As you may have noticed I no longer use this Blog page.

If you are still interested in what I am upto racing/riding wise you can keep up to date on my Facebook athlete page: https://www.facebook.com/Sarah.Atkin.DH

Cheers,
Sarah Atkin

IXS Swiss Cup Round 2 - Wiriehorn - Switzerland - 18-19/08/12

After completing the IXS race in Pila I returned to Morzine where I have based myself for this race season. The decision to go to Wiriehorn to race was a last minute thing as I have been reliant on others for transport. We arrived there late on Thursday night and I just grabbed a meal from what was available and slept on the van floor.

Friday rolled around and it was time to register for the event. I hadn't pre-registered due to the last minute decision to race but was lucky to find there were no difficulties with registering for the race. I was really looking forward to the event. Soon after registration I headed up the hill to walk the track. My impressions of this track were that it was going to be fast up top, a bit slower in the middle, then a big pedal and some more high to mid speed sections at the end. Practice runs went well. Got to know the track relatively well and was loving it by the end of practice. I was feeling confident on the track and couldn’t wait for seeding the next day to see how I was doing compared to the other riders.

I woke up Saturday and decided to have a bit of a sleep in since I was feeling good on the track already and didn’t want to overdo it in the heat. I did some practice runs later, with one of them a full run at race pace pedalling and worked out I could let go of the brakes even more in some sections. Seeding rolled around and I was ready to go. The track went by so quick that it didn’t feel like the 5 minutes that it took. I ended up seeding 2nd which I was pretty stoked with. With this in mind I was only going to be happy if my race run on Sunday was a sub 5 minute run - preferably a sub 4 minute 55 second run.
Sunday took its time coming around and again the weather was stinking hot. I opted for a sleep in again. I did a cruisey first practice run and was feeling a little bit all over the place on the bike so went for another run not long after. After the second practice run I was once again feeling on form. I then made the decision that that was all the practice I needed for the day as the track hadn’t changed since the previous day. However, I started getting an uneasy feeling about an hour after my 2nd practice run and started thinking I needed to do a 3rd run for some reason. Ended up going with my gut feeling and was pretty happy that I did, as I ended up getting a flat, not even half way down. After that the uneasy feeling went away and I could relax until race time.

For my race run I was aiming for the sub 4 minute 55 seconds as mentioned before and was feeling good. My run started terribly with blowing my feet off the pedals pretty much the whole way down the top 3rd of the track until I calmed down. I got to the pedally section and I was knackered, but hammered through it. Now it was just the last section to go. By now I thought that I was miles off my sub 4 minute 55 second goal. I was trying too hard and ended up crashing in the left hander, just as the track went into the trees for the final time. I was gutted. I came down to 2nd place with one rider left to race, which surprised me. I was only 1 second slower than my seeding time, despite the terrible run. Once Miriam came down into first, I ended up 3rd which I was stoked with, all things considered.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank my sponsors Monster Energy NZ, Specialized Bikes NZ, Shimano and Fox Racing shocks for their support which has given me the opportunity to race this year in Europe. I will be back for another season next year. Also a special thanks to my friends/family for their support and all the other people who have helped me out this year. It is really appreciated.

IXS European Cup Round 4 - Pila - Italy - 05-05/08/12

One week after Val D’Isere was the Pila round of the European IXS Cup. We made the short trip from Morzine to Pila on the Friday morning to get there for registration and practice in the afternoon. We ended up getting to Pila quite a bit later that we intended due to the Van running out of brake pads and trying to get that sorted. After about an hour of going to different places to find the correct pads we decided to continue to onto to Pila and get the pads sorted on the way back. This decision was made because we couldn’t get the pads fitted till 3pm on Friday which would have meant that we missed all of practice that day and none of us wanted to do so. Once we got to Pila I registered straight away and started practice as quick as I could. The track was exactly the same as last year. Still had the silly bit that I didn’t like last year and I still didn’t like it. I was loving practice though as the corners are so mint to rail around. Did heaps of practice runs and was feeling good and having heaps of fun.

Saturday was some more practice and seeding runs. Today they (the organisers) decided to enforce the wearing of elbow and back protectors which caught a lot of people out including me. Ended up cruising down some random track to the bottom and getting a cut up tyre and taping that to my elbow for elbow guards and some cardboard for back plate. The weather had been sunny and hot up until today. Practice was dry and I managed to get down in my seeding run before the rain came, but the boys got caught in the rain and had to do seeding run in the wet having not ridden the track in the wet yet. Seeding run went alright, didn’t pedal as much as I could have and made a few mistakes. Ended up seeding around 10^th I think.

Sunday was race day. By the time practice started the track was fairly dry, there was the odd slippery wet bit but by the end of practice the track was back to being dry and nearly dusty in some parts. On my third practice run today my derailleur fell off and I lost the bolt which wasn’t ideal. Cruised down to the bottom on another track and took the bolt from Richos old broken derailleur and she was good to go. While ill was cruising down the other track the rain started to come back in. Once I got my bike fixed and ready to go I headed back up in the rain to get some practice runs in case it kept raining through my race run.  I was lucky and stopped raining towards the end of practice and didn’t rain again till after my race run. The track ended up being a lot drier than I thought so I took the top too careful but let the end hang out. Had a good run and finished 7^th which was alright. Was about 22 seconds of Florian Pugin which I’m pretty happy with.

WC Round 6 - Val d'Isere - France - 26-29/07/12

This race was another world cup round, this time held in France. Unlike the others practice day was on Thursday not Friday and Friday had become Qualifying day due to the XC races being held on Saturday at the same venue. So the DH race had nothing on Saturday and Race day was on Sunday as usual.

This race for me didn’t go to plan. Started off with my brakes not really working, so went and saw Shimano and they looked at them and said I needed new brakes, but they couldn’t sell me any. So I started worrying about what to do and came to the conclusion that I would just run my brakes how they were if I had to. My shifter on my bike was also broken so I hung around while they replaced that and a different Shimano dude came over and said they would replace my brakes for me for free but would need my bike for 1.5 hours. Because of this I decided to go do a couple of runs first since I had only done two by this point. Did another 2 runs and they weren’t good so I gave my bike to Shimano to get my brakes sorted. I got my bike back with enough time to squeeze in one more run and found out that my front brake now did absolutely nothing. It ended up even worse than my screwed up brake that I had on before they replaced them. So in total I only did 5 practice runs on the practice day, all of which I went slow as due to being unable to stop quickly or reliably. Went and saw Shimano once again and they told me it was probably because I had a old disc and new pads on and said if it still wasn’t working after a run tomorrow to come back and they would put a new disc on and some new pads in again.  After this I went and saw Fox Shoxs to get my forks serviced as there was rubbing on one of my stanchions appearing. After talking to the Fox guys earlier in the day and asking if they would be able to replace my stanchion for me it sounded like they wouldn’t as it was from a lack of service on my part. So when I got my forks back and saw that the stanchion was replaced I was pretty stoked.

After getting back to our accommodation me and hippy cleaned and scuffed up my disc and pads in hope of getting them working again. This all ended up being a waste of time as they didn’t really get any better. So come first thing in the morning when we got to the track I went and saw Shimano once again to get that new disc and pads put in before I even bothered heading up for a run. Once this was done my brakes were working better than they had been since I got over here pretty much. Managed to get in 2 practice runs before seeding which was alright, but kept braking too much and too hard.  I hadn’t got used to the feeling and power of the new brakes by qualifying so new that I just had to let go as much as I dared and hoped I didn’t crash. With this mind I tried to do that but kept grabbing my brakes too early into corners and nearly went over the bars a few times from grabbing a fist load of brakes. Not exactly idea. Ended up 29th worst placing ive had so far unfortunetly. So overall I am once again not happy with my results but at least my bike is now fixed and working better now because of it. Hopefully now that I have brakes that work properly ill be able to push myself further and trust myself and bike more.

Wheels of Speed - Willingen - Germany - 14-17/06/12

From Fort William we brought both George and Vero with us. Bringing Vero with us has made things a lot easier for us all once we got to Germany as she can speak German pretty fluently. Because of this we were able to get some pretty sick and decent accommodation for not too much. It also made our washing our clothes experience a hell of a lot easier as the lady was not happy to see us at first with all our washing. But once Vero got talking she came around and was happy to do it for us. Once we picked it up once we were done riding we found that she had not only washed it, but also dried and folded it for us. This was choice and more than we were expecting especially at 5-6 Euros each (especially considering last year I paid 2 Euros just to go a self service Laundromat to wash them only).

 Thursday was registration day with some practice in the afternoon. For me this was just a day spent on getting used to the track and checking out lines and not going fast. Friday rolled around and Vero and I did some runs with Tracey discussing lines and following one another. By the end of the day I was feeling pretty comfortable on the track and hitting all the jumps that I wanted to do; now I just needed to go faster. Overnight it must have rained quite a bit and continued to rain on and off throughout Saturday, our qualifying day. The track rode well in the wet apart from a corner on the off camber grass at the bottom which was a bit hit and miss if you got off line. Qualifying came up and I was feeling good and confident. My aim was at least a top 5. The run didn’t start off too good. Went through a puddle at the very top of the run which seriously limited my vision causing me to around the gap jump. By half way down the track all I could see was mud (wish I had taken a photo of my goggles at the bottom of the track). By this point I was wishing that I had some tear offs. Once I got out of the trees I whipped my goggles off but it made no difference as I ended up with so much mud and water in my eyes that they were pretty much shut and remained shut till I got to the finish line and found some clean clothes under my jacket to get the worst of the mud out of my eyes. I qualified 4^th which I was happy about since I didn’t hit any jumps and the other girls ahead of me did.

Race day the next day was the complete opposite. It hadn’t rained over night and was windy which dried the track considerably. Going up for 1^st practice run I thought the track would still be wet and muddy but it wasn’t. There was about one puddle on the track and I came down pretty much spotless. Did another few runs trying to get the run into one of the jumps I hadn’t done but called it quits after nearly crashing twice as it wasn’t worth it for me. Race run came around and for the first time in my life I did a warm up. I spent around 20-30 minutes warming up with Tracey and Vero before it was time to head to the start gate for my run. Between my last practice run and my race run the track had dried out heaps which I was not expecting. Between that and the warm up I came into things a lot faster that I had prepared for. Ended up overshooting to flat two of the top jumps which was pretty scary and clip a rock while pedalling but somehow managed to hold it all together and had a good run. Came down into 1^st place with 3 riders after me. Not sure what happened to the rider right behind (think she might have flatted?), but the lady behind her came down and bet me by around 0.2 of a second which looking back now I’m pretty guttered about as I know where I lost this time (over shooting the jumps and also clipping a rock while pedalling). But at the time I didn’t realise that I was this close to her and was stoked to get third, (Still am, but 2^nd would have been even cooler). Tracey came down into 1^st by about 7 or 8 seconds, and Vero ended up 5^th. Being up on the podium was pretty cool, got to do the whole Champagne shower thing which was pretty choice and fun. Ended up leaving the race with a box of chocolates and a 250 Euro check. Now I just have to work out how to turn the check into cash without losing any of it in the transaction...  

WC Round 3 - Fort William - Scottland - 07-10/06/12

The drive to Fort William was a long one. The boys did about 27 hours of solid driving right after we had finished watching the racing in Val Di Sole. After that we still had some driving to do but took our time. Once again we arrived at our destination early. Once again the boys opted to get another nights accommodation, except this time I decided to save some money and sleep in the Van. The place we were staying at was the Corran Inn which is in Onich right by the Corran Ferry. We were about a 10-15 min drive from the track. Thursday rolled around and we headed over to the track to register and do our track walk. During this time I caught up with Gabriela Williams from Cedric Garcia’s team (met her in Val Di Sole after Qualifying), and Vero as well. Once we were done with our track walk we headed back to our accommodation. Friday came round and I headed up the hill from some practice runs, bumped in Tracey Hannah on the way to the gondola so cruised down behind and crashed when I braked on a wooden ramp I forgot was there and went for a slide on my arse. Ended up with a graze on the side of my arse/leg but it was more embarrassing than anything. She ended up losing me about half way down the track when I stopped to look at some things and watch people do some of the drop/jumps. I did some more cruisey runs by myself just trying to get to know the track and get up to speed slowly. By the end of the day I was loving the track and feeling good. Saturday rolled around and with it came qualifying. I was still loving the track and felt as though I stood a good chance at qualifying. But once again I was outside the top 20. I was closer to the top 20 time wise but further away position wise. (At Val Di Sole I was 25^th and about 13 seconds off qualifying and here I was 26^th and about 9 seconds off qualifying.) I can’t work out what I’m doing wrong apart from being a little bit too careful. Hopefully between now and my next world cup I’ll get up to a world pace. Guess we will just have to wait and see till then.

WC Round 2 - Val Di Sole, Italy - 31/05/12-03/06/12

We arrived in Val Di Sole a day early so ended up getting some accommodation for that night as well and got our bikes sorted. The next day we cruised around in the morning doing nothing in particular till registration opened and it was time to walk the track. Registration was quick and easy unlike last year. During the track walk I discovered that the track had changed quite a bit from last year, with some new loamy sections that were obviously going to be torn to shreds come qualifying/racing time. After the track walk I knew roughly what lines I wanted to take to start with while I gauged the track and speed before I worked on my final lines. I started taking photos but gave up since there were too many people on the track to get a clear photo. Ended up getting a copy of Bryn’s photos that he took. After studying the photos during the evening I was looking forward to riding the track the next day. Friday was the first day of practice and I was loving the track despite the crashes on my first two runs. After these crashes I realised that I needed to tone it down a notch as the track was changing quicker than I could react. Come my last run down the track I had my lines pretty much sorted apart from one or two sections so decided to try and go a bit faster down the track. This turn out to be a bad idea as I ended up over the bars and screwing up my leg in the first rock garden which put an end to my run. I cruised down the hill slowly and somehow crashed on the bridge which killed my arm and made holding on to the bars kind of hard and pretty painful. Once I got back to our accommodation I had a shower and started loading up on anti inflammatory cream and some ibuprofen before I went to bed. Qualifying day I woke up with a pretty sore/stiff neck. Did 3 practice runs. First one I just cruised down looking for lines and bumped into Tracey Hannah so I looked at lines and discussed them with her and then did a run following her down. After that I did a run myself at a steady pace nonstop to see if I would be able to hold on with my arm. All was well and I knew I just needed to ride faster come qualifying time. Qualifying came and went and I had a steady run with a few near crashes but I managed to stay upright. I ended up in 25^th place (not a qualifying position) about 13 seconds off qualifying. Was pretty guttered and disappointed in myself and am pretty hungry to Qualify for Fort William this coming weekend.

Beginning of my 2012 Europe Trip

This year I have come over to Europe once again targeting the European world cups. Except this year I'm without my dad and with some fellow kiwi team mates instead, these guys are Richard Leacock and Bryn Dickerson. We flew out of Wellington at 7.30pm on a Friday the 25th of May (Wellington time) and arrived at Morzine at about 11.30pm on Saturday the 26th of May (Morzine time). All three of us have come over with 2 bikes and a suitcase and managed to get away with only paying $117.50 excess baggage which was pretty choice. Between arriving in Morzine and leaving for Val Di Sole we have built up our bikes, got the Van which we will be traveling in. Massive thanks to Jason and Amie Marsh for letting us use the van which is perfect for what we need and set up ready to go. Also we went for a play up Les Gets on Monday to get a little bit of riding on the big bikes before our first world cup race in Val Di Sole, Italy this coming weekend. Tuesday was spent mucking around and buying a little bit of food for the trip to Val Di Sole in the avro. We got as far as Torento (about 1 hour from Val Di Sole) and spent the night in the van. Not the most comfortable sleep ive had but better than nothing. The next day we played tourists andd eventually headed up to Val Di Sole where we are now going to be for the next 4-5 days. Tomorrow is rego and track walk, Friday is the first day of practice and I cant wait till its time to ride. I will chuck some touristy photos up in this post when i get a chance.

Oceania Champs - Rotorua - 9-11/03/12

Oceania’s is the final race of the New Zealand national mountain scene. I drove up to Rotorua on Wednesday after work so that on Thursday I could check out the Super D track on Thursday morning to decide if I wanted to race it or just solely focus on the dh and also to walk the dh track in the afternoon.

Thursday I ended up going out to lunch with my Nana due to it being her birthday. Afterwards I met Dave Hamilton to go ride the Super D track with him as he knew where it started and ended. Things ended up working out pretty well as while I was waiting at the gate for Dave, Steven Pattle turned up so I caught up with him while I waited for Dave. Once Dave turned up we decided to go walk the Downhill track 1^st as Steven had to go and do a quick bit of work on it. Dave dropped us at the top of the track and met us at the bottom. So I got my track walk in. After that we drove to the top of the Super D track with Steven driving the car to the end of track which was pretty choice as the hill to the top of the Super D track is pretty steep and a bit of a long push. I was glad that I had come up early and ridden the Super D track as knew before I reached the end that I wasn’t going to race it. I came to the conclusion that there was too much pedalling for me to enjoy it and that the Downhill was more important to me.

Saturday was a full days practice which I spent quite a lot of my runs following team boss Hendi just trying to keep up with him as it was my last chance to get him to pay for my flights. (We made a deal about half way through the season that if I bet him fair and square (i.e. he didn’t crash) he would pay for my flights to and from Europe) Unfortunately for me, he still bet me come race run on Sunday by the normal amount of roughly 10seconds. Throughout the day I felt I was on a good pace and feeling pretty confident I could take the win.

Friday was the 1^st day of practice but it was only a half day. I did a few runs today to learn the track and get the idea of where the track was going and how it rode and with what speed you came into sections. After the practice runs had finished I headed back up the hill to do another track walk. During this track walk I saw a couple of better lines that I hadn’t spotted in the previous walk. I wasn’t liking the track too much, not sure why. Might have just been because I was cruising because the next day I was loving the track.

Sunday rolled around and practice went good. Just after I got my last practice run in though it started to rain and the race began with trying to get tyres changed in timed for seeding runs.

All I can say is I’m glad Brian our team mechanic was there as I could not get the tyres on or off for the life of me. Went up for my seeding run on full muds only to find that it was not the right thing to do, as I was all over the place on the many roots on the tracks. After seeding I wanted to chuck drys on, but we decided to wait to see what the weather was doing. After talking to Hendi we came to the conclusion that cutting my muds down to half was the best solution. So I did that. For my race run I was a bit hesitant as I was worried about crashing on the roots after seeding

run. I was cautious on the roots, way more than I needed to be as I soon discover after it was too late. By the 2^nd half of the track I stopped being cautious and rode it like it was dry. Even though I was overly cautious on the top half of the track it still worked out good for me as I stayed up right and managed to take the win. NZ season now done and dusted and I’m undefeated in my first year elite. Pretty stoked and couldn’t have asked for a better season really.

NI Cup Round 3 - Napier - 24-25/02/12

The third and final round of the North Island DH Cup which is also the final round the NZ National DH Cup was held in Napier. I came into this race not being worried with what place I ended up as I was already Guaranteed the NZ National DH Cup overall and pretty much had the North Island Cup under my belt as well. My goal of this race was just to relax and have some fun on a pretty much new track. I came up on Thursday with team mate Richard. Once we got to Napier we headed to the track and did a track walk. On the walk up the track we found that it was quite slippery and that the track was pretty much new apart the usual bunch of pedalling at the top and the bit of track after road right at the bottom. The majority of the new track was off camber and looked fun to ride with quite a few around the place. It was going to be tricky to hold some of the lines if any rain was to happen over this race weekend. Once we got to the top we turned around and walked down looking at lines properly and found out that even in the short time we were up there that

the track had dried up a little bit. With an idea of what lines I was going to take and how the track was going to dry up throughout practice day the next day it was time to head to where I was staying.

Practice day came and went and I just kept cranking out the runs as I was just loving the track and having fun like I wanted. During the morning I was getting a bit sideways in some of the chutes but managed to stay right way up with my drys on while others switched to muds. My tyres were gripping pretty well on the off camber stuff and I managed to stay up on the high line, which I was pretty stoked on while others continued to fall off the line into the rut at the bottom. I did everything I wanted to do by the end of the day apart from one of the big doubles which I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth the risk for me.

Race day rolled around and I did two practice runs. On the first run I decided that I would give the big double ago. I followed one of the guys in and managed to make thankfully the first time. 2^nd time however on the following didn’t go entirely to plan. I got kicked funny off the takeoff and ended up with my front end down extremely low and hitting the backside of the knuckle of the landing with it. Thankfully with all my training in the off season specializing in this I managed to ride out of it much to my and spectators surprise. After this I decided that I would treat seeding like a practice run and give the jump another go and if I didn’t get it sweet as I wouldn’t do it in race run. Seeding run was good apart from the epic nose case on the big double that again I was lucky enough to ride out of. That was the end of the jump for me. I wasn’t going to risk it again as I had my fun and knew that I would knackered by then after all the pedalling that I would doing on race run. Race run came and went. I ended up 1^st again which I was happy with. Let’s just say next year I’ll be back and I’ll get that jump sorted (hopefully that track is raced again).