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FRENCH NATIONAL CHAMPS July 23, 2007

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The French National champs were held in Mongenevre last weekend. 21 and 22 July. As a contrast to the British champs the week before, it was dust, not mud that covered everything! It was a hot dry weekend and the track was loose and dusty, with some high speed sections, steep shoots and technical turns. This was not the type of terrain that suits Fabien’s riding, every corner was a lottery, there was very little grip and nothing solid to turn against. The track was short and physical which made it difficult for Fabien with his broken ribs and Injured foot. Training was difficult as it was very limited due to the different catagories that had to share the track, getting a full run was near impossible. Fabien had decided on an unorthodox tyre choice of wet screams and we setup his suspension pretty stiff to carry speed.  

The seeding run was on Saturday and Fabien was the last man down due to his No1 plate, he managed a good clean run and posted the fastest time, however the top five were all very close, so he needed to make sure he could go quite a bit faster in the final to be sure of the victory. Sunday’s final was going to be tough for all the riders, the track had deteriorated and the wind had picked up, making hitting the last few big jumps like running the gauntlet!Fabien had regained his confidence after battling a bit in the training and having a crash that worsened his foot injury. He was ready to take the start!I watched him fly out of the gate and knew he meant business, he really attacked and started over jumping and blowing through turns, he was pushing hard for the top section and was already 2 sec up at the split. Shortly after the split he over shot a turn and lost traction, he went down! But in true Fabien style he stayed firmly attached to the bars and managed a quick recovery.He decided to attack the last section like his life depended on it and hit the last few turns like he was on rails. He crossed the line 0.7sec up and took the win! He was really pleased to retain the title. He commented after the run, that he did not ride very well, but that he passed a big step by being able to attack 100%, he also said that this was the first time since his injury that he was back in his race mind set. The preparations for the worlds are now well underway and with a few more races to come and some bike and component improvements, he is going to ready for another world champs title….. 

BRITISH NAT CHAMPS - rheola forest - WALES July 16, 2007

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Here is a summary of the very wet British National champs from 2007. My trip over was pretty easy this time, flight from Nice to
Bristol where I was welcomed by Tracy and a lot of rain! We drove east to the welsh coast near Swansea and then headed inland toRheola
Forest. It rained all day Friday and turned the track into a river. I walked the track with
Tracy, up and down (no chairlift here) and decided by the end that a canoe would have been better than my boots!!!

 The tech site was a far cry from what we normally have at a high level race like this,
Tracy and I spent 2 hours scraping mud and digging a moat to try and get a dry patch to position ourselves for the weekend. 

On a more positive note, the track was top class, with some high speed loose rocks at the start, then some technical slippery woods sections, jumps, north shore and a good gradient.  We setup everything on Sat morning with the help of Ian Collins we had a pretty dry and organised pit to work from. A quick change of tyres and suspension settings and
Tracy was ready for practice, she went for Wet Scream’s to start with to make sure she could get down ok. As the day progressed, the rain eased up and the track started getting more slippery as the mud dried and turned to greasy clay. By the end of the day it was a tough call on tyres so
Tracy opted to go for the faster intermediate tyres as it looked like she would be using them for race day. This turned out to be a good choice as it forced her to take safe lines and conserve her energy on the pedalling sections. She had a good run and took the win in the seeding run 5sec ahead of Helen Gaskell.  

Sunday brought lots more rain and the first hour of the day was spent trying to drain our pit area. Practice went well and the track had actually gotten faster due to the extremely wet conditions, the most difficult part was vision, plenty of tear-offs were going to be needed for the Final.
Tracy was the last girl down and the conditions were dismal, she managed a good run and attacked where she needed to, she managed to hit all her lines and avoid all the trees which littered the track. She commented that removing tear-offs was a really tough job on this track due to its technical nature so she had a few sketchy moments in the process. Overall it was a clean run and she posted the fastest time with Helen Gaskell in 2nd place. So a good weekend for us, well done to
Tracy and Thanks for all the help from Ian, especially his exceptional skills in jet was repair and hose-sucking!!! 

WORLD CUP 4 schaladming AUT July 16, 2007

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This world cup started really badly for me, with a broken down vehicle on the way, the gearbox, clutch and flywheel all destroyed just before the Austrian border.I received a fine for having the wrong papers in the truck by the Italian police when they came to see what was going on, then they arranged a tow truck to take me to the border. I waited there for 6hours until the Austrian towing service to take me to the closest town about 6km away. I then spent the night in a hotel and went to see the garage where the truck was parked the next day. I wasted most of the morning waiting for them to make an assessment on the damage, they concluded that the flywheel had come loose and so damaged the clutch and Gearbox. They ordered the parts and promised the truck would be ready by Friday evening. Training started on Thursday so I had to get a rental Van, load all the stuff into that and continue the remaining 140km to the race (Thanks James and Tracy for help with the loading). I then set up the tech site with the rental on Friday morning. The Truck was ready on Friday evening so we went and got it, came back to the race, moved everything from one vehicle to the next and then all was ready for Saturday……. I took the rental back on Monday with the help of a friend.Just want to let you know that this was a major pain in the ass!!! And wasted lots of time and money. We really need to look at a new vehicle. This was a perfect example of where I really needed a helper, ended up having about 6 hours of sleep each night with a 1000km drive each side! If it was not for the Help of Tracy’s Boyfriend I would not have been possible for us to get everything done….. So, for the raceTraining went well on a really difficult track which was wet for the first day but dried out by the race. The riders were not very confident at first but as it dried and lines started to form, they got the speed.The seeding run went well for all 3 riders.
Tracy had a good run event hough she was not at full speed and managed to take first place ahead of Tracy Hannah.Fabien also went well, made some mistakes and was tired by the end, but managed to keep focussed and finished 3rd behind Sam hill 1st and G. Atherton 2nd. Kamil was not very happy with his run as he felt he had ridden really badly, however he was happy to see he qualified 47th. 

The final was dry and rough, there were huge holes everywhere and hanging on to the bikes was going to be the biggest concern for all the riders, especially Tracy who was suffering with her grip after injuring her hand in Training.Her run went well in the top section and she was on the pace, however by the last minute of the nearly 5min track she was showing signs of fatigue and getting hung up on the rough sections, she was taking the safe option to avoid crashing as some of the other girls had and ended up being a bit off the pace at the finish. This put her in 4th place. She was not very pleased with her result as she had been riding well and it was not her skills that her let her down, but her hand strength instead. This track always tests
Tracy, so she was relieved have had a clean run in the final.  For Fabien, it was a very close call with the rain, if the start had been another 20min later it would have been another wet race. As he prepared at the top, the clouds were building and there was a calm, still atmosphere. He was feeling good and confident before that start which was a big step for him as it was the first time since last season that he was feeling this.The run went really well for him and he was riding better than ever before in the technical sections, he was hitting his lines and avoiding the rough to keep his speed up. By the end of the technical section he was physically exhausted and started to make some mistakes, instead of slowing down to keep control, he stayed in full race mode and decided to try keep it wide open to the finish. Unfortunately for him a small mistake left him hitting a high speed jump unclipped, his foot blew of the pedal on the landing and that caused him to roll over his foot and loose grip, he did and amazing roll, refusing to let go of the bike and managed to get right back on, however he had lost time and that pushed him back into 11th place. He was disappointed but also pleased that he had finally found his race form and speed – just not the result this time. 

Kamil had a solid run and improved his time by nearly 5sec and managed to get into the points in 48th place. He was really happy with his ride and was glad to have ridden to his potential in this race.  4XKamil had a good qualifying run and finished in 9th place on an extended track from 2006 where he won.He was confident and went through the first round easily. His second round saw him between Prokop and Longden on the gate, he had a good start and was in the thick of it on the first turn, Kamil and longden came together and lost speed, allowing 4th place to come through to third and Kamil slip into the opening. After 2 more turns, Kamil had clawed back to 3rd and was ready for the attack onto second, about half wat through the track he saw Longden hit a flag and was sure that he would be disqualified, so he decided to guard 3rd place and not risk making a pass and losing a place, he rolled down in third expecting to be pushed into second due to Longden’s mistake. Unfortunately the the
Marshall did not see what the cameras showed on the big screen so it was ruled in Longden’s Favour and Kamil was out! He was really disappointed with this and could not believe the attitude of the UCI commissare. He ended up 18th. There is now a break from world cups, and only the final remains.The good news for
Tracy and Fab is that they have both improved there overall position with 2nd and 5th respectively. Kamil is having a good DH season and standing 53rd overall.4X for Kamil is not going as well as last year and is 10th at the moment, however the gaps are not hat big so he could move up with a good result in the final.