Orange Mountain Bikes: UCI Mountain Bike World Cup 2005

Peaty off to a flying start... Round 1, #1

Steve Peat had a great week-end in Vigo (well mostly...) Photographer Victor Lucas reports that Steve won the downhill and was second in the 4X. Here's what Victor says:

"It was a pretty good weekend for Steve at the first round of the UCI World Cup in Vigo, Northern Spain. With the race site just a few minutes from downtown Vigo, huge numbers of race fans turned out on both days to watch the action and cheer the riders on.

On Saturday, even though Steve says he only races 4X for fun, he pulled off some smart moves to take 2nd place, behind Michal Prokop. The course had a few flat corners that perhaps suited Steve's downhill skills.

After 2 days of dry weather, Sunday morning brought heavy rain showers and the organisers decided to take out one of the most difficult parts of the course - a steep rock slab that was challenging enough in the dry and would surely have caused problems for many riders. In qualifying, Steve's time placed him to be the last rider to start in the final. Tension mounted as the last few racers came through the finish and the times got quicker by fractions of a second. Sam Hill edged ahead of Mick Hannah by just 0.01 of a second, only to be pushed out of the hot seat by Greg Minnaar with a 2.6sec lead. But Steve charged through the gate to win with a time of 2min 25sec, putting him almost 3 seconds clear of Greg's time."

1	Steve Peat, Team Orange	2:25.791
2	Greg Minnaar, Team G Cross Honda	2:28.668
3	Sam Hill, Iron Horse Mad Catz	2:30.387
4	Mick Hannah, Haro Bikes	2:30:398
5	Nathan Rennie, Santa Cruz Syndicate	2:33.184
6	Fabien Barel, Kona Les Gets	2:33.212
7	Matti Lehikoinen, Team G Cross Honda	2:33.492
8	Mickael Pascal, Maxxis-MSC	2:34.580
9	Gee Atherton, Animal Giant	2:35.132
10	Bryn Atkinson, GT Hyundai	2:35.649

The UCI web site has full details and you can check the overall standings there too.

We'll bring you more details as soon as we have them in the meantime, Victor sent a few shots from the event...

Vigo Photos [Click Thumbnail for larger image]

Through the wood...	...over the jump...	...ripping the track...	...to end up on the podium. Nice one, Steve!
These exclusive images are courtesy of (and copyright of) Victor Lucas, www.freezefocus.com.

Unfortunately that wasn't the end of the proceedings from the week-end. Some of you may have heard that Steve was arrersted in a case of mistaken identity, taking the shine off the event somewhat.

We just spoke with Peaty. He has only just phoned because he's been in prison since Sunday evening.

Apparently there was some of the crowd who got inebriated during the after race celebration party and ripped up some 'plants'. Four people were arrested including Steve who had already left the party before the incident had occurred. All four people had not been involved.

As you can imagine, after been 'banged up' from Sunday until an hour ago (midday Tuesday), he is a little upset. What aggravates him more than anything else though is the way the Spanish media, both mainstream TV and newspaper press, immediately jumped on the bandwagon making it headline news. This has meant that Steve, who was due to travel back to the UK today, has had to delay his departure for another press conference due to take place in the next hour, where Steve, plus the WC Event organisers, will 'put the record straight' and explain to the media his innocence.

There are some who believe it was some sort of payback for the way that he humiliated the rest of the Downhill competitors by winning the event by nearly 3 seconds (2.86 secs) on a relatively short 2min 25secs course. Infact it was only ex Orange rider, Greg Minnaar, who managed to get within 3 secs, 3rd place Sam Hill and the rest of the field were well over 4 seconds down.

Steve credits the speed difference to the performance of his new bike which he calls 'Sweet'. The bike, coded 'GBR 224', although not too cosmetically different to his '223' of 2004, is substantially different to the trained eye. The subtle differences of the 'Compact Concept' frame introduced by design guru, Steve Wade, have made significant performance gains. Increased lateral rigidity on an even lighter chassis, (where Orange were already credited in making the lightest performance Downhill frames), more active suspension, less pedal kickback, shorter swingarm whilst retaining the same chainstay length, are just of the attributes that lead Peaty to rave "Super smooth... soaks up the rough stuff better than any bike I've ridden".

Peaty topped off a fantastic start to the World Cup season, from a riding point of view that is, by taking his Ms Isle to silver medal in the 4X competition.

All in all a very eventful start to his 2005 campaign.

PS: There is no truth in the rumour that Steve's new 2005 strip is being changed to white with black arrows. At least for the moment.

There was also a press conference held to clear up this misunderstanding.

Steve Peat's Statement:

"I haven't done anything, it was horrible being in the cells without anyone telling me what was happening. I haven't done anything. It was the other people in the street that caused the damage. I didn't see anything. Now I'm free. I apologise, and feel bad for the mountain bike organization because this is not the image we want to project of mountain biking."

With these words Steve Peat summed up his experience in a press conference, having spent 2 days in the cells. On leaving the court house he clarified, and assured that the vandals were 'Spanish'. He also criticized how cold it was in the cells, and the lack of information that he suffered due to the absence of any interpreters. However, the police did put at his disposition an English speaking policeman and a visit by the British Consulate.

Lets hope the matter is now put behind us and move onto the rest of the season.