The World-cup circus, rolled into the small Scottish highland town of Fort William for the second round of the World’s premier race series, the UCI MTB World Cup. Three days of fast paced action and excitement awaited.

The XC was held on a super tough course some of the descents rivaled the DH course for technicality, the 4x was as usual very fast, offering edge of the seat race action for all on the big jump, high-speed course. However, the event that drew in the biggest crowds was the downhill!

The Offbeat downhill course offers some of the most extreme and technically demanding riding on the planet. The offbeat downhill course in Fort William is tough on both bike and body and offers some of the most technical riding on the planet, five minutes of rocks and massive wheel swallowing ruts greet riders across the lonely, open and windswept top section. Before entering the middle woods filled with drops, ruts, axle deep mud and slick roots. Broken up at the bottom by a super fast jump section, featuring a big new hip jump giving the riders another chance to wow the crowds before you drop down into the finish area to be greeted by the cheers of thousands of spectators. The pit area is buzzing, the atmosphere on the site is electric and the Press tent has free Red Bull and Donuts so I’m set. The event has been described by Dirt magazine as the greatest show on earth and being here you can see why.

After a few days of practice in the lead up to the event the course had taken a pounding - strong winds and almost constant downpours of rain had made the course a real challenge. Wet rocks, roots and axle deep sticky mud greeted riders as they made their way down the course.

The wind was scarily strong at the top of the mountain; gusts of wind buffeted and knocked the gondola car as sleet pounded the windows. On my first ride up someone’s bike was almost blown off onto the hillside. We spent the whole ride watching it being buffeted and keeping our fingers crossed it wouldn’t fall off and take out someone on the course below.

Qualifiers were held on the Sunday morning to decide who would be taking to the course and the clock in the finals. The usual suspects of Hill, Peat, Rennie, Atherton and Minnaar were right up there, Minaar setting the fastest qualifying time. Things were looking good for final runs in the afternoon...

Finals was a nail biting affair with the top riders being sent down in staggered two minute intervals, and being brought home by the roaring 7,500 strong crowd who lined the course and surrounded the finish area, watching all the action live on the Big screen, which dominated the area in front of the podiums.

The Womens Category saw Tracey Moseley storm down the track to take the number one spot making it two World cup number ones in a row this season, closely followed by Rachel Atherton who took second, Sabrina Jonnier took third and Helen Gaskell and Celine Gros rounded off the podium.

Onto the male category and it was Nathan Rennie who was in the hot seat for a good while, before the other fast boys came down and started to knock second after second of the lead times. The commentators whipped the crowds up into a frenzy with free stuff,  and up to the minute commentary which kept the crowd cheering on their MTB heroes till the end. We were kept guessing to the last but in the end it was Mr. Sam Hill who took the top spot with Cedric Gracia in second, Mr ‘Big air’ himself Greg Minnaar in third, the one and only Steve Peat in  fourth and Gee Atherton in fifth.

What a weekend, Roll on the ‘World Champs’ in 2007.

James

Go and see our Fort William photos in the Photo Gallery