IXS European DH Cup #3 - Pila

I had heard so many good things about the Pila/Aosta area, leading up to the race, that I had high expectations about the riding. When we arrived, I took a little evening jog up the race track, and it looked awesome.  After the first day, I can safely say it didn't disappoint. The race track was really fun, but the really good riding was the long 13km DH trail from Pila down to Aosta. 

The first day of practice on Friday went really well. I learnt the track pretty quickly, and managed to get most of my lines dialled in. The track was was loose and dusty, but all of that changed on Saturday afternoon right before the Elite men's seeding runs. The weather turned so suddenly and a massive hail storm with extreme wind forced race organisers to postpone the seeding runs to sunday. In the mean time I was getting soaked while trying hold our pits down and stop them from blowing off the mountain.
After drying and cleaning my kit, even though I didn't even ride, I prepared for sunday.

The weather was beautiful on race day, and the track was drying out as the day went on. The first run or two down the track was a bit sketchy in the rocks and on the roots, but it got better each run. My seeding run didn't go as well as I had hoped, and I made a few mistakes. I also didn't push that hard in the pedal sections, because I knew that my race run was coming up next and I wanted to be fresh for that. I seeded 30th.

The top section of my race run was going a lot better than seeding and I was feeling really good until one of the wooded sections where I felt something go wrong with my rear end. I also couldn't really pedal, and I thought that my derailleur had snapped off and gone into my spokes. I slowed down a lot so that I could have a look and see what the problem was. I looked and couldn't see a problem although I knew something was wrong. I carried on to the bottom, pumping where I could and still attempting to put some pedal strokes in. I crossed the line in 50th, 14 seconds off the win. I then worked out that problem was a spoke from the left side of my rear wheel, which snapped and somehow wrapped itself around my cassette, under my chain. I am super disappointed that my result didn't get to reflect the way I felt I was riding, but a mechanical is out of my control. 

Although the race didn't go according to plan, I had the best week of riding in Europe so far on the trails in the area. We even stayed 3 days longer to do more riding. Ilmenau is next, for a round of the IXS German Cup.