First day of the Mountain Bike World Cup 2008

June 7, 2008 on 12:26 pm | In Mountain Biking |

We headed up to Fort William on Wednesday to get ready for the 7th Mountain Bike World Cup to be held in the area. With the stand ready and looking gorgeous the first day of the MBWC saw fantastic sushine, enthusiastic crowds and a suberb 4 Cross event.

The day started looking overcast but cleared up and not a hint of rain was seen. In fact the course had to be sprayed with water as it was so dry! It was a relatively steady day with lots of people coming along to try out the trials area run by Cycle Wild Scotland.

At lunchtime I took a trip in the gondola to see the downhill track from the top. The journey up was amazing with some stunning scenery, I would recommend a trip up to take in the views of the area. The event today was the 4 Cross (4X) with the final being held at 19:30. By this time there was quite a crowd forming and the cow bells cetainly added to the atmospere.

It was an exciting race with some big names going out early on. There was also a spectacuar crash between Johannes Fischbach and Cedric Garcia. The finals were eventually won by Jared Graves (Australia) and Jana Horakova (Czech Republic). Fionn Griffiths was the highest placed home rider in the ladies event, coming 9th.

Gillian Thompson
http://www.visitscotland.com/adventure
Works with adventure sports in Scotland and has a keen interest in keeping fit and walking and a new passion for surfing.