News • Alpine Bikes

Alpine Bikes Winter Series Round 1
Supported by Saracen

The first round of the winter series race this year took place on the weekend of the 5th and 6th of February this years. The winter series has battled with all types of weather of the years and this year was no different with hurricane force wind and rain on the Friday led some very interesting moment taping the course and setting up. The rain didn’t ease up all evening on the Friday. When we got the car park on Saturday morning we were faced with major flooding in the car park which had now turned into “Lake Innerleithen” with a few adjustment to the car parking practice got under way only an hour or so late. The course this year was a good mix of some classic trails that the hill could offer. Using a mix on the Tunnel then cutting into the luge followed by the Gold run then finally turning into the Matador run to finish thing’s off. The course had a great mix of tight corners and some flat out jumps a little something for everyone. The course seemed to run very well with a lot of riders commenting on it being one of the funniest course used on the hill for racing.

On Sunday morning the car park had turned from a lake back into a car park so the finish of the course was made where we originally planned with riders having a to sprint across the road and into the finishing straight. The first race runs got under way at 11:30 with the final of the 2 runs starting a 13:30. Some fast times were set over the weekend by the youngster. Youth category was won by one of the Wilcox twins Stuart with his brother Ross coming in second, these two are definitely ones to watch this year. Junior category saw world cup rider Lewis Buchanan taking 1st place and with one of the fast’s times of the day being placed. He is in new team colours this year and is looking very strong for the word cup season a head of him. Senior category was won by Lewis Mclaughlin. The Elite category saw MTB cuts rider Ben Cathro taking the win and fast’s time of the day.

So after a very wet start to the weekends racing Alpine Bikes and Border Line Event managed to pull of another awesome weekend racing with all riders having a great time sliding down the hill, we look forward seeing all on the hill at Round 2 in a few weeks time. We would really like to thanks Saracen Bikes for all there help for Sponsoring this series also to all those marshals and medics that spent all weekend up the hill, without these guys we would have been unable to race so a massive thanks goes out to them all.

For full results and pics please check out this link http://ianlinton.com/?p=93

All images courtesy of © Ian Linton Photography.