Tredz Downtown Race, Penarth, Wales

Can we just start off by saying, to all the people (and you know who you are) who were moaning about the course this weekend, look, only criticise if you can do better, you didn’t look as though you would be able to so next time, think before you speak!

This weekend’s memories however, will be something that remains with us for a while to come! Saturday afternoon, filled up and set off on the 150 mile road trip.

As we pulled into Penarth on the Saturday evening, we found a small seaside town that really didn’t let on that it was about to be invaded by nearly 350 riders and x amount of spectators. We drove around for a bit and were stumped as there was no sign of the race! Oops. Were we in the right town?!

We eventually spotted some lads pushing some bikes up the hill, so we pulled over and were directed towards a small turning we had previously passed, hidden away in the overgrown hedge. As we pulled into the car park it suddenly all fell into place; a few team vans parked up, a few people adjusting their bikes and such like.

This was completely new to us so we didn’t know the exact format. Anyway, we wondered into an office where there was the rider registration desk, you could feel the Sarruma Team relax once we saw Adams name on the racing list! So we were definitely in the right place then... We met the event organiser, he was understandably stressed but very welcoming and assured us this was going to be a great weekend. He had certainly got his weather booking in early, it was absolutely beautiful all weekend; blue skies, sun and a light breeze. Things were shaping up! After a walk around checking out the track, we parked out of town near a lake and wandered to the local, knowing full well that we had nowhere to sleep.

We had a great night out Penarth, in spite of the fact that most of the locals were watching the Rugby World Cup Final, and were cheering for South Africa. But, we kept our heads down and everything turned out alright! After a small trek back to the cars, we figured it was best just to use the dashboard as a pillow insted of mucking around with tents in the dark while pissed.

So to race day, a few people fell out of their cars at 7am and thanks to Ben's ingenious invention of 'Instant Daylight' we managed to get Medley and more importantly, Gracey up before 2pm!

We got to the top of the track and there was a sea of riders all lined up with some seriously cool kit. But, having walked the track was this really going to be required? Ben and Rob ventured off to walk the course to see what had changed since the following evening, and quite a lot had! A race cordon had been placed along the track giving a very pro look to the whole affair and as we made our way down to the bottom, the car jump we had been told about was just being assembled...This was not a technical jump as such but it was just a little daunting, considering this was Adam's first race.

As we made our way back up the hill to the start line, we showed Adam photos of the jump; it didn’t phase him at all. "I've done bigger" he confidently said. So it comes to Adam's first practise run, we follow him down and meet him at the bottom, "did you do the jump!?" someone shouts in anticipation, "No!" Adam replies, oh, "why not?" He points to the jump and the poor guy that is lying in front of it being tended to by Paramedics. There was a rider from the Elite class who had cleared the jump (quite considerably! ) on his first attempt and broke both of his arms! So that was the end of the jump, they closed it off, plonked a camera man on top and the truck that was placed in the middle became an expensive piece of scaffolding! This led to a bit of chaos for a while and the timed practise sessions kind of went out the window, but in some respects this was a good thing as riders could just have as many goes as they wished until the seeding runs started early afternoon.

Adam got into the swing of things and by midday was hurtling down the course showing off the Sarruma brand to the world. It came to Adam's race run and he put in a very respectable 1:32. The best time of the day was a 1:20, after that, the average times were about 1:30 so well done to Adam, he did us proud.

It was an all round great weekend; a road trip is just what you need sometimes! Check out some photos here...

Next stop is the Dirt Jam at Chicksands, Beds. Hopefully see you there!

The Sarruma Team