Pic: Keith Valentine

The 2009 MSC Bikes/Descent-Gear NPS DH Series (supported by British Cycling and Monster Energy), hereafter referred to as the “NPS DH series” in the interests of longer-lasting keyboards, gets under way at the end of April. And as if the title sponsors aren’t numerous enough, there are loads of others on board too, of which more shortly.

Each NPS event will be held over a full weekend, with practise all day on Saturday and a short final practise session on Sunday morning. Then it’s one seeding run to decide the start order, and one race run.

Parking, camping and spectating is free at every round. The organisers will lay on a large marquee, on-site catering, live timing, huge timing screen, live commentating, serviced toilets and music through out the day. Everyone is welcome to walk up the course outside of the tapes and catch all the trackside action.

Harbouring World Cup ambitions? The first three NPS rounds are UCI Category 2 races, with world ranking points going to the ten fastest riders. Get enough points and you could qualify for the big races…

Those 2009 NPS DH dates in full:

• Rd 1 25/26 April – Ae Forest (UCI Cat 2)
• Rd 2 30/31 May – Llangollen (UCI Cat 2)
• Rd 3 27/28 June – Fort William (UCI Cat 2)
• Rd 4 15/16 August – Carlton Bank
• Rd 5 26/27 September – Caersws

The best four out of five rounds count for the overall series titles, and each round will have five-rider podiums and a custom trophy from Hope Technology. And as the organisers say, “Hang around for podiums, if a rider misses presentations then their prize and trophy goes to the little kid in the crowd!”

Category sponsors include Descent-Gear.com (Juveniles), Lizard Skins (Youths), Fox (Juniors), Swiss and Swallow (Women), No Limits (Master Men), Ticket2RideBC.com (Veteran Men), Continental “Black Chilli” (Men), Leisure Lakes (Expert Men) and Nema Clothing (Elite Men and Women). Suspension specialists TF Tuned will also be at each race and will stump up a £200 cash prize to the rider who wins by the biggest margin. There’s also £200 up for grabs from 2Stage Bikes, this time for the fastest combined seeding and race run times.

Obviously races rely on marshals, and if you’re 16 or over on the day of the race then you can help out – you even get paid for your trouble. One day’s marshalling gets you £30, both days of a weekend yields £65 and if you do the whole series there’s a £100 bonus. Plus you get food and drink, as well as priority entry for anyone you know who wants to race. If you marshal on both days then “your” rider also gets a “queue jump” pass for the uplift. Don’t worry if you’ve never marshalled before – full training and all the necessary equipment is provided.

Full details on the MSC Bikes/Descent-Gear NPS DH (etc and so on) are at www.npsdh.com.