Mega News

(Don’t forget to tune in on Sunday night for the Mega highlight video.)

This is the latest news from the Mega…by Ed.H

1) Brendan Fairclough arrived at 1pm yesterday in time to get in plenty of preparation (not) for his first mega. In qualifying today he was in 2nd place until his chain fell off, not bad for someone who had only ridden a small section of the track. He finally ended up in 14th place.

2) Ben Cathro was taking some wild lines in the snow sections which put him well out in front, but in poor journalistic style I’m not entirely sure where he ended up, but I’m pretty sure he’s on the front row tomorrow.(Chris Akrigg finished 6th on a fully rigid, brakeless bike, actually it was a Mongoose)

3) Favourite for the title Rennie Wildhaber won his qualifying heat, but he didn’t set the fastest time of the day. That honour went to someone who’s name has unfortunately left my head

4) Dirt Magazine’s Ralph Jones got the bonk big time and didn’t even make it to the finish!

5) I rode under the name of Victor Lucas (long story) and despite having a shite start which involved running over someone’s head (he did crash right in front of me, and it was a miracle I didn’t go down too) and generally feeling far from the required level of fitness, I somehow managed to claim 21st position in my heat. Looking back on it I just wish I hadn’t been quite so gentlemanly, but saying that there was some definite karma going about cos the one bloke who tried to do a stupid overtake on me had his mech explode no more than 5 metres down the track.

6) After her win in the sprint race on Wednesday Tracy Moseley added to the success by taking the win in qualifying. She said she knew she had to hit the technical stuff in the lead to stand any chance and that’s exactly what she did, although she did also say that she almost died of exhaustion making sure she got there first. She did seem slightly daunted by the prospect of tomorrow after seeing how hard just the qualifying is.

7) The queues for the buses were as bad as ever.

8) The queues for the lifts were as bad as ever

9) The qualifying was as tough as ever

10) The mountain is now littered with broken bikes and bodies

11) And finally the really big news…after a bit of rain today and a bad weather forecast for tomorrow the race organisers are having to consider the unthinkable…the race tomorrow may not start from the top! That means possibly no snow section! We’ll just have to wait and see what happens…

PS: Stop press…there’s some seriously talented British trials rider who’s turned up to race despite not really ever having ridden anything even vaguely like this before, and in qualifying he set off from the back and finished 11th!!! His energy levels seem to have no limit, as soon as he’d finished he spent the rest of the day showing off his skills on his trials bike.

There’s probably a whole load more news, but my body and brain are absolutely hanging so you’ll just have to make do with those snippets for the time being.

Ed.H

Once you’d finished the sprint race you could pop into the Dirt shop and buy a tee for two.

The snowy bit on the qualifying track>

The cattle line up for the qualifying race.

The results are up pretty quick once you hit the bottom, did you make the cut for the main???

Some old zider drinkers from Monmouth somehow made it to the finish of the qualifier.

Check this guy out. Ed reckons he finished 119th out of 200 despite snapping his bars in two right at the start! Unreal.

Stunning scenery from the qualifying track.

Remember the Cow man from last year? (Theres a vid on youtubes, but he ripped it and made the top 100 in the main) Well looks like he’s back.

Chilling out just above the qualli finish.

The all important French buffet

One wave of qualifiers sprints off. Spot the Cow.

Anybody know who this early casualty is?

See, it’s not just the NPS where you’ve got to queue.

Megavalanche News