After a hard day at work we headed up to Llangollen for the 3rd round of the British Downhill Series.

From previous races at this venue we knew it was going to be a steep one. We arrived at the pits pretty late, so Ash dropped Tom and I at the start so we could have a look at the new track, which was just as steep but completey in the open. The track basically consisted of a huge flat-out straight bit at the top, followed by super steep turns that were already dusty and blown out even before 300 odd riders had gone down it. By the time Tom and I had got to the finish, Ash had already started putting the Mojo pits up. Even though it was 10.30 by the time we had done everything Tom and Ash thought it would be a brilliant idea to strip Tom's bike in the dark, without a light. They soon thought better of this and we packed up and walked back to our hotel.

Saturday morning we got to the venue early and got in the queue ready to practice. Uplift has always been a problem at Llangollen and this time was no exception. After standing in the baking heat for almost 8hours non stop (ok I lie I did stop to put a set of spikes on) we both only managed to get 4runs in. It was really hard to get into the flow of the track as by the time you got to do another run the lines that you had been running were now blow out and a couple inces thick in dust! This weekend  Mojo had a trainee team doctor with us as my sister, Hannah had come up to watch the racing. She also doubled up as a pretty mean photographer (check out the pictures below)!

Sunday the sun was out again, and we were sweating like mad by 8.30am! Tom and I both managed to get a couple of practice runs in before the track was closed for seeding! Quite early on in the youth catorgory one of the riders had a massive crash on the last jump and unfortunately broke his collar bones (=/ ouch) which delayed everything for just over an hour. Tom had already headed up for this race run so was unfortunalty stuck at the top! But when he did finally come down he absolutly nailed it and managed to win the senior seeding! Another bad seeding run and I ended up on my bum when the line I’d taken all weekend was no longer there. Tom managed it get another solid run in the race runs and got his first national podium with a 4th! I ended up crashing in the dust pretty close to the bottom on my race run and ended up quite far down the field.
 
Aimee