AlpineBikes Winter Race Rd3

The final race of Innerleithen’s Alpine Bikes winter race series was held last weekend to cap off a well run and successful event. The Friday night before the race saw heavy rain and high winds bearing down on the hardy early arrivals camping at the bottom of the hill. Saturday morning saw the weather continue in this vein for most of the morning but the afternoons practice was held in very much welcomed sunny conditions.  The track used for this final round was promised to be a technical and fast track, which was exactly what it was. Using a mix of various tracks, including the top road jump down into the 39 steps back over to the Cresta with a few little tweaks, then down into the Arena which was taped of tight to the left through the tight line in the trees, then down to the Bombhole off the right into the Gully out there hard to the left again then hard right into the other Gully and down to the finish area.

After his bad and crash dislocating his shoulder in Ireland the weekend before ChainReaction’s new Junior Lewis Buchanan had to sit this race out and put all his efforts into getting ready for the first World Cup race in South Africa in 2 weeks time.  However fresh back from a winter race in sunny California Ruaridh Cunningham was back home to compete in a “proper” winter race. After the first race runs the top 3 Elite riders were only separated by less than a second with Ruaridh lying in second place behind Adam Brayton, with PerthCity Cycles man Fergus Lamb in 3rd. It was all going to go down to last race runs, and did it not start to rain half way through the afternoon making the track conditions very greasy.  In saying that Ruaridh gave it his all and was looking good when he lost grip with his front tyre on one of the slippy corners into the bottom Gully near the end crashing out and hitting a tree hard. There’s no doubt he’d have been up on his time from the first run but as they say that’s racing, and second place ain’t that bad.

Experts this weekend saw Ronan Taylor take the win on his new Monsterbike/Inverness Morewood steed ahead of All Terrain Cycles Andy Phillips with Freeborn/Devinci’s Dave Duggan in 3rd.
Young George Gannicott again showed how much he’s come on by winning the youth category race easily on his newly sponsored Transition 450 bike from Bikesoup and innerleithen bike shop I-Cycles.  Second place went to Drew Carters with Ae Bike Shop’s Joe Paterson in third.

Ae Bike shop’s Frazer McCubbing won the juvenile class by a huge 16 seconds over Nial Oxley in 2nd place with 3rd going to Scott Tupper.
Hard tail class saw Richard Acott take the win over George Muncey in 2nd place with Malcolm Porter in 3rd.
Sunn Montgenevre rider Joe Connell took the junior win this weekend over Maxxis/Rockymountain’s junior rider Mark Scott in 2nd and Lapierre’s Sam Flockhart grabbed the 3rd spot on the podium.

Nukeproof’s Alastair Maclennan just managed to pip Glentress Riders Neil Wilson into second place to take the veterans win with Bernard Plaisted in 3rd.
Uplift Scotland rider David Tallontire won the masters race again to add to the last rounds victory with 2nd place going to James Hughes, All Terrain Cycles Jed Whitefield had to settle for 3rd.

Senior class saw Thomas Pollock continue his come back to racing by taking the win by 5 seconds over Lewis McLaughlin this weekend CycleLane/Kona rider Jamie Scott got the third spot on the podium.
Three woman’s categories this weekend with the under 18’s being won by Charlotte Mallin-Martin over Erin Maguire in second place, Rebecca Kennedy was third.

Rachael Walker was the victor in the senior women’s class with Emma McRobb in 2nd place Kate Hallam in third.
Only 2 riders in the women’s masters this weekend and it was Janine Wolstenholme who took the win over Morag Paterson who was looking quite factory in her new race kit.

Again only 2 women in the Elite class today and it was Uplift Scotland rider Bex Rielly who took the win over Fox rider Angela Coates
That’s it for another year then, let’s hope next year’s winter race series will be every bit as good as this one’s been.  Head over to RootsandRain for all the results and photos from the weekend.

Over all results for the series are now up on AlpineBikes website

Stuz Leel Edit

John Duncan Edit