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.