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 10th 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 7th which was alright. Was about 22 seconds of Florian Pugin which I’m pretty happy with.
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 10th 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 7th which was alright. Was about 22 seconds of Florian Pugin which I’m pretty happy with.
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