Hot news from Saturday at Ae Forest NPS round 1.

The hot news from the seeding run today was that there was no seeding run.

Word on the hill was that a local farmer had locked the forest gates meaning a 2 hour delay in practise, while the farmer and his keys were tracked down. The decision was then taken to knock seeding on the head and allow practise to go on all day.

A random collage from Saturday at Ae Forest.

So who’s here?

In pit row we had the Athertons, Fairclough, Reid, Moseley, Donoghue, Gaskell, Mark Beaumont and of course Ralph “wreckin ball” Jones all looking fast despite the quagmire conditions.

The weather.

All you need to know was that it pretty much pissed it down most of the day leaving the going soft-to-boggy (horse racing terminology). However the rain did ease up in the afternoon meaning the going turned to soft-to-sticky, if the rain holds off for tomorrow as forecasted by the men in suits we can expect good-to-firm conditions making for a cracking days racing.

The track.

A couple of fresh sections had been cut in to the track, which included some off camber boggy top bits, followed by some off camber boggy bottom bits. In short the rain made it a beast of a track to tame. A lot of riders were coming to grief on the off camber rooty sections with spikes seeming to be the tyre of the day. (See previous not about conditions.)

Anything goes in the Atherton pit box

The look of the day modeled by Ralphdog.

The Empire strikes back and gets muddy…

…as does the Millyard.

Millyard hardtail.

The new Astrix (British version) complete with Stoy shock.

No wonder there’s a fuel shortage in Scotland with trucks like this running around. Monster energy drinks have landed in the UK. Expect a sticky sweet hyper active summer.

Can we expect a dust bowl tomorrow? Oh please God…say yes.

Who will cross the finish line first tomorrow? Stay tuned for the results.

NPS seeding results