Race Report: Northern Downhill at Chopwell Woods

It was a couple of weekends ago in a small corner of the north east and only a few miles from Newcastle and Gateshead, the Northern Downhill (NDH) kicked off their 2024 race season with an epic little enduro. The Chopwell Funduro is a race aimed at the more novice of riders and racers, but as usual, it attracted many of the local fast lads to keep their winter training tuned into racing.


Chopwell woods is approximately 360 Hectares with a mix of red/black official trail centre MTB trails and a plethora of natural trails. Obviously for racing, NDH is only permitted to utilise the official trails for the race. It provides the perfect location to host their so called "Funduro".


The race itself consisted of 6 timed stages, or 3 stages each ridden twice. Stages 1 and 2 provided a great warm up, nothing overly technical, but some great berms, tabletop jumps and small drops. It was quite a hard on the pedals 2 stages as there was not only downhill sprints, but also a few uphill lung busters. Stage 3 (and 6) was the Chopwell black, recently worked on by some of the dedicated locals and NDH team, was the stage that everyone went home talking about. Stage 3 was far more natural, with an off piste feel to it. Loam and mud created a much more demanding and technical stage. This stage is where the race was won or lost.



The format of the day was a couple of hours practice in the morning, not at all hard to give each stage a practice more than once if you fancied. Then straight after lunch it was racing the stages in order twice. No huge transitions, it was all in a quite compact area of the forest.


The fastest overall rider of the day was Pete Thompson (30-39) in a time of 10:25.749, a cracking race but certainly not taking the fastest times on every stage. Close on his heels was Dan Farrer (40-49) just 1.968 seconds behind, then this is where the debate starts. The third and fourth fastest racers of the day were Tom Whipham and Phil Grimes putting in superb races on ebikes. Where results go, should ebikes have an entirely separate overall on the likes of roots and rain? Anyway, this argument is for a different day, but the third fastest non ebike overall went to Zac Robson (30-39) just 18.09 seconds behind the lead. This was some great and tight racing for the top fastest of the day. For a complete run down of the race results and photos head over to roots and rain.


For the women, only 5 competed on the day, well short of the usual 8-10% of racers being women. Katie Melville was the fastest of the day in a comfortable 12:57.320 and no stranger to the podium with regular wins in both downhill racing and enduro. Suzanne Fox was second fastest woman in 13:19.304 with Aspen Matthews 14:37.880.


Next up for the Northern Downhill is the amazing Hamsterley TT, racing on one of the Norths best set of 3 trails linked together. For more information on this head over to their Facebook or the events page here. The Northern Downhill are superb races and suitable for all levels of racers, of course some of their rounds will push you technically, for example the Hamsterley Descendant. The TT races are always a great starting point too with very variable courses. 2024 is certainly the right time to give Northern Downhill races a try.

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