Innerleithen - E.T.

Hey Everyone,

It’s 10:22 Monday morning as I type this to you from a campground in Scotland. It was a bit of a journey getting here from Germany, but things are good now.

I left Germany around 8:00 A.M. Wednesday morning for Calais, France. Calais pronounced Cal-eh is where the shortest ferry route to England is. It took me roughly 7 hours to reach Calais with less than favorable driving conditions. It rained almost the entire time with a couple periods of rain so hard that some people pulled over to wait it out.



Once at the ferry terminal I went to the ticketing office to buy my pass to England. 166 euros later (Ouch!) and I was good to go, or so I thought…

American kid with a big German rental van traveling to the UK for a couple weeks alone. They probably don’t see that too often. They had a look inside the van and sent me to the heavier duty passport control where you fill out paperwork and answer questions. The officer was friendly and after hearing my story, stamped my passport, and wished me luck in Scotland.

After customs you then go through one more checkpoint where they confirm your tickets and tell you where to go. Since I had been held up in customs I missed my sitting and was moved to the next one which left in 55 minutes. Not a big deal, just more waiting.



40 minutes before departure they began boarding. Once on board and parked you are instructed to head up into the passengers lounge. Most if not all passengers seemed to be your typical tourist with backpacks, shopping bags, and matching “Europe Un-leashed 2010” t-shirts. I couldn’t help but laugh a little inside.

Once in England I was a bit nervous for the whole driving on the other side of the road thing. I just kept reminding myself that I needed to drive ass-backwards to what I was used too. I settled into things pretty quickly and continued the drive towards Scotland. I decided to skip a stop in London since it would be ridiculous driving a massive van around and would most likely end up quite expensive.

A couple hours into England and it was time to search for gas. I decided to try the GPS out and searched for the nearest gas. After taking me through some of the tightest roads in a tiny English town for fifteen minutes it led me to a non-existent gas station. Thanks GPS! I went into a local store and asked where to find gas or camping. No camping and the closest gas station was closed. I decided to head back to the freeway and push on towards Scotland. I could find some gas along the way. By this time the sun was getting low in the sky and thanks to the GPS it took me down a crazy narrow back road to get back to the freeway. Out in the middle of nowhere I found a nice turnout to camp for the night.



The next day I decided to F-off the GPS and back tracked towards the town to ask directions. Finally got a full tank and back onto the freeway to Scotland. Six hours later and I was in Innerleithen, Scotland (the site of the IXS European Cup).

The race organizers where very helpful and pointed me in the right direction for on-site racer camping. Basically set up a hundred meters from the finish line. I walked the track and was surprised to see lots of loose powdery dirt and rock. I thought this was Scotland?

Apparently it is an all new track built primarily in the dense woods. The woods here are all man made and very tight. According to one of the course workers, after World War II the Scottish government paid people to plant trees to create jobs. Plant they did, and thanks to how close they planted them, the course was dry and dusty.

Registration and practice started Friday. I paid the whopping 75 pounds ($100+ U.S. dollars) for on site entry and got ready for practice. Practice went from 2:00 til 6:00 but with so many riders and a slow uplift I got 3 runs in this amount of time.

I had a blast on the course. The dry dusty dirt made me feel like I was riding in Northstar. Unfortunately Scotland usually can’t stay dry for much more than a day and it would rain on us the next day for qualifiers.

My qualifying run was quite slow. For some reason I struggled to pin it like I had in practice. I managed a 28th place qualifier out of almost 200 elite riders. The night before the finals it rained hard transforming the course into a mixture of slippery roots and open sections with still dry and dusty woods sections. Tire choice was a gamble for these conditions. I decided to change from dry tires to cut down spikes, but had no idea if this was a good decision. The weather was flip-flopping back and forth.



Unlike my qualifier, I pinned it in my race run. Despite the slower conditions I pushed it hard. About 2/3 of the way down the track there was a loose and rocky left hander in tight woods that I railed, but maybe too hard…I came out of it still turning left off the main line with lots of speed. Unable to slow down enough to get back on line I smashed a tree head on coming to a complete stop. I got back into my run as quickly as possible. My visor was pushed down blocking some of my vision, my front brake lever down and to the grip, and my number plate dangled off the side of my bike with one remaining zip-tie. I finished my run as best as possible, but bummed that I couldn't stay clean.

I later checked the results to see that in worse conditions with a head on collision I had gone a second faster than my qualifier and ended up 25th on the weekend. Not bad, but I felt like a top 20 was in the books and maybe with a strike of luck a top 10. One thing I’ve learned this weekend is to not hit trees. They will only slow you down and keep you from performing!

Next weekend is the World Cup in Fort William. I am excited to see how I will do on such a rough and long track. Wireless internet is a bit patchy here in Scotland, but I will try to keep you guys updated as the week goes on.

Cheers,

Evan