Down Time In France

    We had a break after the World Cup finals last week, so the team and I spent the off weekend in Chatel, Fraance getting ready for World Champs. Chatel is part of the Ports du Soliel bike parks located in the alpes of France and Switzerland. Riding here is one of the coolest things I have ever done, you can cover so much ground and ride so many different lift accessed trails all on the downhill bike. Chatel was by far my favorite place last summer, so It was awesome to get a chance to go back again this year to ride and see all my friends. The breaking bumps are always epic at the bike parks, but Its such a good time to ride there with a group of friends. Good training on the hands too after holding on through all those rough tracks. I just got into Champery, Switzerland yesterday for Worlds. The track looks the same as last year, which is good, I really like this one. The junior field is going to be very competitive this year, but World Champs is a one day, one run, race totally separate from the World Cup. Anything can happen. What I can control here is how I ride my race and how I prepare for it. If I do that the best I can then I can't be disappointed. It was a cool experience representing the United States of America last year at worlds, so Im really looking forward to that again this week. Aaron and I have some cool USA gear to wear so watch out for that. My family is coming out to watch me race this weekend which I'm very excited about. I haven't seen them in a while. It's going to be a great weekend.

NM

Val di Sole World Cup

  Yesterday I raced the World Cup finals in Val di Sole, Italy. The weather was fantastic all weekend and the venue was really cool. I had a great start to the weekend riding with Aaron for most of Thursday practice and having a ton of fun. After the first day, the holes, roots and rocks came out and the track became very difficult to race. I felt like I could ride each section pinned, but when I tried to link them all together I started to make mistakes. This seemed to be the case for everyone as the track continued to get rougher through the weekend. I had a crash in the quali which I was disappointed with, but I was 16th at the split which showed I was on pace and could put in a good result in the final. Saturday we had a day between quali and race to practice. I found some new lines and felt like it was all coming together. Sunday was a rough day for me. First run down the hill I had a big over the bars and hit my head pretty hard. My vision was blurred and I can hardly remember making my way down the rest of the track and getting back to the team pits. I was planning to do another run before the final, but with the state I was in, I was forced to rest. I got myself as ready as I could be, but was still feeling under the weather before the start. It was already hard to see through the shadows on that track and after hitting my head it became a lot worse.  I stared off the run pretty well with solid first and second splits, then had another crash towards the bottom. I was happy with the way I was able to get myself from injury to the start line in a few hours time, and if I could have held on to the finnish i'm sure it would have been a good result. It was a hard day for me, but thats how racing goes and I keep on learning. That brought my final World Cup ranking to 33 for the year. I was aiming for a lower number, but It was a solid result for my first season. I will be in Chatel, France for the next week preparing for the World Championships.

Race results:

1 Aaron Gwin USA 3.10.356
2 Danny Hart GBR 3.11.588
3 Gee Atherton GBR 3.14.470
4 Troy Brosnan AUS 3.15.773
5 Cameron Cole NZL 3.16.529
56 Neko Mulally USA 3.35.640

NM

Chilling Out In Innsbruck

     I spent the past week In Innsbruck, Austria during the off weekend between the World Cups. Innsbruck Is a really cool town. Theres tons to do there and the bike riding along with the nice weather made it a pretty cool place to hang out. We had a couple good rides through the hills around the city and saw some pretty cool views. There was an olympic diving pool in the city with 1,3,6,9, and 12 meeter platforms. That made for some good fun in the afternoons. We were there for a race saturday which was more or less an event to show the sport to the city than an important race. It was a team format where we would each score points for a cumulative result. Unfortunately Justin, Aaron and I all crashed and we didn't do very well. That wasn't the important part, we put on a good show and had a great week of training. Most importantly we were all healthy and ready for the World Cup Finals this weekend In Italy. Yesterday was a free day and the team was not traveling until this afternoon, so I took the train to Switzerland to visit my friend Cyrill. We had a fun day hanging out at his house with his family. We swam in the lake and then went to a party with his friends in the evening. I spent the day today traveling back to Austria then driving to Italy. Its good to finally have internet that works haha. Im really looking forward to the racing this weekend, the track looks pretty sweet.

NM

La Bresse World Cup

It is a cold, rainy Tuesday afternoon in Innsbruck, Austria, where I will be spending the next week with my teammates Justin and Aaron. There is an off weekend leading into the final round of the World Cup in Italy. I had a good time last weekend in La Bresse, France racing in round 6 of the World Cup. It was a very short track, nearly 2 min in the dry. It was a really cool layout for a race. We usually race in remote areas at ski resorts away from towns and people, but the track in La Bresse was right in the center of it all. The track finished in the town center with the pits set up on the main street. Some of the track went through people's gardens and it crossed paved roads several times. I really enjoyed the whole atmosphere of the event and had a lot of fun all weekend. I qualified well, 24th place, and I felt like I had more speed for Sunday. It rained a lot between Saturdays quali and the race Sunday afternoon. I was comfortable in the mud, but didn't get it together the way I wanted to in my race run. I rode the top section well, then was caught out by a big mistake half way down. After that I struggled to get back on pace, something I need to work on, and finished a disappointing 50th place. With the times so tight, you couldn't afford any mistakes at all. I feel good about the weekend overall and enjoyed France a lot. My team and I arrived here in Innsbruck late last night after a long drive through Germany. We're staying at the Austrian Olympic training center, which is really cool. This saturday we are racing in an invitational event here as a team which should be pretty exciting. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week in Innsbruck.

1 Greg Minnaar    2:09.611
2 Gee Atherton    2:10.070
3 Aaron Gwin      2:12.040
4 Fabien Barel    2:13.084
5 Cameron Cole  2:13.590
50 Neko Mulally   2:20.030 

NM

Out of Here

I am packed and ready to head off to the airport for Europe for the rest of the season. I had an awesome time at home, but i'm really excited for this trip. This past weekend my friends and I did a team relay triathlon. We had a very strong team with my friend Nate swimming and Brad running. We won and set the coarse record. It was fun to change up my normal routine and do something like that with my friends. I will race this weekend in La Bresse, France in the sixth round of the World Cup. Im really looking forward to that race.

NM