Royal Romps to Victory in the RAF Downhill Mountain Bike Championships

 Glen Preece romped to victory at the RAF Downhill Mountain Bike Championships on 9 October 2009, which took place on the Longmoor Training Area in Hampshire.

Against what the forecast had predicted, it was a bright and sunny morning with clear blue skies, which made for a perfect start to the Champs.  On arrival at Longmoor, greetings took place between riders whilst bikes and kit were prepped ready for the days racing.  Once all the riders were present a short brief was given from the event organiser, Flighing Officer Jon Gates RAF, explaining the day’s proceedings.  Following this, riders disappeared off to walk and study the course, choosing lines and figuring out what would be the fastest method of getting down the hill.  Compared to today’s National Downhill Series the course was fairly tame, with the most challenging section being a jump into a section of loose rocks near the bottom of the run, obviously designed to test the rider’s skills and unnerve the faint hearted!  The top half of the course used part of the cross country route, which was quite flat, therefore to keep best speed riders required a good level of fitness in order to pedal hard until they reached the more technical sections of the course.  Regardless, the course suited all levels of ability, making even grounds for the mixed skill-level of the riders taking part.

As practice kicked off, riders pushed themselves to their limits and it was soon realised just how much energy the top section of the track used!  As predicted the bottom section of the track with the loose rock garden claimed a couple of casualties, leaving one rider with a dislocated shoulder…  It was soon realised with the nature of the course being so flat that a full-on downhill style of mountain bike was not the key to success.  The ideal bike was going to be a full suspension cross country style of bike in order to gain a few seconds through the flatter parts of the course.

There were to be three timed runs for each rider: Rounds 1, 2 and 3.  The fastest single time out of all the runs counted towards a rider’s final position.  This enabled riders the chance to try to close the gap between their time and the time of the fastest rider of the previous round.  The first riders to have their race run proceeded to the top of the hill whilst the remaining riders took turns in marshalling the course.  As the riders came through the finish line it proved to be a tight race with Round 1’s first and second place being split by only one second!  Round 2 was a similar story with most riders shaving a couple of seconds off their previous time, leaving first place still up for grabs.  The final round was seeded, leaving the fastest rider of the day so far (Glen Preece) to hit the course last.  In his final run, Glen managed to shave seven seconds off from his previous times, giving him the overall win with a time of 1 minute 48 seconds; 6 seconds quicker than second place’s time of 1 minute 54 seconds.

The event proved to be a success with most riders feeling more confident in their mountain biking skills and eager to take part and represent their Service in any future Combined Services Races.