IXS German Cup #2 - Steinach - 2 June 2013

Mud, rain, ruts and even some snow is what my first bit of European riding consisted of. I had been told that it was a bit colder than usual but I was in for quite a shock. We got in a quick track walk, in the rain, on Wednesday and I was a bit disappointed to find that only half the track was being used. The part that we were racing looked rad though! That evening, something I had eaten didn't agree with me and so I was up the whole night, sick. I spent the whole of Thursday in bed and tried to catch up on some sleep while the others got in some runs on the track.

Friday afternoon saw the first official practice session go down, and it was crazy to see how the track got rutted out so quickly. The one cool thing was that we had to ride down through the bike park to get to the start of the track. This gave us a bit of a warm up. Although it was raining a lot and super muddy, Adi and myself stayed on our dry tyres right up until seeding on Saturday afternoon. I ended up racing seeding and finals on a cut down mud on the front and a dry tyre on the rear.

My seeding run on Saturday afternoon was good, although I managed to completely ruin my tear off system, when I accidentally pulled all of them off, right near the beginning of my run. I was seeded 44th and I knew I could improve in my race run.

The guys at IXS hooked us up with these amazing DH overalls that kept us dry and clean during practice which was a major help. After two runs on Sunday morning we headed home for lunch, and to prepare for race runs that afternoon. Unlike seeding, I actually managed to stay dry and warm during the ride down to the start. After a good warm up I started my run. I felt a little cautious, and slower in some of the technical sections than I did in practice, but overall I put down a solid run and I improved on my seeding run's time by over 7 seconds. I ended up 35th with a time of 4:11. Its so cool to race and be a part of downhill races that have the numbers that this race did - over 400 riders with 200 of those being elite men. I can't wait for the next one in Morgins.