Wow! It's already been almost two weeks since my race in Champery. Man does time fly when you're having fun!
A week prior to the World Championships I headed over to the USA Cycling house in Kirchzarten, Germany for my final days of training and to get in a few races to keep the legs open. The first race was a city sprint event which took place on city streets with stairs, pallets, barriers and other items thrown in to make it interesting. Interesting it was. Driving to the race, we got a bit lost which turned things into a bit of a scramble. Right before the race started it began to absolutely pour. Between the race being at night with little lighting, the pouring rain and sketchy obstacles I wasn't really into. I managed a couple laps and got in some good efforts.
A few days later we headed just across the Swiss/ German border for a Swisspower Cup in Basel. The course was pretty fun and had a bit of everything in it. It was really fast and finding a good group was key. I found myself in a pretty large group which included teammate Kerry Werner. I rode really well and had one of my better races of the season there. A good sign for Worlds!
The next morning we made the voyage to Champery, Switzerland. It was just as beautiful as I had remembered it being. The alps are truly amazing! The course was also the same as in the past. It's one of the better course I think. It demands you to be a good technical rider as well as a strong climber. Both things I would consider my strengths. The course was always a bit moist due to nightly rains. I was hoping for an epicly muddy race. I know the mechanics weren't though, and they got their wish.
After a few days of sitting around and resting it was finally race day! After a solid warm up it was go time. I put together a really good start and was constantly moving up. For the first 2 or 3 laps I was riding really well and found myself in the top 30. Unfortunately, I hit a wall and my second half the race I was going completely backwards. I didn't achieve my goal of a top 30 but took away a lot of experience to bring to the table in 2012.
Getting rad on the A-Line drop
The day after the race our Canadian neighbors invited us on a ride with them. We rode high up into the alps and peaked out on a ridge which doubled as the Switzerland/ France border. This ride was the official kick off to the off season and since then I've been doing a lot of fun riding. Jack Hinkens is staying with me right now which has been a lot of fun. Our first day back we decided some dirt jumping was on the to do list. Jack has a lot of hidden talents, including being able to pull a 360 off one of the jumps. Super impressive.
My bike takes me places school never could
After a day of dirt jumping, we returned to our cross-country roots and summited Pikes Peak. With an elevation of 14,115ft this was not going to be an easy task. After around 3.5 hours of climbing and hiking we reached the top. It was 41 degrees and snowing on top vs. the 80 and sunny down in the springs. Barr trail was a bit to technical to enjoy riding down on the hardtails so we decided to go down the Pikes Peak highway 3 miles to Elk Park, a more XC bike friendly trail. The only problem with that is riding down the PP highway is illegal. We ran into one ranger pulled over and blew by him. He radioed ahead to another ranger who blocked the road stopping us dead in our tracks, only 500 feet from the trailhead. After scaring us by saying he was going to charge us with a $250 fine and jail time, we walked away with a $12 ticket. Ha!
Almost above tree line!
Up pretty high!
Many of our days have involved keeping it fun on the bike. Jack and I also headed up to Winter Park on the big bikes and got pretty rad up there. That was a lot of fun. Jack is heading home tomorrow, but hopefully he'll be back soon. I think he likes it here! This weekend I'm racing in Palmer Park. A 50 miler on my birthday should be fun!
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