Having never been there before I was pretty unsure of what to expect but after checking out the track we were greeted with a fully taped, multi line, wide track that looked awesome!
The better part of Friday was spent building up my fresh new Zerode G1 and thanks to Rob Metz, Jeremiah Dylan Dean, Shimano, Fox, Maxxis and Gamut it was looking pretty awesome! The new anodized blue definitely helps it stand out!
After finishing up building my bike I managed to squeeze in a couple of runs in the evening to get a feel for the track and start to get my bike dialed in.
Saturday came out hot and fine and with qualifying in the afternoon it was time to get all my lines sorted on the track and get up to speed. It didn't take much to get the Zerode feeling at home on the rough track at Sugarbush and by the time qualifying rolled around I was feeling good on the track.
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| Photo: Dave Trumpore |
With an open format for qualifying we were able to do our timed run anytime after 3pm so I decided to get up there early and get it out of the way. I ended up being the 4th person down the hill which was good to avoid sitting around in the heat too long!
Straight out of the gate was a short pedal and I decided to push it in my run to see how I was doing but unfortunately after bending a couple of teeth on my chain ring during practice my bike had other things in mind and primary chain derailed on the second pedal stroke almost sending me over the bars straight out of the gate! Luckily I managed to hold onto it and not crash so all I had left was to ride my run chain-less and see how it turned out. Surprisingly I managed to roll my way down into 8th which I was happy with, although still 24seconds behind fellow kiwi Justin Leov who qualified 1st, but I still felt I had some decent time to make it up with a chain on!
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| Photo: Dave Trumpore |
Sunday was another scorcher and practice in the morning was hard work in the heat but nice to be away from the NZ Winter!
After a bit of bike maintenance on Saturday night my bike was all ready and with two good practice runs in the morning I was feeling good for the race.
The race runs were seeded off of Saturdays qualifying so being 8th it meant a fairly long wait until my race run, luckily though I had booked a room in the condos which were literally right beside the finish area and lifts which meant we could hang out in the nice cool room until it was time to race!
My race run started out good and I hit the fast open top section of the track smooth and clean before entering the woods and trying to adjust to the big difference in lighting. Down through the trees was smooth and I hit all of my lines before exiting out into the open once again for the final few berms to the finish.
All in all I rode a good clean run but felt a little reserved through the woods while trying to ride clean and smooth, in the end my time was good enough for 8th place overall which I was really happy with considering I have been away from International racing for nearly two years.
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| Photo: Matt DeLorme/Vital MTB |
