Gore Bike Wear TransWales
Day Two: ‘Shake, Rattle, & Roll’
Matt Skinner/Transwales / 15.08.2011
<b>Linking stage Two (including Special Stage Two)
Knighton to Clun
Total distance: 76km
Climbing: 2300m</b>
Day two of the Gore Bike Wear TransWales, powered by Mercedes-Benz Vito Sport got underway under sunny skies as the riders saddled up for the second longest day of the event. It may have been long, but it was also high quality: with varied riding, stunning vistas, and high octane racing on the second special stage, The second day of the race had it all. Oh, and some sunshine, too. Lots of it!
Heading from Knighton, the trail climbed almost immediately through woodland before winching up Stow Hill at 424m, and into after almost 20km Bucknell Wood; here the riders hit the second special stage.
Initially billed as a 5km trail loop, the special stage length was put on a Slim-Fast diet and reduced to 2km for safety concerns on the bottom section of the full descent where several huge kickers could spit the unwary into the stratosphere. Instead, the special stage loosed the riders directly into some beautifully rooty and pumpy singletrack, before a berm spat them into a sequence of rollable double jumps prior to a big drop in.
After the warp speed accrued off the drop railed you round a big berm, a sequence of table tops segued into some tight switchbacks that delivered the riders back into the trees for the final section of the descent. This included a left hand bend which dropped through a tangle of roots that only the fastest and most alert riders cleaned without dabbing or wiping out.
A couple of rutted corners then dropped the riders onto the beginning of the fire road climb at speed. A big ring effort saw the riders tackle the worst of the hill mid-way, before the gradient eased a little for a sprint to the finish line. All in all, it was a varied and rewarding special stage that fully tested bike handling skills and fitness; to win here, riders had to be strong in both.
In the end, the racing was close and well-fought, with many categories seeing fresh faces climb onto the podium. Chief of which was Nepal’s Ajay Chhatri (Torq) in the Schwalbe Tyres Male Solo category. The two-time Yak Attack winner stormed the special stage in 4mins 58secs to be in a class all of his own as the only rider to go sub-five minutes. Close on his heels just 6 secs adrift was Matt Williams (Unattached) in second, with Matt Page (Wiggle) just pushed back into third by the matter of mere hundreths. Page admitted presciently before the results were announced that “the special stage was alright: I wasn’t quickest but I think it was close.� In hindsight, he could’ve written the script.
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