-26 Aston+HopeX DH+HaggSide JI+JK+ST, 19 Pictures by Irwin & Jeff

31st Dec 09 – After the rather disappointing Christmas ride (in terms of riding) myself and Jeff decided that we would head up to Hope Cross to do some riding. With the Trees around this rocky bridleway providing some welcome shelter from the still snowy conditions still effecting most parts we thought we would be onto a winner. I (James) was eager to test out the full capabilities of my new Transition Bank. The idea behind the build was to create a all purpose bike that i could ride down the pump track, take to Bolehills, ride some longer epic rides on and still be able to enjoy the downs on. And so far i think it easily covers the job! With both myself also taking our cameras there was a fair amount of pictures taken on various parts of the track.

09-12-31 HopeX DH JI+JK, 22 Pictures by Irwin & Jeff

21st July 09 – On a damp Tuesday evening we (Irwin, Shane & Jeff) headed out after work to ride some of the Hollins Cross and Mam Tor bridleways, which are great for short rides as you can park at the top of the hill and don’t have to ride far to get to some pretty good tracks. Shane was on his first outing with his new SPDs (that magical invention that lets you attach yourself to the bike so you don’t need to be as fit when climbing hills ). It wasn’t long before the inevitable and he stopped but didn’t manage to unclip, fortunately (for Shane) Irwin was stood next to him and made a good temporary leaning post.
We rode the top section of Hollins Cross – BackTor Bridge and first section of Hollins Cross – Greenlands. Shane manage to get two punchers – one on each bridleway (the second in exactly the same spot as a previous ride), probably caused by a bad mix of XC single ply tyres and his DH riding style. While fixing the second puncture we decided it would be more fun to head back up the ridge and ride the short descent that goes around the side of Mam Tor. We weren’t wrong! With the previous rain it was quite slippy and muddy in places, this made for a great final run, with water flying everywhere and sketchy moments had by all.
See the the footage from this ride in the first half of the video below.