FORT WILLIAM, Scotland (June 6th, 2010) Team Kenda-Playbiker had its best weekend of the 2010 season so far at the second downhill mountain bike World Cup in Fort William, Scotland.  Sean O'Connor (AUS) rode to a career best 8th place finish on one of the roughest and fastest tracks on the circuit.  Nathan Rankin (NZL) was only 52nd , which is below his potential but mainly due to the effects of the crash he suffered in Maribor, while Wyn Masters (NZL) was 40th after an interesting 26th  in qualifies.


//WYN MASTERS

In 4x, Edo Franco (ITA) rode well, making it to the 1/8th finals, putting him in 28th place. "I need to work on my gates," the young italian said, "I'm always struggling down the first straight."

This year's downhill track had a variety of new sections in it, as well as a few very rough section where they had scraped it down to the bedrock, making for lots of long nights for the mechanics rebuilding wheels.

//SEAN O'CONNOR ON THE HOT SEAT

O'Connor was incredibly pleased with his performance in the downhill. "I hit all of my lines up top, and all of my training has paid off allowing me to put down a lot of hard pedalling at the bottom of the track on the motorway."  O'Connor's performance now puts him in 22nd  place in the overall World Cup ranking, 3 points out of a protected slot. When combined with the rest of the team's results, Kenda-Playbiker has now rejoined the top 20 trade teams on the World Cup standing, with an interesting 12th at the Scottish round.

//NATHAN RANKIN

Some of the team is now headed to the home resort Pila, Italy for a week of training and relaxation, while others have headed to local races to get some more race time in on their bikes.

The team will rejoin each other next weekend in Leogang, Austria, for the next round of the 2010 Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup.

KENDA-PLAYBIKER thanks all the team sponsors for the great support and their excellent products:

Kenda Tyres, Pila Bike Planet, Lapierre bikes, Fox Suspensions, Funn Brakes, Fulcrum Wheels, Funn MTB, e*thirteen, NS Dynamics, FiveTen, Penta Power, Insight Production, X-Service, Starx, Meccaniche del Tempo.