Gromcast

Mark

A new mountain bike podcast that will be casually chatting all things mtb here in the deep south UK. Conversations with some well known faces and some lesser known ones. I'm Mark, you can normally find me working at Rogate B1kepark and I'll be chatting to World Cup Downhill racers, Enduro race organisers, those behind the scenes with the teams, trail builders, mtb vloggers, and just about anyone in the mountain bike world who will let me stick a mic on them and hit the record button. read less
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Episodes

Episode 7 - Pre Season World Cup chat with Luke & Francis Williamson
26-04-2023
Episode 7 - Pre Season World Cup chat with Luke & Francis Williamson
Gromcast is back! After what was a much extended hiatus thanks to life, work and a million other reasons I have finally got another episode in the bag. This time I chat to previous guest and 2022 British Elite Men's Overall Downhill series winner Luke Williamson. We are joined by the lesser known part of the Williamson racing operation, Francis Williamson. Francis is Luke's dad and a huge integral part of the support in his racing. He is no stranger to racing on two wheels and no slouch on the bike with a strong background in motorcycle racing. He will often be found at World Cups with Luke as part of the mechanical support with the 555 Gravity team, providing a lot of the parts of everything Luke needs so he can focus on his racing. We have a brief recap on Luke's '22 season, which by his own account was bit of a rollercoaster with a belter of a run at Fort William that saw him finish in 23rd after a top 20 qualifier, followed some injury issues and a concussion, and then wrapped up the year by taking the British overall. 2023 sees a whole raft of changes to the Downhill World Cup and we discuss how they foresee those changes affecting Luke, the sport as a whole and where it all is heading. Francis has some really interesting insight into this, and there is some really good stuff on the direction of the sport and what the future may look like. The time off from recording an episode clearly didn't do me many favours, as since recording this episode it has been a technical nightmare full of broken laptop, lost recordings, missing files and all sorts of nonsense. As a result the final chunk of this episode has disappeared into the digital netherworld never to be seen again. Oh well, you live and you learn. Huge thanks to Graeme Bean for bringing the laptop back to life. You can support Gromcast at GoFundMe. I know times are tough for everyone right now, but anything you can give is hugely appreciated and all of it goes back into the podcast. https://gofund.me/b090775a Tickets for this weekends Canyon Demo at Rogate can be found here - https://www.tickettailor.com/events/b1keltd/884981?