The sun came out after lunch on Friday and the top riders were straight up the hill for their timed practice runs. With strong winds forecast for Saturday, there is a chance (and we’ll know at 11am) that qualification will be postponed until Sunday morning, so riders were taking every chance they could get, with some riders going non-stop to get their lines right on the rapidly changing course.
Manon launches into the sunshineElite rider practice was blessed with good weatherBrendog looking fast on Bangers BermSam Dale on the fast upper bit of the course
We’ve made a gallery of some of Chipps’ shots from timed practice, so if you can’t be here at Fort William, you can see some of the riders and bikes that are being thrown down the mountain (sometimes quite literally).
Fastest in timed practice was Troy Brosnan
The course seemed to have a new hole with every run
Here’s Brook MacDonald rocking the ‘jacket and long pants’ look for the chilly weather on the mountain
We spotted the Nicolai belt-drive gearbox bike being put down the mountain several times
Bikes were all very quiet on the softer than normal surface. Especially the belt drives
Gusty winds made any ariel manoeuvres a risky job
Manon probably put in more runs than anyone else we saw
Manon’s not shy about her World Champs jersey, it was just blimmin’ cold
The iconic eye-shaped start hut
Many riders ran homemade peak extensions to keep the mud out
Elite rider practice was blessed with good weather
If you’re Rat Boy, you manual these bits…
Minnaar put in a few good runs
Brendog! Tell us it ain’t so!
Neeee-ooooooowwww! Brendog at full speed
Crowd favourite, Steve Behr roosting the boardwalk
Think this is Tahnee Seagrave looking bright and speedy
With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)
