Remember seeing Louise riding some of the steepest parts of the Naughty Northumbrian a few years ago and the group I was riding with all said at the time she was absolutely f****n rapid. If anyone hasn't seen the latest and is planning on watching it live the race is now starting at 9am instead of 2.30pm due to the weather forecast
Absolutely superb! I assume she’ll get the same prize money as the men if she does it again tomorrow?
Her reaction on Warners track walk video after clearing the huge jumps for the first time is eye opening. Seeing how stoked she was and how challenging they clearly were, to then do it as part of a full run is amazing.
Gnarly!
What time will Lou's run be today? I might try and watch it with my daughters
It's great to see that progression in the ladies ranks. There's a piece on the BBC sport site interviewing Tahnee about the recruitment of female riders for this year's event.
She looked really composed on all the massive stuff, and Matt Jones crashing after showed just how slick it all was.
Excellent run yesterday and a really mature run today. The most important thing was to finish today.
Superb stuff
Sounds like timings made it a really tight window for women to clock a full run. It was a good Hardline. RW's track walk gives a proper view of the scale of the course, even with his usual superlatives.
Anyone know what happened with Brendan Fairclough's DNS?
Sounds like timings made it a really tight window for women to clock a full run. It was a good Hardline. RW's track walk gives a proper view of the scale of the course, even with his usual superlatives.
Anyone know what happened with Brendan Fairclough's DNS?
Word on the street was that he disagreed with the judging 😶
[think he had some kind of family emergency]
Absolutely incredible. So hard to comprehend dropping in to more or less any feature on that course.
Mad respect. 👏
I think my favourite bit is how much harder her run makes it look, if that makes any sense? The guys don't make it look easy, exactly, but they do make a bunch of the track look basically straightforward for them, even when it's not. But on her full run it really drives home just how horrible pretty much the entire bloody thing is. (this year's drone footage has helped a lot with that too, I think more bits that look like "just riding along the track" from a trackside or onboard cam, are really obviously steep as all hell, drops and tech bits that more or less got skipped past seem to be getting more attention?)
It reminds me a bit of the first time I ever raced at fort william... The night before I sat down with some race footage to try and learn some lines and it was the first time i ever realised the pros just don't ride the same track as I do, I'm "how do I deal with this super awkward rock" and they're like "have you considered taking off 20 feet earlier and just flying over it?" As the skill level goes up so it also gets harder to really understand what the skill level even is, the nearly impossible becomes everyday so fast.
I think my favourite bit is how much harder her run makes it look, if that makes any sense? The guys don't make it look easy, exactly, but they do make a bunch of the track look basically straightforward for them, even when it's not. But on her full run it really drives home just how horrible pretty much the entire bloody thing is. (this year's drone footage has helped a lot with that too, I think more bits that look like "just riding along the track" from a trackside or onboard cam, are really obviously steep as all hell, drops and tech bits that more or less got skipped past seem to be getting more attention?)
It reminds me a bit of the first time I ever raced at fort william... The night before I sat down with some race footage to try and learn some lines and it was the first time i ever realised the pros just don't ride the same track as I do, I'm "how do I deal with this super awkward rock" and they're like "have you considered taking off 20 feet earlier and just flying over it?" As the skill level goes up so it also gets harder to really understand what the skill level even is, the nearly impossible becomes everyday so fast.
We had that there with Hatton, it's a tight left handed, into a drop
"Oh we land between them 2 ricks down there"
"What, them all the way over there???"
"Oh no, the next one "
Faceplant
Funny part is, the boy is now landing on them 2 lol.
It's when the pros are planning on landing on the backside of some super technical feature to pump out of it for extra speed that makes me realise that I'm never going to be close to their level.
Hardline is on normal telly now. S4C Welsh channel. BK's run on at the mo. Nice Welsh commentary for those who find Warner a bit too much 😉
