Europe Week 1
The first week in Europe has gone by a bit slow, but we are coming to the end soon. The first week we were in Poland for a 4x race which I was invited to do. The course was long, many turns, a few hard jumps and ran at night, which made it a bit difficult with the camera flashes in your face. This was my first race on my new hard tail ibis Tranny and also with the new Marzocchi 15mm through axel 44 fork. Both had only one ride before being packed up for Europe.
Poland went well. I qualified first and made it through all my rounds to get into the finals with 3 Dutch riders. When the gate dropped I felt I had a great start, but with the first straight being full of small doubles, there wasn't much room for pedaling. Jurg Meir and I bumped a couple times on the fist straight, slowing us both down and allowing Joost to have a clear lead into turn one. From there I really had some ground to make up if I were to catch Joost. He must have had around a 5 bike length lead, but I could see I was gaining on him in every turn. As we sprinted to the line I was on his back wheel, but ran out of time and finished second.
All and all I was OK with the finish. With a new bike, new fork, fastest qualifier, and a strong performance in the final, I had nothing to be disappointed about. I actually enjoy riding from behind and trying to make the passes, just like when I actually make them.
We are now in Slovenia for WC #1 and the course layout is very similar to last year, but there are some new obstacles thrown in. Today is practice so we will see how the course flows.
Posted by Brian on May 8, 2008 01:57 AM