coombe Sydenham
20/04/03
The course was slightly different from February, the top section as always is the bit that changes, Sunday was very good with a rooooty offcamber section I've never done before. I heard whinges about Saturdays course, but that's not unusual, general whinging that is. Downhill courses aren't supposed to be Duel tracks.
Check out the video for some crash footage, Stu Inman broke his wrist but apart from that is ok. The first rider in the video, must be the unluckiest guy in the world, he took a tumble jumped up to get back in the saddle and realised his front wheel was nolonger attatched to the forks, strange.
The second rider, me, took the step down way to slow, I just couldn't stay off the brakes. That was a harsh landing. I gave it an extra couple of pedal strokes on the second run, layed off the brakes, made it to the downslope and landed smooth, which is just aswell as my back wouldn't have taken another Bender'esque drop in.
Our first race at coombe Sydenham
We've been waiting a good few months to do a decent course that wasn't
part of the Dragons and we had heard that NACC coombe Sydenham was good and
long and not to far to travel. As an added bonus I was able to race on
the Saturday and the Sunday due to getting the day off work.
We turned up a bit late on the Saturday morning due to a certain person being
drunk and not getting out of bed and a little de-tour on route, but
still with plenty of time to get in most of the practice we needed.
Race Admin
The transport was 2 tractors and trailers on Saturday and 3 on the
Sunday, this started off to be a complete nightmare with the usual kids
trying to get on first as they are obviously far more important and with
them being smaller no one else will notice.
This was starting to become a bit of a shambles until the (you will
get on the transport in an orderly fashion), woman turned up, but she
did get it sorted and flowing a bit more freely. The only other
transport gripe was that it didn't pick up from the bottom of the hill
which meant a killer 500m walk up the first part which I had definitely
had enough of by the last run on the Sunday.
The Course
The course it self on the Saturday was really good starting with a
200m sprint down a field around a few bushes and into the trees with a
lot of switch backs and roots and the odd man made jump as well. On the
way out of the trees was a 6-7 foot step down (see photos), straight
into a couple of berms and another flat out field.
This was a long sprint with 2 separate mogul fields, the first of
which could be jumped and the second of which needed a bit more control.
From there it was another couple of hundred metres back into the woods
with some tight hairpins and short drops before a sweeping right hander
into the finish.
The course on the Sunday was a bit different most of it being new and
just made for the NPS which is being held on the 14 April. It started
further up the hill straight into a tight rooty section then a small
jump out into a field after a few hundred metres it trailed in and out
of the side of a wood up and down a small embankment.
Then over a track and into the next set of woods over some small
jumps and joined the previous track from the day before just before the
step down. The next field was the same apart from a bus stop between the
2 sets of moguls, which court a few people out on their first practice
run but kept the marshal busy retying the tapes.
The bottom wooded section changed slightly which was more flowing
with the addition of a rocky chute and the finish had a small jump over
a stream which seemed to throw you in all sorts of directions including
some people going through the finish not attached to their bikes, in one
highly amusing incident completely taking out the timing equipment.
The 2 days racing were excellent with Stu getting some good times and Doug even getting a trophy in the hardtail class, which was good considering he was twice as old as some of the riders.
The weather even held out with only the last run for the seniors getting a little bit of rain.
There was a good atmosphere with little
for people to moan about apart from the initial walk up to the
transport, and one tantrum throwing tit who thought that the organisers
should pull there fingers out and build a decent course, (if I was his
old man I would have dropped his bike in the lake and made him walk
home) I think he was a little out of his depth bless him.
Overall
All in all definitely worth racing here and for £18 you can't
complain. I think this place can be ridden at any time with a £5 charge
I cannot confirm this if any one does know please let us know. Just
follow the directions for coombe Sydnam Country Park (brown signs), it's
about 10km's south of Minehead.
Nacc Events
Onabike.
coombe Sydnham country house.
Search here for
Local and Estate info.
070402
