Peaty 4th in Vigo Downhill, Beaumont wins!

Marc Beaumont, MBUK Santa Cruz rider, wins his first UCI World Cup Downhill in Vigo, Spain today. Santa Cruz Syndicate's Steve Peat squeaks onto the podium with the rapidly changing conditions coming in 4th position. David Vazquez from Spain thrilled the home crowd with his outstanding 2nd place performance, followed by Greg Minnaar, Peat, and Sam Hill. Weather ruled this race, and the rain that was forecast during the week actually arrived, with bits of sun one moment, to hail, to sun to rain, to more rain, then sun. In yesterday's qualifier, today's winner, Marc Beaumont suffered a crash and just made it into the show qualifying in 75th position. Starting his race about 1:00 pm today, he had the best of the days changing conditions and sat in the hotseat until the end. He says, "I was 75th yesterday and I was in no fit state to race today with my shoulder and knee. I just rode solid and risked nothing. Still I have a hard time realizing that I won, it is taking some time for it to sink in." Syndicate mechanics, Doug Hatfield and Rick Clarkson had their work cut out for them. With dry and wet condition tires set up, they were at the top of the hill changing wheels back and forth as the conditions changed. "We set up for wet, then dry, then changed back to wet, then dry, and the race started up wet, and it ended dry," said Doug and Rick. In the end, Peat was happy that his run ended in a podium because he did not think it was close. He made two mistakes on the top, which made it hard to carry speed where you needed to. "I lost time on the bottom by messing up corners that were crucial to carrying speed. I didn't expect to be on the podium with the run I did, and only off by 2 seconds in those conditions wasn't too bad," said Peat. Nathan Rennie had a dismal result on a dismal day, sorry to say, finishing in 26th position with a time of 2:46.77, 9.56 seconds back of the winner. Of his run Rennie said, “I slid out in the corner before the wooden bridge, then went to pedal, sliding my rear wheel off the bridge. With no speed to make the next jump I had to ride through the creek. Not a good day.” In the end, Peat enjoyed spraying his former protégée, Beaumont, with a huge dose of champagne, duly earned, with a sense of pride. The proud Peat has a new subject to bring up and that is Josh Bryceland who competed in his first World Cup today. Another victim of the rain, the first 20 seconds of his race was drying and then it started to piss down. Even still, he pulled off a 29th place finish with a time of 2:47.23. Next for the Santa Cruz Syndicate riders is Lisbon Downtown next weekend, and we are hoping for pleasant weather! www.santacruzbicycles.com