After a fairly busy night after the first round of the Pro Gravity tour that was held at Port Angeles, WA we finally got packed up and on the road to Seattle International Airport at about 2am which seemed early but by the time we got there we missed our first flight heading to LA but luckily just had to wait a couple of hours and got another flight there in time to quickly get some nutritious Burger King for dinner then realised while we were in line we were actually getting called to the plane, turns out the 4 of us were the last people left to board so we had to do a bit of a sprint through the airport to the gate.
Our flight to France was on Air NZ so all the guys got to see how good their service is, we actually ended up getting two rows of 4 seats in the middle of the plane so with only 2 of us in each row it made for a bit more of a comfortable trip.
This was the first World Cup La Bresse has ever run and it turns out its in the middle of no where so after about 3 hours of driving through the mountains we ended up where we started with no idea where to go, after a quick drive around to find some wireless internet to steal we ended up in a car park at about 2am trying to find directions. That was untill the cops blocked us in and started getting quite grumpy, turns out they ended up being quite nice after they realised we were lost tourists and they ended up escorting us about half way to La Bresse.
After spending half of the next day asleep in our awesome log cabin accomodation I woke up to find out I had caught some kind of cough/flu which gave me one of the worst coughs ive ever had, it hit me really hard in my chest so i was constantly coughing and struggling to really breath normally.
Practice in La Bresse was the hardest practice ive ever had to do, I would get about a minute into the run and have to stop to be able to breath again, my chest would just tighten up and make me start coughing again.
Over the course of the weekend i think i ended up doing a total of 7 runs which is usually what I will do on the first day of practice to learn the track.
With qualifying being the first full run of the track for me I was a bit worried I might not be able to actually hold it together for the full run but making it to the finish line i had a decent qualifyer and was somewhere in the 50s making top 80 so I was happy.
After random rain all through the weekend it showed up again just in time for race runs with no warning, not expecting it i was sitting in the tent at the top of the hill with no tear offs on my goggles watching as is was pissing down just minutes before my run. Getting into the start gate it was still pouring rain so I had no choice but to try hold it together as good as possible.
After about the first 30 seconds my goggles were covered in rain spots making it hard to see but the track was awesome in the wet and I was having heaps of fun. Unfortunately though I ended up making a couple of anoying mistakes because of slick spots catching me out and ended up only holding it together enough for 72nd which was disappointing.
After La Bresse it was onto Andorra for the next round of the World Cup, with a similar beginning to the last trip we made it our accomodation at about 3am but found the keys in the door so we got to actually get some sleep for that night.
Having raced in Andorra last year I was pretty familiar with it so I didnt end up walking the track and just went straight into a very wet practice to find the track was identical to last year and didnt even look like they had done any work to it since last year so lots of braking bumps and exposed roots which made it tough but was awesome to have a challenging course.
By race day the track was some good deep ruts and was getting fast and even more fun. Qualifying was rough and after an off track moment I got it back together and made it through to the finals somewhere in the 60s.
After a bite to eat for lunch and a bit of a break it was back up the hill for finals after my mechanic Mike D had got my bike into race spec and running smooth. I put a good run together except for a minor moment where i was headed straight off the track but got it back together and had a lot of fun getting wild for the rest of the run ending up in 47th place, my best world cup finish so far for the season, the craziest part was my team mate Ryan finished in 48th only .01 behind me!
