Peaty’s Steel City Mini Downhill - Saturday 21st April 2012

On the 21st April 2012 the 2nd Peaty's Steel City DH went down in Grenoside woods in Sheffield. A charity race held for the benefit of the Sheffield Wildlife Trust who aim to buy Grenoside woods to manage it for the benefit of the wildlife and keep it available for the use of Bikers, Ramblers and Horse Riders.

The race was organised in conjunction with Steve Peat and ThisISheffield.co.uk and run on brand new track developed by Ride Sheffield and built by Bike Track with help from many volunteers. The track forms the initial part of the Wildlife trusts development of mountain bike trails within the woodland. Keep visiting this site as well as our Facebook and Twitter feeds for more information.

Race Info

For a race of its size it attracts more than its fair share of attention, it was attended by 200 riders, having sold out within 3 hours of entries going online. We had well over 500 people in the woods on the day with 300 cars safely parked in Farmer Jacks field. Many thanks to Jack, Anna and Wendy for all their hard on the day and for letting us use the land for car parking. Also, many thanks to most people for not parking in Forestry Commission car park.

The preceding week had been the wettest of the year and the track took a lot of work to get in to a good condition. It held up remarkably well considering the conditions and the pounding it got which is testament to Bike Tracks hard work. Fun to ride, the builders had Steve Peat as a consultant to make sure the most was made out of the available gradient. It proved to be a tricky course to carry speed on and those choosing their pedals strokes wisely and pumping for speed prevailed. There are notable features on the track including the famous bomb hole drop in to the finish arena and a large gap jump at the top. A start ramp kindly provided by Chris Smith of YouScaff made sure all racers had the best chance of clearing this first challenge.

The race itself was again timed by MIJ, the organisers of their own Welsh Series, who made sure everyone's times were accurate so the business of competition was fair, and the course was taped out with Shimano tape from the very generous Madison. Practice started at 9am with riders turning up to register from 7:30 am. Our very kind marshals, without whom we couldn't run a race, were in place from 8:30 am until 4pm and did so out of the kindness of their heart. Many were armed with noise makers to gee up the racers as well as the crowd. A big thank you to all of you.

• Adam Wiles
• Alex Owen
• Daniel Berry
• Denis Cumming
• Emma Peasland
• Helen Norman
• Jody Vallance
• Joe Howard
• Lucy Follett
• Paul Testa
• Rob Jolley
• Sim Hartley
• Steve Mackie

Prizes and Raffles

Our lucky winning racers were rewarded from a prize pile so generous it took us hours to sort through. Our kind sponsors put in their quality products and services to give the hard fort racers their just deserts. We would like to thank all of our sponsors for their generosity and support, you are doing wonderful things for the Sheffield Bike Scene. Please return the favour in any way that you can.

Our amazing winners medals were supplied by the ever creative TADO, possibly the coolest medals received at a race.

Our raffle was equally well supplied with some amazing prizes and we had many lucky winners. The tickets were drawn for the prizes on the day and those winners not there for the draw on the day will be contacted to collect your prize.

	A Nickel Frame worth £ 1400 was given away as a raffle prize
	£300 was donated as a Pro Cash Purse
	Two amazing half price Trail addiction holidays were given away as Raffle prizes
	£300 of Bike Servicing and Muc Off goodies were handed out to winners
	2 BFe frames worth £ 300 each were given away in our raffle
	£300 of Polaris Clothing was given to our Masters winners
	Gave away a free professional Coaching Session
	We had 4 sets of electron lights which were raffled off and cycra guard twin packs were given out as spot prizes
	Were onsite all day fixing bikes and generously gave 2 Full Bike Services and 2 Half Services away in our raffle
	Havoc Carbon bars, Havoc alloy bars and Vice bar were given to our Ladies
	As well as being on site all day keeping racers bikes working they gave a Revolution workstand, an Ogio helmet bag and a Revolution track pump to the Juvenile winners
	Crosstrax awarded Exclusive CGCC Lights, Bottom Brackets and Ceramic Jockey Wheels to our Rippers
	Orange very kindly awarded a Free Respray to our fastest lady on the day who was riding her Five.
	TADO designed and manufactured this years RAD Winners medals!
	A £100 Cash Purse plus exclusive Tees were given to the Vets category
	Shorelines were very generous giving away many sets of Bars, Chainrings as well as Garms to many category winners and for the raffle
	3 pairs of FreeRider Pro Shoes were given to the Senior Winners
	A bag of brilliant Fox Riding Kit was raffled off
	Singletrack came armed with huge amounts of digital and print Magazine Subscriptions to give away to category winners and in the raffle
	Gave us a ton of Evoc goodies to thank our marshals as well as large amounts of E13 drive chain components for our raffle winners
	Were kind enough to give each of our Marshalls a pair of gloves
	Donated a Pair of Maxxis Tyres and Tubes which was a much appreciated raffle prize
	A Scott Helmet and Sunline Bars were awarded as a raffle prize
	Quality DH Tyres and Tubes were given out to our Junior winners with several left over for the raffle
	Monster brought their sound system and gave away Hyper active goodies all day long

On the day

On the day the bomb hole finish arena was alive with spectators and exhibitors alike. Monster were on hand with their big sound system and giving out caffeinated goodness to keep us all dancing. We were fed and watered by Joe and Rachael Berry from Quarter Masters, who were ably assisted by Becky, Bob, Nigel and Claire. Bradfield brewery had their high quality Ale flowing all day and even chucked in the leftovers for the raffle.

All the racers were safe in the knowledge that their well being was in the hand of professionals in the form of Wilkinson St Physio and the Woodhead Mountain Rescue who were both happily underused on the day.

Bikes were kept moving by the kind services of Edinburgh Bike Co-Op and JE James Cycles, both of whom very generously were on hand all day to help out stricken racers. Thank you for your hard work. Also on hand to show off his wares was Cy Turner from Cotic who so generously also supplied us with two BFe frames to give away.

Jon Dallow and Tom Collier were on site even before the organisers and, as they are the hardest working woodsmen in town, helped us out hugely by selling TShirts and Raffle tickets. Massive thanks to them and the Council Parks and Woodlands team and especially Ecclesall woods sawmill. At the top of the hill registration was taken care of with the assistance of Helen and Dave James.

Results

Full results for the race are available on Roots and Rain

You can keep racing all year long using this Strava segment

The Team

This hopefully only leaves thanks for the people that made the race happen. Behind the scenes are a team of hard working lads helping Steve Peat make the Steel City DH happen. We do it for the love of it, not getting paid a penny. If you see one of us, please give us a pat on the back if you had a good day in the woods.

Greno Wood Appeal

The Greno Woodland appeal is an on-going fund raising campaign, where the local community is attempting to raise £1 million to buy the forest back.

This would secure the woodlands use and maintenance for years to come, with Mountain Biking being one of the many activities in mind. All profits from the race will go directly to the Wildlife Trusts appeal.

Please pledge your support at: www.grenowoods.com

Contact

For any further information contact: SteelCitySeries@gmail.com