MTBcut rider Ben Cathro, on the mic and on the bike…

Ben Cathro has written an account of the MTBcut festivities at the first round of the Halo British Downhill Series at Nant Gwrtheyrn. Ben's words, Phunkt's photos, and a great video from Wideopen Magazine:

In a small unit in Peebles, three guys sit in awe staring at some refined pieces of engineering that have just been delivered on a 24 hour overnight courier from Orange bikes. These fine pieces of engineering in question were team MTBcut's prototype 322 race frames and the three people were team riders Ben Cathro, Fraser McGlone and all round sticker making hero Dave Mackison. The first BDS race of the year is in 5 days and we had a hectic week ahead of us.

MTBcut team bikes, the prototype Orange 322

After a hectic few days of gathering our new Dare2b team clothing, building the bikes and traveling South, myself, Fraser and our fellow team MTBcut shredder Joe Barnes met up in the slightly surreal venue of Nant Gwrtheyrn in Wales. Our tidy looking race machines.

In an unexpected bonus Big Dave from Orange decided to rock up with the Orange van and race pit set up so we had the full pro look for the first race of the year.

We all headed up the track on Saturday morning for our first runs on the new bikes and things were pretty interesting. First of all the track was gnarly tech on the top and a real challenge to negotiate. Second of all the new Orange bikes felt mint and we were all fully buzzing as we became accustomed to our new steeds!

Team MTBcut: McGlone, Barnes and Cathro

When it came to race day Fraser was the first to head up for his seeding run and kick off 2011 for the MTBcut team. Unfortunately a rider before him destroyed himself and had to be stretchered off the hill, causing a long delay. With light restrictions looming the event organisers decided to scrap seeding runs and go straight into race runs. After sitting at the top of the track in miserable conditions and struggling to keep warm, Fraser finally got to show the crowd what he was made of and comfortably took the junior win. Thoroughly deserved and definitely a sign of things to come.

Fraser on his way to the win

Things didn't go well in the rest of the camp. I had a horror of a run and trickled across the line in a disappointing 12th position. Nothing that two weeks of hard training and riding in Spain won't cure. It was a miracle Joe was riding at the weekend after walking away from a severe skiing crash a week previously so his 19th position was very respectable.

On the whole, a great weekend. It's now time for cleaning and packing as myself and Fraser jet off for some hard testing on the new bike in Spain. After that we’ve got a week of shooting with Stu and Mono for some new MTBcut vids and then we all head off to South Africa… Plenty of radness on the way!!... Hopefully see you on the hill!!

The MTBcut guys didn’t make it to shoot the events (we’ve got some cool stuff lined up in the next few weeks though). I did manage to hijack the video by Wideopenmag.co.uk though so check this one out!

Thanks to Wideopen for the vid and Keith Valentine of Phunkt for the pictures.

Till next time.