Worlds Recap
Australia was a great trip. Started off with a few days in the Blue Mountains. Paula & I stayed at the Sharples house, along with Jill and Bryn. It was fun hanging with Sharples as it has been some time since we spent time together and Scott & Shauna are great hosts. We did some great hikes, hit up some of Bryn's local DH trails one day w/ the Syndicate team, and froze our asses off. It was cold and windy up there and I was hoping Canberra would be different.
A 3 hour drive to Canberra and the weather was a bit warmer, not shorts worthy, but better. It was straight to the DH course to walk it with Peaty, Greg, Josh, and a few others before the wild goose chase to find our hotel.
The course was a bit more than I thought it would be in the way of technical, but it looked fun. Practice went good, the new ibis HD was great and the weather stayed good for the race. My race run was pretty smooth, no big mistakes, just didn't have the balls to let it go in the faster sections and the rock sections to gain some need seconds. I pedaled my ass off on the bottom which helped me for sure, but I just lost a few too many seconds up top to break the top 10, but 18th was not too bad since I have not raced a World Championship DH in 10years. It was my B-day on race day and my wishes came true watching Peaty finally win the title that has eluded him for 17 years.
After worlds we spent a day in Sydney checking out the city, which was amazing. Beautiful, clean, nicest city I have ever been in. And the people were amazingly nice. After a day checking out the famous opera house and bay bridge we took a short hour flight to the gold coast to spend a couple days in some warmer, tropical weather.
Michael Ronning, one of the original Aussie DHer's was our host for the stay. With shorts on we checked out a few beaches, hit the zoo to pet some Kangaroo's, and took in the Gold Coast. One night we met up with Wade Bootes for dinner who lived just a few miles from Michael. It was great hanging with some old friends and catching up with what's happening in all our lives.
A long trip, but well worth the experience.
Posted by Brian on September 15, 2009 10:23 PM