World Cup #1 - Albstadt

After a very poor week of training in London it was a relief to finally get to Germany where I could focus all my energy on training and preparing for the first UCI World Cup in Albsadt. The course was really fun, but also very hard, with short slippery downhills and short steep climbs, that coupled with the cold and slight elevation of 800m, made for a tough race course where there would be no hiding if your legs weren’t delivering on the day. At first my legs were not feeling like they would be capable of the intensity of a world cup especially on this course, but after just over a week of solid laps on the MUDDY course and getting the right intervals in, I was ready and excited to get going.

Race day came around and the mud we had been so used to from the previous week had mostly dried up overnight and in the earlier Junior and U23 womens races, I had mud tyres on and knew that weren’t the most ideal anymore but they could still be an advantage on some of the slippery sections on the downhills. Speaking to a few people before the race start I heard how the rocks had now become more slippery despite the drying of the dirt.

My race number for this race was 70 meaning I would be called up to the line 70 riders after the first, this was okay considering the field was 130 strong, I would be mid pack. The gun went off and we were up the road and onto the short grass section, elbows out trying to move up the field before the singletrack. As soon as we hit the single track it was time to get off and push the bike as a train of people 8 wide tried to merge into single file, this meant coming almost to a standstill, getting off the bike and pushing through, trying still to make places. At the top of the short climb we were back on our bikes and able to ride the descent okay, slightly more spread out. Then we hit another climb, this one slightly longer and wider and again at the top we came to a stand still, as the course marshals were stopping people making sure riders went one at a time down the next more technical and slippery downhill, it felt like I was waiting at the top for 2 minutes moving only 20 meters in that time before it was my turn to go down. After the downhill we had a short hill followed by another easier decent, where I made a small mistake at the top causing a gap between me and the next rider to open up a little. I was busy shutting down the gap when I hit some of the slippery rock that I had been warned about before the start, they had not been exaggerating, I found out the hard way. My wheels slid straight out from under me and I landed hard on my left knee. In a lot of pain I moved off the track with the help of some spectators and sat down to take the weight off my leg. The pain remained for the next couple of minutes and I couldn’t bend my leg. Some paramedics arrived and were trying to find out from me what I thought the problem was, speaking only in German. About 5 minutes later I could bend my leg and put weight on it, so thought about getting back on the track and seeing how far I could get through the race. Unfortunately the paramedics rules say that if they attend to you, you must fill out a form about the accident and wouldn’t let me go (probably a good thing, as my knee is pretty sore now), forcing me to abandon my first European World Cup. I’m gutted but realistic, knowing that this is only the first race with more to come over the next few months. I now have only 2 more chances to prove my worth to the NZ National team selectors for the World Champs, the next one being a week away in Czech Republic. Hoping that I can recover in time for that.

The other kiwi’s here did well today, with Amber coming back from a tough start to finish 20^th, Dirk made it to 22^nd and Sam Shaw survived a massive ragdoll and rode with a broken seat, standing up for the last half lap finishing in 71^st.