The final round of this year’s Halo BDS National Downhill series, that was to be held at Fort William this weekend, has been cancelled due to bad weather.
Here’s the news from the race organisers:
FORT WILLIAM CANCELLED! NEVIS RANGE HAVE SAID THE GONDOLA WILL NOT OPEN ON SATURDAY AND POSSIBLY SUNDAY
Latest news from the Nevis Range:
As discussed I today called the Met Office forecaster to get a better idea of the weather for this weekend. The main factor will be the wind – speed and direction
Friday – Southerly 30mph quickly becoming 40-50mph
Saturday – Southerly 40mph gusts 60mph
Sunday – South Westerly 40mph gusts 60mph
Southerly’s are the worst direction for the gondola as the wind travels straight down the line. Friday looks like it will be OK to start with but will get worse. Being this close to Saturday our gut feeling is the gondola would not operate at all in these wind speeds. On Sunday the wind veers to a South Westerly this may be better but at those speeds we can get a funnel effect which creates a strong cross wind which would not be good for bikes on the gondolas.
Of course we can never be certain how the forecast will affect us. There have been occasions when decisions are made and the outcome is totally different to what was predicted. The strongest wind can go to the North or to the South of us, totally changing everything. Hopefully thought this will help you in making a decision.
Rather than making you all drive up there and end up throwing stones at me in the car park I have made the tough and quick call to cancel Fort William. We will look to re-schedule the event to Ocotober at somewhere else.
More details to follow.
Apologies.
