Ali is fully keen on this half-pedal brakeless hook. He did this about 2-3 times perfectly before I got a camera out, did it for the video camera a few times, then did it for the stills camera a few times. Pulled it every time, super smooth (This was technically during the comp - between sections).
Another between sections mess around was this up to front:
Having handed in his punch-card, Ali then decided to punch something else - this time a rock. Error.
We met up with Dave and Kieran, and to kick things off everyone booted this gap from the rock at the very far right to the far left. It's a mega gap, and it was interesting to see everyone's different styles over it. I left a bit of head-height for everyone so I wouldn't chop anyone's heads off, yet still managed to cut part of Kieran's head off because he went so high and so tweaked. There's an added un-set-up photo of Kieran too, just to show how sideways he gets. It's pretty crazy to see in the flesh.
After that, Ali and Kieran had a bit of a bash at this sidehop to rear. The photos really don't do justice to how high this one was (Ali's photo sucks, sorry!).
Ali also booted this sidehop to rear earlier on in the day - again, bigger than it looks!
We decided to head back over to the other side of the Glen, and on the way Ali called out this drop-gap. I looked at it from the top and it was pretty daunting. It's a big drop if things go wrong, and it's a lengthy one too. You need to wait for the video to gauge just how big this is!
Moving on a bit further we came to this up to drop that Ali pulled, and Dave almost took himself out on. Double pedal slips on big drops - no bueno. Earlier, waiting in a queue for a section, Ali managed to climb up this rock face without using his hands. No-one else took up the challenge. Not surprised.
Stan had told me about a gap-to-drop that Ali had done a while back, and said that it was one of the most impressive things he'd seen anyone do on a bike. He described the setup to me, but I wasn't really sure how big it actually was. Fortunately, Ali decided to give it another pop, and here's the result. This time, he actually went for the bigger bit, doing the drop straight down to flat. This time, trials legend Martin Walker was on hand to verify it was the most ridiculous thing he'd seen anyone do on a bike - high praise indeed!
Again, there's potentially going to be a mini-edit from the weekend, but I'm not promising anything!
