Race Report - Jack Reading At Interleithen
Race number 1 of 2010 didn’t really go to plan. Then again how is a winter series race in Scotland expected to go… some might say it pretty much went as they thought it would. With the weather forecast predicting cold temperatures and clear skies the best we could expect was a slight frost. Instead, come Saturday morning the ground was rock hard and temperatures struggling to get above zero. I’m personally quite surprised that the race wasn’t called off on the Friday morning before everyone had driven to Scotland.
The track was awesome with a steep start and as ever for Innerleithen, lots of variation the whole way down. It would have been great fun, however not many people could ride down it, and those that could were getting very out of control pretty much the whole way down. The problem being that the ground was so hard that tyres going down were polishing the surface and turning the track into an ice slope. Bobsleds would have been a better option come Saturday lunch time when a riders’ meeting was called.
Race organiser Mike Marsden announced that the race was cancelled but the uplift would continue to run all weekend so riders could still ride. It was said however that if the conditions improved we would race… unlikely. I spent the rest of the day ripping down some of the tracks built by the local Innerleithen lads. These had luckily avoided being frozen solid and were steep, loose and technical. They reminded me of secret tracks I spent so much time training on last summer out in Canada.
Sunday was the same. A cold icy start and no way we were going to race… so I thought. It turned out the organisers wanted to give it another go. We started practice and again, no grip. It was like riding on glass. My buddy who came up to make a video of the race has made a crash video instead because that’s pretty much all he saw. After two runs they finally made the decision to cancel the race.
At this point you’d have thought I’d have run out of things to say. Oooow no. I had a right nightmare. The uplift carried on for the rest of the day so we (being me and 6 or so riding mates) decided to go exploring down some of the local trails that none of us had ridden before. We found a wicked trail that was all mossy, awesome for really letting it rip and getting some sick air. When that ended we found ourselves pinning it through the trees down what used to be a track, but had overgrown a bit so we were more or less picking our own lines. I took the lead and was out of the saddle sprinting, probably going about 25 mph when bang. It felt like I’d been hit in the face by a spade but at the time I had no idea what it was. The lads behind me said it was one of the craziest things they’d ever seen. One second I was sprinting along out front, the next me and my bike went up in the air, I bopped out the double back flip to face plant, without my bike and no-one knew what the hell had happened.
It turned out I’d come across the remains of a fence… It was at head height and made of thin metal wires spaced by about a foot. I’d hit the lowest wire face first. I had a gash above my top lid through to the teeth. I’m considering myself extremely lucky, if I’d caught it to the neck I’d probably be a gonna. My goggles were ripped off and my helmet was damaged by the jaw area so it probably took some of the force for me. And as for where my peak ended up… who knows.
We drove back to Yorkshire and a few hours later plus 4 stitches and some glue I was as good as new… well, with a dirty great mess above my lip projecting out to my cheek anyway, attractive!
The lesson learnt early at the beginning of the season then… don’t go first when I’m out doing Freeride with my mates J
The next winter race is in two weeks again up at Innerleithen. Hopefully things will have thawed out by then!