- So we saw Greg Minnaar take the win here at Fort William
but we also saw a lot of crashes in the wooded section.
It's super-technical.
An awful lot of it you didn't actually see on camera,
so let's take a walk through, see just how bad it is,
and how it affected the race.
(Dramatic rock music)
Okay, so this is the first section,
as you drop into the woods.
You've done the very famous top section at Fort William.
It's open, fast, it's rocky, and it was pretty much dry,
so therefore, your running dry tyres.
And then you drop into this, a big mud bog.
There wasn't a camera here for the live footage
but videos over the weekend,
we saw an awful lot of people dropping straight into this
and flipping straight over the bars.
Adam Brayton, Luca Shaw and many others did exactly that.
So Danny Hart actually described the wood section this year
as a lottery.
Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to ride it today.
It's still closed, but I did fancy my chances.
I was feeling lucky today but I'm going to walk down
this section of the course.
I'm actually not going to walk down the course,
it's too difficult.
Show you how bad it is.
Well, that mud is over my ankles already.
And this is the section
that was actually changed in practise.
See this horrible bog.
There was a big root there
that was keeping everything in there.
Some people were dropping and straight over.
But it didn't get much better for the race.
Okay, so that was your welcome to the woods
and that's not even the hardest bit.
Let's take a look at the more technical sections
lower down.
Right, pick a rut, any rut, there's three choices here.
If you miss a rut, you're absolutely knackered.
I actually stood here on the final day of practise
and watched this next section.
And I probably saw 30 people come through here,
and no one got through this section cleanly.
Saw Loic Bruni dabbing,
saw Minnaar really struggling for speed.
This was a very difficult section.
Okay, so you've got a bit of North Shore,
lovely bit of respite, but don't get too relaxed
because this section, again, is really difficult.
It's a decent-sized drop-off and now there's two options.
You either right and you've got to try and gap
to this pad, which I did see people go over the bars
here as well, so you can't let the front wheel drop.
So your gap into this pad isn't a bike length
so you hit front wheel, then back wheel,
and then jump again, and then you're going into
a really horrible section of roots.
As well all know, roots in the rain are absolutely deadly.
So you've got one big one and then a whole section
of roots and stumps and little drops in between them.
Or the other option is to go up here.
The first bit doesn't look too hard, if you've got a gap
and land in this tire-sized rut.
But now you're up here, you've now got to turn
across all this.
You've got a big rock there, you've got stumps.
Look at those roots.
And the thing is, you can't actually see them.
There's so many of them, that underneath the mud
is really sketchy, and we did see a lot of people dabbing
and finding this section really hard.
(Ominous music)
We asked some of the riders, "Why was this section
"just so hard?"
- Well, you've got mud, a bit of rock
and a hell of a lot of root and a drop into it as well.
So, yeah, with some bad weather and a fresh bit of track
like that, it's always going to be hard, really, isn't it?
But I was a fan of it, personally.
- I think it boils down to the main thing is,
they were so flat, you know, they were just so flat.
When you can, when it's steep you can get
a bit of momentum up, but we couldn't do that.
- (mumbles) through a bog and it rains
and people ride through it and you get big ruts in it.
So, yeah, it's wet, and there's muds, and there's roots.
- There was just nothing that you could do.
Like, no matter what you did, you were going to get wild.
Like, no matter how much you committed or whatever,
there would be like, roots that were going this way
that would shoot you that way.
And then you'd be out and then... it was like gnarly.
Unrideable, I don't know (laughs).
- So that section was technical at the beginning
but then the way it evolved,
we couldn't get speed through it.
So, it was more like stay on the bike than actually riding.
So even if you had like a good skill, let's say,
to go over it, it was just way too slow, so the bike
was just stopping and then, you make to the next one
and then you stop again.
So it was just too dead.
- Through woods themselves are okay
but I think they got ruined because we were coming
in so slow.
It was flat and it was a bog.
Like, happened last year, and we turned up this year
with a foot-deep rut before the race started.
So we're all for technical, natural sections,
best thing you can put in a track
but either make them steeper, if it's like a bog section,
you can't go flat, sideways across the hill.
Or make it fresh each year.
So this is the section where we saw the camera placed
on the Red Bull TV footage and there was an awful lot
of crashing going on through here.
So Tahnee Seagrave really,
I think she crashed a couple times on this section.
See again, it's really muddy.
It's actually quite steep this section
but there's just big bowls where there's sort of,
grinders dug out and then it's met something,
like a root or a stump, where it can't dig out any more.
And again, it's steep.
You've got a big kind of drop into this corner
and this left-hander, again steps full of roots,
full of stumps.
Really not an easy place trying to ride your bike.
Look at the size of this hole here.
There's a lot of chat about wheel size this weekend,
but it doesn't matter how big your wheels are.
If you drop into the bottom of that, you're pretty much
going over the bars.
See now, you're most the way through the woods.
You've done probably the hardest bit, and now this section
was all about trying to keep your feet up on the pedals
and carry some speed through.
So an awful lot of people get unclipped, or on their
flat pedals, just dab the whole way down this section.
(ominous music)
And finally, was the race won or lost in this section?
- Definitely lost, for people in that section, yeah.
- It kind of all depended on that point for sure.
It was like, if they're up to the split, you're never
sure until they go out the other end of the woods, yeah.
- I'd say it was, yeah.
I'd say it was won or lost in that section
or the motorway section at the bottom.
So, yeah. Hey.
The winner was put a lot of time into everyone's...
Can't say.
- For sure. For sure.
I had lost it before, though, so I'm pissed off
and I'm mad at myself.
And I was thinking maybe too much about the woods
and for sure some people have lost it there.
But look at Aaron, he was on it and then he missed a corner
just near the bottom, so...
I think it took attention really, to all the riders,
we focused on the woods and then maybe sometimes
not enough on other parts
and that's what happened to me, I think.
- So that was the woods section
at the Fort William World Cup.
I actually raced World Cup downhill for ten years
and I've got to say, that was definitely one of the
most technical sections I've ever seen.
And in the UCI's defence, I've never actually seen them
take a section out of a trail.
All I can remember, I remember them definitely
sort of cutting out roots to make them slightly easier.
Did it affect the World Cup race?
Well, yes, it definitely did.
However, I saw Aaron Gwin get through this section
pretty cleanly and then crash on one of the easiest sections
and still come third.
So just goes to prove how hard World Cup downhill racing is.
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