Your New British National Champions: Peat and Bryceland!!

Santa Cruz Syndicate's Steve Peat and Josh Bryceland are your newly crowned British National Champions in Elite and Junior men. This makes the entire Syndicate downhill squad national champions of their respective countries; Nathan Rennie Australian National Champ, and Greg Minnaar South African National Champ, and now the two British titles. Race Recap courtesy of James Smith (www.fatTyre.co.uk): "The British National Championships is always an event to look forward to, and with a packed Elite field it was guaranteed to provide thrills and spills over the whole weekend. It started out pretty wet during Saturday practise with puddles on the track and the big off grassy corners at the bottom soon turning slick as ice. As Saturday went on the course dried up and by qualifying time there was even dust in the forest. Josh qualified 2nd in Junior with Emyr Davies (Santa Cruz/Reverse) ahead by 0.195 of a second. Gee Atherton put in a solid run in Elite to qualify 1st ahead of Steve by nearly 6 seconds with Marc Beaumont and Neil Donoghue in 3rd and 4th. Track description: The track at Bala is incredibly varied, with flat out top speed on the Top sections before being spat into the huge berms made famous by the Athertons in Earthed and many other films, once you're clear its flat out again until you enter the woods, slam on the anchors to make the right hand berm which was badly washed out by final run time, Rachel Atherton had a massive crash here straight into the tree on the exit of the berm and had to be stretchered off the course but was in the pits at the end so hopefully no major injuries there. The course quickly drops into the really technical mid section, with over 5 different major lines through this section its how downhill courses should be. After a short fireroad sprint you fly through the final wooded section to be spat out into the field and round the sweeping grassy corners until you cross the road bridge built specially for the Champs and sprint across the finish line. In the end it was Josh who would take the win in Junior, (with a time that would have placed him 2nd in Elite men), 5 seconds ahead of Sam Dale (Cannondale) and Joseph Smith (Tomac), fastest qualifier Emyr Davies had a crash in the last field which put him down in 42nd. In the Elites it was right down to the last man. Matt Simmonds put Together a fast run to stay on the hotseat for a while, until team mate Ruaridh came down 0.3 of a second faster, who was quickly dispatched by Neil Donoghue and him by team mate Marc Beaumont. Steve Peat then came through the split 4 seconds faster and the crowds were waiting with baited breath for him to emerge from the woods into the field and when he eventually crossed the line 4.5s faster it looked like it was his. The only man who could take away that title could be Gee Atherton, sound familiar to anyone? A certain World Champs race, perhaps? It seemed like an age until Gee crossed the split time beam, a full 2 seconds faster than Steve. Perhaps it was going to happen all over again. Gee dropped out of the final woods into the field and lost it on the now very rough corners to the disbelief of everyone watching. Steve Peat had won!" Results Elite Men 1 PEAT Steve Santa Cruz Syndicate 2:50.677 2 BEAUMONT Marc Team Bike Radar +4.548 3 DONOGHUE Neil Team Bike Radar +6.094 4 CUNNINGHAM Ruaridh Chain Reaction Cycles/Intense +7.153 5 SIMMONDS Matt Chain Reaction Cycles/Intense +7.494 6 DEACON Tom Ancillotti UK +7.805 7 SMITH Robert Santa Cruz/Reverse Components +9.040 8 BARNES Joe MTBcut.tv/Orange +9.114 9 JONES Ralph Dirt Magazine +9.369 10 CRITCHLOW Dan Chain Reaction Cycles/Intense +9.982 Junior Men 1 BRYCELAND Josh Santa Cruz Syndicate 2:54.016 2 DALE Sam Cannondale Factory Racing +5.958 3 SMITH Joseph Tomac Factory Racing +6.046 4 MALLER Ashley Knox +7.542 5 HART Danny Lapierre/Saab Soloman +8.124 6 BREWIN Gareth Descent-Gear/Santa Cruz +9.951 7 EATH Harry Derry Air Cycles/Morewood +12.189 8 WILLIAMS Marcus K-9 Industries +12.984 9 SCOTT James CycleJersey +13.502 10 KERR Bernard Marzocchi/Millyard Racing +14.623 Photos by: James Smith www.fatTyre.co.uk and Will Longden www.santacruzmtb.com