In the past month we have had a couple weeks off racing, then two back to back World Cups. There has been lots of travelling, lots of fun, lots of hard work, some crashes and a ton of experience. Being able to travel with a team and race world cups is amazing. I never thought I would have had this opportunity. I'm bummed I leave in a week to fly home and miss out on the rest of the World Cups, but the experience I have gained will help me in the upcoming Pro XCT series events in the States.
The World Cups are very exciting with the enormous crowds, all the top athletes in the world around and the tough courses. I felt like I was at a football game in the States when I was at the Czech World Cup. The spectators were so loud, there was a ton of people everywhere along the course--even the climbs, there were bleachers with a massive screen to watch the race.
The courses are usually muddy with roots, rocks and steep climbs. I haven't been nervous about a course since I used to race some downhill events years ago. Normally preriding a course consisted of learning when to go hard, when to recover, when to refuel the body and learning a couple lines. With the world cups, it is all of that but a lot more time is spent on learning technical descents/ascents--overcoming fear, learning lines and learning new lines the day before the race because lines change after thousands of people use them.
I had a great Czech race, started in the last row and moved up with only a few mechanicals. For the France World Cup, I had some really severe cramping issues along with a cold. The only real mechanical I had was during practice I kind of ran into a tree and snapped my RockShox lockout, which luckily SRAM travels to all the World Cups and was there to fix my lockout.
Next stop is this weekend for the 3rd British National series event in Shropshire. Then Tuesday, back to USA. Thanks for reading :)
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