DH WC R7 - Val Di Sole 16-21/08/11

Monday 15^th August (Drive to Val Di Sole)

We had to be out of the carpark we were staying in by 9am so we woke up at about 7am and had breakfast and tidied up. Once we had done that we went over to the bike wash and filled up our water tanks. Once we had done that, us kids headed down the roughly 20min dh track into the below town, while the dads emptied the waste waters and toilets. It was a cool track, with some random multiple lines in some places. And one section of it was like an axle deep dust bowl with just switchback straight after another switchback for a while. Once we had finished the track, we made our way to the gondala pick up where we were to meet our dads. We had to wait for them for a while. Once they eventually got there, me and Daniel headed up the gondala for another run, while Maddy decided to stay behind. The dads and Maddy went groccie shopping. Once again me and Daniel were at the campervans for a while waiting for them to come back from the groccie shopping. Once they got back, we put the groccies away, and hit the road for Val di Sole. Once we eventually got to Val di Sole (or somewhere where we knew was close to Val di Sole but we wernt sure where the racing was) we found a random side verge thingy and camped up for the night. We didnt camp till about 1030-11pm. Also we had dinner in a tuck stop place a few hours before so we just hit the sack as soon as we camped up.

Tuesday 16^th August (Muck around and do a track walk)

We had a bit of a sleep today as we had nothing planned to do today. Around about lunch time we headed down to the bottom of the tracks, and met with the rest of team, and decided that we would do some riding this avro. But everyone wanted to do a track walk first, so we did that first. I didnt really see the point in wasting time doing a track walk today, when we would be able to do one tomorrow for free, but I went along with the others. First impression of the track was, that it was going to be bloody hard to do a run and stay on as well as tiring both physically and mentally. It was essentially just one big long rock garden for the whole length of the track, apart from a few fast bits and a few roots. Once we had finished the track walk, we headed up for some riding. Since us girls had finished quite a bit before the guys we went off on our own. We thought since there were two lifts that there would be a track or two coming down from the top of the 2^nd one, but we were wrong. So we just rode down the road, then ended up god knows where, so pushed back up till we were under the gondola then free rode it down the grass among the rocks underneath until we got to where the bottom gondola meets the top one. Once there we got onto a random track and rode that to the bottom. When we finialy reached the bottom, the gondola had already done its last uplift, so we only got that one run, in which we wasted a lot of time going to the top and getting lost.

Wednesday 17^th August (Track Walk)

Again since we couldnt register or anything till 2pm we slept in and just cruised and stuff till then. Once it reached 2pm I headed over to register. Once I had registered I waited for the others, then we all headed up as a group. The dads came up as well today. I started off with everyone, but they were spending way too long in the first couple of hundred meters for me to wait for them. So I went off on my own with dad following. I knew what lines that I wanted to hit, and stuff. It was just a matter of remembering where they were, and how to get onto them.

Thursday 18^th August (Practice)

Today was the first day of practice. All I can say is that the track is bloody hard and the hardest bit of the track is in the first 200-300 meters of the track. There was a bridge about 1/4-1/3 of the way down. Once you got past there the track was easier and I could actually get down it. I only did about 6 runs today, which I wasnt too happy with. Stupid brakes wernt co-operating. By the end of the track I had both brakes on full and I wasnt exactly slowing down in any sort of hurry. Even at the start of the run they wouldnt lock up. Getting down was hard enough with out worrying about your brakes. I got Mildy to look at them, and he said something as def wrong with them. Took them to the SRAM dudes and they bleed the brakes for me, and had a look at them, but said nothing was wrong with them. The brakes were still the same when I got them back, except for the lever feeling like it had more power, but the brakes were still essentially powerless. When we got back to the campsite, I got Daniel to have a look at them for me. My pads were glazed so we scuffed them up, and then gave the disks a good clean with his brake cleaner. After that, they were locking up a little bit if you gave them a good grab once we had ridden up and down the road the few times. I now knew that was the best I was gonna get them.

Friday 19^th August (Qualifying)

Since I didnt get any where near as many runs as I would have liked yesterday, I started cranking out the runs from the very start of practice. In the 3 hours I managed about 5-6 runs I think. My main focus was trying to ride the top bit of the track as I hadnt yet managed to get down it without crashing or stuffing up and having to come to a stop. Finaly I managed to get the top bit sorted on my last 2 or runs. I took note of exactly where I braked and where I changed direction etc etc as I knew this was the bit I was struggling the greatest. Seeing the other girls ride I was pretty certain I wouldnt qualify, but still gave it my best. I had a good enough run. I managed to stay on which was good, but slipped a few pedals and had to slow down quite a bit to sort out my feet. I ended up 27^th which I wasnt the happiest with, especially since tehre were 3 juniors ahead of me and they all qualified. None of the Kiwi girls qualified unfortunetly. None of the non pros Kiwis qualified either apart from Ruben who got like 37^th or something. Daniel also had 4x qualifying this evening and quailified 28^th even tho he stuffed up a corner and cased the pro line jumps.

Saturday 20^th August (drove to venice)

Since I didnt qualify, me and dad decided to head to Venice today as there wasnt much point in hanging at Val Di Sole for the next two days, and might as well go to Venice since we both wanted to.

DH WC R6 - La Bresse, France 4-7/08/11

Thursday 4^th August (Drive to La Bresse and track walk)

Today dad woke up at 5am and in turn woke me up. Since we were awake and dad couldnt get back to sleep we decided to finish our journey to La Bresse, France. The trip was easy going, just followed the gps like every other time so far. We got there about 8am and just cruised around and did mundane stuff such as stock up on groccies etc. The track was very easy to find, we saw it straight away. At 2pm we registered and went up to walk the track. The top 30secs of the track was grass with a few wooden things on it such as a jump and some boardwalks. The start ramp was obviously wood but it finished with a drop. After the grass it was into a like a rock ditch jump which I had to pedal my arse off into in order to make it. And then it was into more grass but with rocks implanted in it. This was mostly what the track was like, there were a few natural jumps and stuff and then there were the man made ones in both wooden dirt form. The end of the track finished with a steep grass bit followed closely by grass lumps and dips you could double up before sending a wooden drop to enter the final jump.

Friday 5^th August (Practice day)

Today was the first day of practice. I could roughly remember the track, not really the order of things but what things looked like. I had already picked my lines while doing the track walk, and was going to try those out and check out other people lines throughout the day and give them a go.

First run down the hill I didnt really have any clue what I doing or what was up next on the track, once I relised what bit of track I was on, I knew what line I wanted to be on though. First run went smoothly enough, hit the wooden sender thing down the bottom, nearly cased it tho, was a bit bigger than I remembered it being. Throughout the day I slowly and constently ticked the other jumps and drops of my list. All apart from the last one. I was pretty put off of the end jump after watching one of the chicks full on nose case it and break her arm.

By the end of the day I pretty much just stuck with my lines. And tried to get them faster and smooter. Ruts were beginning to develop and chuck me all sorts of places and ways.

Saturday 6^th August (Qualifying)

So with practice up first, I thought I would do a few runs to warm up and do the end jump and also to make sure I could remember the track for qualifying. Things were going alright, I had the track a bit more dialed than yesterday. The only problem I was having was clearing the hip drop sorta jump thing halfway down the track. Third run down the track my rear wheel decided to fail, and im guessing it was from that drop. So I had to end up walking my bike down the bottom half of the track. Once I got the bottom, I went and asked the Mavic guys if they could fix my wheel for me, so they did. When I got it back, they pointed out that my rim was bent. I was Jason at this point as he was helping me fix some other things on my bike. They talked, and he got a rim off Mavic for me (not sure if I have to pay for it yet or not) It ended up being free. For my seeding run I just ran my cracked rim. I treated seeding a bit like a practice and a bit like a race run. I went fast but with a bit of cautionary side like I would in a normal race run but also tried to do things a bit differntly and see if some new markers I saw while I was practicing would be better than the current markers I had in my mind. One of the main markers worked better the my orginal one, which I was quite happy with. I nearly crashed about 2/3s of the way down the track, which I wasnt happy about tho. I ended up just getting into qualifying with a 19^th place.

Sunday 7^th August (Race day)

During the night it pissed down with rain, and had some decent amounts of wind judging by some of the tents in the pits and by what Jason said. Today was race day, First thing I did was go see Jason to get my wheel sorted and change front tyre to a mud. He started swapping over the spokes for me and then left me to it while he went to get Jill and make sure she was sorted and everything. Once I had put all the spokes in and put a mud on and Jason had finished with Jill I went to go get ready while he tightened up all the spokes and trued the wheel and stuff. Once that was all done I headed up the hill for a run. The track had changed quite a bit since yesterday, the ruts were worse. By the time I got up for a run, about 1hr after practice started the track was a lot more chewed up and a bit slushy up the top. I opted out of doing the rock up the top and also the hip turning jump half way down that reacked my wheel yesterday. I managed 3 runs before practice ended. I would have liked to have done at least another to try the rock gap. So now it was time to clean bike, change clothes and have a quick bit of food and drink before heading up for my race run. I got to the top with heaps of time to spare, and I hung out with Mannon Carpenter and her dad/manager. When it came time to starting I didnt know that they were starting, I was standing out side the tent, and assumed/figured that when I had to go line up they would tell me, but no one did. I only relised when I saw the person before me in the start gate. By the time I had relised that we were starting she had left the gate, so I had less than a min to get in the start gate put on and do up my helmet and goggles. Pretty much as soon as I had put my goggles on, it was time to leave the start gate. So that pretty much stuffed up my run right from the start. I managed to forget it and compose myself for the rest of the track. I ended up getting a bit lose and making heaps of mistakes just trying to push myself a bit to hard, I finially ended up crashing and im not entirely sure how or why that happened. I cant even remember where on I track I crashed, I forgot it that quickly. I ended up 18^th today. I wasnt too happy with my run, but I learnt my lesson and wont forget it for Val Di Sole. After the racing had finished we hit the road to head to Morzine before going to Pila. About half way to Morzine we pulled over into a carpark and set up camp for the night.