Deer Valley NMBS

So weve just got done with the Deer Valley NMBS here in Park City, Utah. Its been a weekend of New Zealand domination in the gravity events!

First up Cam Cole dominated the slalom on saturday night beating Petr Hanak who has been on fire this year in gated racing.

Today Justin Leov absolutely destroyed the DH winning by about 6 seconds over Amiel Cavalier with Sam Blenkinsop in 3rd. I just missed out on the podium finishing 6th after my derailer decided to skip randomly through gears straight out of the gate so I had to basically roll all the flat sections of the course and try carry as much speed as possible. Cam Cole didn't have a great day and mechanical forced him off the track so he couldn't finish his run

After DH Sam, Justin and Cam raced the super D and once again a New Zealander took the win, Sam showed everyone how fit he is by taking the win over Amiel Cavalier by about 1 second. He put in the most impressive sprint through the bottom section of the course to the finish by far. Cam got his second podium of the weekend by placing 4th and unfortunately Justin Leov came through with a flat rear tire.

Tomorrow were heading out to Colorado to spend some time with American DH racer Cole Bangert at his house to do some riding and training before heading out to the east coast to race the Windham, New York National DH round.

13th at the World Championships!!

Just a quick update for now as ive just got back from the race, as the title says I just pulled off 13th at the 2008 World Championships! This is my best World Champs result so im stoked.
We also had a solid showing in Juniors with Aari Barrett in 4th and Brook McDonald in 5th, they are both in their 1st year of juniors so watch out! Unfortunately Matt Walked had a huge crash near the bottom of the track and was taken away by ambulance, the good news is that he is ok, he only chipped a tooth and had got a few bumps and grazes. (see photos that will be up later)
Gee Atherton won the elite DH with Steve Peat in 2nd, Sam Hill was on a killer run untill he crashed on the last corner!
Justin Leov was the top NZ pro with I think an 8th place, Wyn Masters also pulled a solid result with 25th.
Scarlett Hagen came through in 9th to be the top NZ lady with Amy Laid in 16th.

Off to 4x now to watch Craig Pattle and Wyn Masters do some sweet whips!

Thunderstorm!

Weve just had a pretty decent thunder storm roll through Val Di Sole, the rain only lasted about 20 minutes so i don't think its going to affect the track much if at all.
4x qualifying was on this evening, Jarad Graves is top qualifier which is sick with the NZ guys spread out through out the pack;
25. 125 NZL19880203 COLE Cameron NZL
31. 93 NZL19900324 WALKER Matthew NZL
37. 110 NZL19870418 MASTERS Wyn NZL
47. 128 NZL19850125 PATTLE Craig NZL

4x seems to have turned into a bit too much of specialist sport lately which I think is making it a bit less exciting, theres only a few people racing both DH and 4x and three of them are from NZ (Matt, Wyn and Cameron) along with Filip Polc from Slovakia. Thats the only people I can pick from the results anyway.

World Championships Day Five.

Another day is in the books and it has been pretty uneventful, most people spent practice double checking their lines since it has dried out considerably.
The weather looks like its going to stay fine for tomorrow which will be good, the track is getting stupidly fast now that it has mostly dried out. Scary fast in some spots.
Aparently 4x specialist and former world 4x champ Michael Prokop is out after breaking his collar bone last night in 4x practice so it basically looks like its going to be a race between Lopes and Graves for the title, im hoping graves pulls it off because hes a sick rider and deserves it after all the hard work he puts in.

Race day tomorrow so having a pretty casual afternoon back here at the hotel, don't want to be tired tomorrow!

World Championships Day Four. Part Three

The UCI have finally put the full qualifying results up on their website and I was pretty surprised to see my name in 15th and 3rd fastest Kiwi! There were a few of the top guys further back because of crashes etc. and it was only qualifying so im not going to read too much into it but its good to know im on pace.

1. 2 GBR19850226 ATHERTON Gee GBR 2:45.68 3:24.81 50
Course length : 2250 m / 1.40 Mile - Average Speed : 39.55 Kmh / 24.57 Mph
2. 3 RSA19811113 MINNAAR Greg RSA 2:46.42 3:28.52 +3.71 40
3. 11 NZL19841020 LEOV Justin NZL 2:48.64 3:29.95 +5.14 30
4. 1 AUS19850721 HILL Samuel AUS 2:49.23 3:32.32 +7.51 25
5. 15 NZL19881028 BLENKINSOP Samuel NZL 2:53.61 3:35.72 + 10.91 22
15. 34 NZL19871202 BENNETT Kieran NZL 3:02.38 3:45.85 + 21.04 10
27. 49 NZL19880203 COLE Cameron NZL 3:06.87 3:50.70 + 25.89 3
37. 38 NZL19871011 SKINNER Michael NZL 3:10.80 3:56.50 + 31.69 3
42. 56 NZL19870418 MASTERS Wyn NZL 3:14.24 3:58.57 + 33.76 3

Unfortunately Nathan Rankin is out with a broken collar bone sustained at Andorra, he decided it would be best for him to sit out this race so could finish out the rest of the World Cup.

World Championships Day Four. Part Two

Seedings over and all of the New Zealander's made it through the day without any injuries. Brook McDonald had a huge moment off the jump at the bottom of the track but managed to recover with a good time that put him into 3rd with Aari Barrett right behind him in 4th after having a huge over the bars crash near the top of the track.
Justin Leov was the top pro in 3rd with Sam Blenkinsop in 5th. Not sure where everyone else was as I haven't seen a full results list yet but when it comes out ill post the rest of the New Zealander's up here.

World Championships Day Four. Part one

Just a quick update this morning, the sun is out once again and it looks like its going to be a good day.
We have qualifying this afternoon so hopefully some hot lines will come out that we can poach!

World Championships Day Three.

I woke up today to blue skys and a hot day so I was stoked! Especially since Pros didn't practice untill 1pm so I got to have a pretty casual morning.
I walked the track with Wyn Masters while the Junior Men were practicing so we got to have a good look at how it was holding up and also found some good new lines. The track was drying out slowly over the day so by the time we got out it had dried considerably since the morning but was still really slippery and dodgy because of all the wet roots that you couldn't see so it was basically trying to hang on and avoid the roots as best as possible.
I did 3 runs practice and I felt pretty good last run so called it good at that. I haven't heard of anyone else breaking themselves since Dan Atherton yesterday so everyones still in as far as I know.

This mornings view from my hotel room:


NZ junior Terrance McDonald:


Turns out mullets are in over here:

World Championships Day Two.

Day two is over and we finally got to ride our bikes!
It rained basically all of last night and drizzled most of the day today so practice was slippery with a lot of people crashing. Dan Atherton is out with a broken collarbone already which sucks since hes been on the gas in 4x this season.
The track was constantly changing so I only did two runs in the morning to get a feel for the track then called it good.
Nothing much else to report on from today except that the weather seems to clearing a bit so heres hoping it gets fine.

Team NZ downhill mechanic and 4x specialist
Craig Pattle:


A semi clean bike with a sweet number:

World Championships Day One.

Today was the first official day of the World Championships and after what has felt like a month but was only a week we finally got to do something other than sit around the hotel!
Although it was only track inspection it was better than nothing. I took my camera up and got some photos of the course, as usual they don't even come close to showing the steepness and roughness of the course but should give you a pretty good idea of what were dealing with here.
On first inspections the track looks awesome and scary at the same time, its really loamy soil so its going to get blown out and there are roots everywhere so id imagine that by the end of the tomorrow its going to be a lot different.








Thats about all to report on today, ill be posting updates everyday after practice so bookmark this page!

blogupdating

Just a quick one for today,
Im in val di sole, italy getting prepared for the world championships which are being held next weekend.
The DH course looks awesome, huge boulders, steep and lots of roots. its going to be absolute carnage if its wet so heres hoping it drys up because its been raining the last few days.
We havent managed to find a DH track to ride here yet for training so weve been doing some sweet XC riding on bikes that id estimate to be 1995 models at latest with no suspension and 1inch wide tires riding some pretty technical rocky trails but its the most fun ive had xc riding in a long time.
Apart from that there has been a lot of sitting around, watching tv and reading books!

Europa.

Today has been the first day ive had a chance to actually sit down and write anything since I left the US! I just got into Ft William, Scotland for the world cup round so its good to be back into a country where people speak english and drive on the correct side of the road!
Last weekend I had the 2nd round of the Downhill World Cup on in Andorra which is a tiny country between Spain and France and is basically just built in a valley in the mountains, im pretty sure you could drive everywhere in the country in a day easily its so small.
Anyway after a (not so) lovely couple of flights from America I got on a Bus and made it to the place I was staying at to meet up with Brook MacDonald who is one of the Juniors on the NZ worlds team. Thursday morning I got to walk the track while practice was on and on first inspection I thought it looked like rubbish, it was narrow, slow and one lined and basically just made its way across the side of a hill, definately not a world cup caliber track.
After 2 days of practice I was finally beginning to enjoy the track a bit more and have some fun on it so I was feeling confident I could have a decent result here.
Unfortunately again I ruined my chance of making the finals at another world cup round, this time on the very first corner as I hit it a bit too fast and blew out through the tape losing about 10 seconds, i missed making the top 80 for qualifying by 1 second so I was gutted because I knew I can be consistently up in the top 30 if I stop making mistakes.

Practice for Ft William starts tomorrow at 10 so hopefully this weekend I will ride a bit more sensible and keep together for my runs! this course is long and brutal so it suits me well.

Angel Fire - No words, just pictures.