IXS European DH Cup #2 - Spicak

This last weekend, we were in Spicak, a small Czech village, just over the German boarder. We ended up arriving a little bit later than expected on Wednesday night, and after driving through the lights from the casinos and strip clubs, we got to our apartment around 11 o'clock. The lady who owned the apartments wasn't too impressed when she got a phone call from 2 South Africans who were outside the apartment. Anyway, after getting inside, we finally got some sleep.The next day, we headed to the track, to do some recon, and find out exactly what we'd be racing. The track was a lot tighter and slower than expected. I knew that it was going to be a challenging weekend, especially if the rain clouds overhead were anything to go by. We then decided to set up our pits so that we could secure a good spot. 

The slow rock gardens, and super tights turns took a little bit of time to get adjusted to. Over the past few weeks I had ridden Val di Sole, Leogang, and then Schladming in between, so as you can imagine, my bike wasn't quite set up for Spicak. From the word go, I battled to find flow on the track, and I struggled to find a setup that I felt really comfortable on. The rocks were a bit slippery during Saturdays practice, but some mid day showers made it very slippery and wet for seeding runs that afternoon. My seeding wasn't great and I knew that I would have to improve come race run. I seeded 62nd.

The next day the sun was out but heavy rain during the night made the first few runs of the day super slippery and sketchy. I looked for new lines and for places where I could make up some time. Things just weren't going my way, and I hurt my braking finger after I crashed trying to avoid another fallen rider in front of me. By the time race runs came, the track was a lot drier and so the cut spike I had on the front wasn't necessary. I felt better in my race run than I did in seeding, but it was still far from a good run. I finished up 72nd, far from where I wanted to be, but it was just one of those weekends I guess. I am really looking forward to some downtime here in Schladming after 6 weekends of consecutive racing.