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BBC News
6 days ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Mountain bikers bid to conquer 'deepest, darkest Wales'
Gee Atherton attributes Wales' landscape as the most "impressive and intimidating" for building the Worlds hardest downhill racing track.A former World mountain bike downhill champion, Atherton is co-founder of Hardline – widely regarded as the hardest mountain bike race in the Hardline returns to the Dyfi Valley in mid Wales for its eleventh year on 26 JulyThe event see's the top female and male riders from around the world battle it out over two days to become the Hardline year Irish World Cup racer Ronan Dunne took the win and will be looking to defend his victory again this with his brother Dan, Gee Atherton designs and builds the track each year and also participates in the race, which he won in 2018 after a few unlucky years of mechanical faults on the track, had prevented him from finishing the race. "Every year I would be there and I would be close and either mechanicals or crashes or injuries," Gee Atherton said."I realised I was almost pushing too hard and I wanted this win too much and I almost had to kind of step back and calm myself down and think about it slightly differently."I managed to get my head around it and managed to take a win but it's not an easy event to win by any means, there's very few people that have won it multiple times."The event is often regarded as the hardest course in the World with only the top athletes invited to take part each event has one competition in Dinas Mawddwy, in Wales and one in Tasmania, with the Welsh clash known to be more challenging than its counterpart race."I mean, we've been all around the world riding and training and racing and looking for venues for these kind of events," Atherton added."And, you know, we've never found anywhere as impressive as intimidating as where it is here in Wales."I think it's that unique kind of feel you can only get from when you're in, you know, deepest, darkest Wales."Everything from the climate, the venue, the mountain, you know, everything is terrifying. So it's the best spot in the world for it." A competition so extreme, it must be difficult to test its safety?Mountain biking at this scale, built to test the very top of the worlds talent can only be tested by the riders themselves, as the only people with the skillset to complete the may be the only sport in the world that the guinea pigs are its own professionals right in the heart of a World Cup World Cup brothers, Dan and Gee will build and test the course before inviting other riders to test before the competition gets underway."It's difficult really, Dan and I, we've got this kind of agreement between us and we know how each other works and I'll suggest something and he'll say no that's too far, or that's a great idea," Atherton said."Often he will build something and I will have to test it so there's a lot of trust there between the two of us." I think we work well together, sometimes I'll have to test something that he's built and I'll have to trust that it's going to work 75% of the time it does and occasionally it doesn't."You're building the hardest track in the world, you're guinea pigging some of the biggest features anyone's ever hit on a bike, so it's very difficult to then decide yes this is okay or no we've gone too far you know we have to push the sport."We have to challenge the riders we have to be at that kind of that pinnacle that's forefront of what you can do on a mountain bike so each year the riders turn up and there's a new feature that's bigger and more difficult than the previous years."If you go too far with that, you know, if you push them too far, then the riders can risk getting injured, which, you know, does happen sometimes in testing. But at the same time, you know, you have to be ambitious. You have to push the sport along. And that's where that balance comes in. And you have to walk that very fine line."The three Atherton siblings are arguably mountain biking's most impressive family,From their own bike brand to a bike park as well as Gee, Dan and sister Rachel's vast World Cup winning records. The three have been in Wales since 2004, with Dyfi Bike Park established in 2010, creating a destination for mountain bikers from all of the world to test their skills."The talent that's developing, that's coming out of this area is incredible, riders onto the World Cup scene with quite impressive results," Gee Atherton said."We've been here a long time, we've developed a Bike Park here in Machynlleth which has helped put the area on the map."It's turning into one of the UK's biggest bike parks and getting busier and busier and it's just this huge mountain of the most unique, intimidating daunting, but incredible fun to ride trails."There's very few places you can find this kind of landscape and this kind of terrain that suits mountain biking so well."
Telegraph
07-05-2025
- Telegraph
Gins with a sense of place
Danny Cameron is out picking gorse on the day we speak. 'It has a very long flowering season but now, in its first flush, is when gorse is at its best for us. You get a lot of flavour from it.' The yellow blooms that blaze across the slopes of the Dyfi Valley in Wales are one of around 20 locally foraged botanicals Cameron uses in his small-batch distilled Pollination Dovey Native Botanical Gin, which has just become Britain's very first gin to be awarded UK Geographical Indication (GI) status. The next one he picks will most likely be hawthorn flowers – 'our use of hawthorn is quite small but it can give a lovely delicacy in a broad blend,' he says – or, possibly, nettle tips. Through July and August, he will gather around 52,000 stems of bog myrtle, Myrica gale, a beautifully perfumed, damp-loving shrub traditionally used to repel midges. Hand-picking 52,000 stems sounds arduous but apparently 'that's actually the easy bit. After that, we de-stem by hand so we end up with around half a million leaves. We don't want the stalks in the still because it gives a bit too much woodiness. It's not unpleasant, it just doesn't work in that particular blend. With Pollination we're looking for delicacy and subtlety. We preserve the botanicals after picking, then do a blend from across the year, otherwise we'd only have three-quarters of the [artist's] palette.' The tiny Dyfi (pronounced Dovey) Distillery lies in a Unesco-designated biosphere reserve in the southernmost part of Snowdonia. Of its four gins, only Pollination has been granted the UK GI, meaning it has characteristics attributed to a specific geographic origin. The process of attaining this status sounds almost as laborious as the bog myrtle leaf-picking. Cameron, a wine importer in his previous life, says it took five years from start to finish and, as well as the inevitable mountain of paperwork, involved a tasting to ascertain that Pollination has distinctive organoleptic qualities that aren't replicated in gins from elsewhere. Pollination Dovey Native Botanical Gin (45%), Dyfi Distillery, £37.95 for 50cl Thanks to the popularity of London Dry gin, it's a common misconception that gin classifications have long been tied to place. But London Dry describes only a style that can be made anywhere provided the right regulations are adhered to, including sweetness levels and that the botanicals can only be introduced during the distillation process. While Pollination is the only gin in the UK to win GI status, there are others made using foraged or local ingredients with the intention of representing the fragrances and perfumes found in nature around the distillery in which they're made. For instance, Hepple Gin is made in Northumberland using Douglas fir from the surrounding woods, and lovage and blackcurrant leaves from the distillery's gardens. Cambridge Dry Gin was inspired by a Cambridge meadow and its botanicals include basil, rosemary, lemon verbena and rose. Even King Charles has got in on the act, with a (rather good) gin inspired by the lemon verbena, thyme and rosemary that grow at Highgrove. Highgrove Organic Garden Botanical Gin (40%), Highgrove Gardens, £44.95 for 70cl While sales of the novelty gins have fallen, artisan gins are still going strong. 'We haven't really been affected [by the slide in gin sales],' says Cameron. Probably because Pollination Dovey Native Botanical Gin (45%, Dyfi Distillery, £37.95 for 50cl) is for aficionados: made in tiny quantities, it's available only from the distillery door or website (as well as being served in a number of top restaurants, such as the Black Swan at Oldstead). It's a beauty: textured and aromatic like a wild landscape with fat bees buzzing and a gentle breeze blowing. Three more bottles to try
