Drama Down Under

The circus of the Mountain Bike World Cup headed to Australia this weekend, to Cairns after a gap that has actually been 18 years, not whatever I mistakenly said last week.

I did not get up at 5AM to watch it but did watch the downhill final rerun on demand still pretty early in the morning on Saturday. The rain had made the track a real mess and the riders faced a tough descent in gloopy mud that would decide the result. In the women's race the competition was dominated again by the British duo of Atherton and Carpenter. Manon put in the only time to come anywhere near Rachel's power, really underlining that the entire series, and perhaps the entire sport is really all about these two riders. Noone else is even coming close these days.

The men's race offers more potential surprises and more riders knocking on the door of the top few. Mick Hannah and Sam Hill were looking to put something together on home turf, but neither could really make a huge impact. Extra interest came as reports of a spectator taking a crashed rider's bike down the track resulted in him crashing without a helmet. The delay kept half the field waiting for a good fifteen minutes and an on-track red flag meant that Steve Peat had to re-run his race. It did Peat no harm and he hit the big rock section better second time around to finish a solid 7th. That was an improvement on the last time he raced here, as one of only two riders in the top 30 who had been racing the last time the World Cup visited Cairns.

Perhaps the mud suited Brits well, or perhaps it just shows the potential out there but Josh Bryceland finally delivered on the promise he's shown in recent races and smashed to second, only beaten by a storming Gee Atherton giving an Atherton double and the top two podium spots in both races occupied by British riders. Aaron Gwin scored a solid 4th keeping him in the lead overall and showing he isn't repeating last season's terrible form.

The season is looking interesting as several riders can really challenge for the win. Next up is Fort William where the Athertons will be looking for another double and Sam Smith will be likely to return form injury to try to rebuild his season and see if he can get close to defending his championship win from last year.

Elsewhere there was news of pretty stupid thieves who managed to ring up the person they had stolen an electric bike from to get a charger. I'm definitely not a fan of thieves, but they could at least do their victims the courtey of not being totally dense.

Finally you might enjoy some wall-ride action:

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