R & R in Morzine, France

Breathtaking!

Hmmm, the drive isn't so bad when these are your views!

On our way to Morzine from the WC in Slovenia, we stopped off at Lake Garda in Italy. It was such a cute little Italian town, and there is a cool castle that sits on the edge of the lake. We headed into the castle to have a look around (albeit and abridged look since I was hobbling around on crutches) and breakfast. It was a nice stop over on the way to the French Alps!

The lake "moat" around the castle on Lake Garda

Hop A Long Cassidy, Fee, and Jo, enjoying a little bit of history

The birds were ruthless, they'd come straight at your food!

The day's gelato...before anyone started digging into it

We arrived in Morzine...a MTB's paradise, and I am so lucky as to get to sit on my broken bum the whole time we're here! :( They have a very nice Olympic size swimming pool that I can use for a euro a day, so it's not so bad, I guess. It's a really beautiful place here, so "having" to stay here to heal up isn't so bad, I suppose. :) We're staying at a chalet fun by FlowMTB. I'll post more on them later, they're awesome!!!

There are little castles everywhere!

The history of these places is so rich.

Jo Jo helping to pass the time on the road :)

Downgraded: Cheerleader Status at Maribor WC :(

:( Fractured Sacrum

Gotta love Dr.'s reports...especially in Slovenian! :(

Well, we made it safe and sound to Maribor just in time for a massive hail and rain storm! Unfortunately I've lost a bunch of pictures that I took whilst in Maribor, so no hail storm or race pictures. :(

Anyway, we walked the track on Wednesday and it looked like it was going to be so much fun to race. There were a few more roots than I love, but I was prepared to deal with them for the fun that all of the turns, berms, and jumps had to offer! :)

Thursday, we all head up for 4x practice in the afternoon, and I was having a great time. The course was FAST, flowing in some parts, awkward in others, big jumps, and definitely challenging. I was following Jo Jo getting sorted on the course when things went suddenly wrong! The first straight was a bit awkward and super fast! I've really been working hard to use my brakes less, and to my credit, I didn't use them at all...ummm, ooops. Well, in the end, I ended up going way past where I had planned on landing and not far enough to clear the last log feature, so down I went!! HARD!!! A couple of people that I know saw the crash and said it was a good one! I crawled (couldn't walk!) off of the course and sat on the sidelines for about 15 minutes. I knew something was pretty wrong in my low back, pelvis region, but I didn't want people to fuss about over me, and just sitting there watching practice meant that I could prolong the reality of being injured...again!

Off to the hospital I went. I got some x-rays and a CT scan with the final verdict being a fractured sacrum (part of the pelvis). After a bout of fainting and some puking, we decided it'd be best if I stayed the night in the luxurious Maribor hospital. Yea!!! :( They were pretty full of for the night, so they chucked the bed that I was on into the middle of a room with four really OLD ladies in it. Needless to say, I didn't get the best sleep of my life that night! Fee and Jo Jo came around to retrieve me the next day in between DH and 4x practice. Boy was I glad to see them. They sent me off with crutches and a perscription to get a bunch of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) injections at the pharmacy. I hate needles, and the thought of having to give myself an injection every day was horrible!

Anyway, back to the race that had barely even begun!

4x qualies were on Friday night in the dry dust! Saturday night the heavans opened up and it started pissing down the rain! DH practice on Saturday was epic (or so I was told), and then they ended up postponing qualies till the next day b/c thunder and lightening kept closing the lift down. The rain stopped and muddy, muddy 4x finals ensued! It was fun to watch the racing with some pretty good passing taking place during the heats! Melissa ended up in 2nd on the night which was awesome!!!

Sunday morning everyone got up bright and early for 7:00 am DH practice and 9:30 qualies. That morning's qualies were the most exciting I've ever watched! My friend Bernard Kerr had an amazing run and qualified 11th!! The boy has been riding out of his mind the last couple of weeks! Racing was slated for later that afternoon, and it was so warm and dry that most people traded in their mud spikes for regular tires in the end. Sabrina held on for her 4th win in a row, which was awesome!! Unfortunatley Bernie had a crash in his finals, as he was on pace to put in a really good run. He still ended up 44th with his best DH finish yet!

Hanging out with Sabrina was the best part of the evening.
Tiny bars full of loads of drunk people aren't the best place to
have any sort of conversation! :( Ah well!

The afterparty in Maribor always sucks, and I was certianly not looking forward to it this year being on crutches. It's always down in the town, which is a fair distance from the race venue (and where everyone is staying). We hopped on a bus to head downtown and about 5 minutes into the ride, a baseball sized rock (from who knows where) came sailing through the window, throwing glass all over the place, including into Jo's arm, making it bleed! We all say, a bit in disbelief that that had really just taken place. We sat around for about 20 minutes before the police and another bus showed up to take us on our merry way. This trip has held a lot of "firsts" for me, and that was definitely one of them. Hopefully it's also a last, as that was really scary, and if the rock had hit anyone, it definitely would have taken them out!

Our bus window post "stoning"

Anneke getting a little extra training in and biding
the time until the replacement bus showed up

Oh, and as predicted, the party sucked, especially since I was just sat around trying not to get pushed over by all of the rowdy drunk DHers crammed into way too small of a place for everyone!

Eurochamps

Bernard Kerr on top of the box: 2009 European Champion.
Not bad, not bad!

European Champs is a really big race, similar to World Champs, but just with the 12 European Country Federations bringing their contingencies of racers. I had several friends racing for the Great Britain, French, and Swiss teams. I spent most of Saturday driving shuttles for people up to the lift, as it was a silly uphill ride from the bottom of the course back to the lift. They had their qualifying runs and the opening ceremonies on Saturday. My friends Bernard Kerr and Sabrina both qualified first with conservative but fast runs!

Sabrina and Floriane at the Opening Ceremonies...man those girls are fast!

Fee and Bernie rocking the GB colors

This guy is a legend! He was in Schladming rocking

around on this bike all weekend last year, too!

Bernie and Harry qualied 1,2 for the day! Nice!!

Emi was so, so sick before her race run. Still a trooper, though!

Racing was slated for Sunday starting at 10:30. Bernie ended up killing it and won the Junior class by 3.5 seconds, which would have put him in 5th in elites! Unfortunately Sabrina had a huge crash and didn’t finish well. The French girls took over the podium again with Floriane Pugin taking the win followed by Emmeline Ragot and Celine Gros. Fee ended up in 6th for the day.

Me and Sabrina kicking back and enjoying the
mounatin views, rivers, and lakes!

The next day we headed out for a beautiful XC ride up one of the next valleys up. We rode past a ski jump training facility on our way up to the bottom of the snow pack. We had so much fun on the way down doing cutties in the scree just playing around. It’s a lot of fun riding with girls with such phenomenal skills!!!

XC ride up to the bottom of the snow pack up another
canyon in Kranjska Gora on Monday

On our way to Maribor, we stopped off in beautiful Bled, Slovenia. This place is COOL!!! There is a beautiful lake in the middle of town that has an island in the middle with a cool church on it. We hired a row boat to go to the island, but about 2 minutes into the adventure, Fee, Jo, and I decided we'd like to swim to the island, so we made Paul row the rest of the way there. It was such refreshing mountain water and it was nice to get a little bit of exercise as well!

Jo cracking the whip on my less than stellar rowing effort

Time for some swimming!

There's a cool castle on the lake cliff side as well!

The Triumverate: Austria, Italy, and Slovenia

Sitting in three countries at the same time: Italy, Austria, and Slovenia

We arrived in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia for the European Championships. Jo Jo and I weren’t racing, so we spent our time in this very beautiful place exploring on our 4x bikes. The owner of our hotel gave us some directions, pointed to some good places on the map, and off we went! The first day we just rode up a canyon straight out of town. It was a really nice ride, with beautiful scenery. We stopped at a cool little World War I memorial commemorating the loss of many soldiers due to an avalanche in the canyon.

The evening view from our front porch...breathtaking!

This was a major area of action during WWI. This site is a
memorial to 100s of troops lost in an avalanche in this area.

More of the memorial

Me and Jo Jo LOVING riding our bikes in Slovenia!!

The glacial runoff was sooooo beautiful!

The next day, we decided to ride to where the Austrian, Slovenian, and Italian borders all meet up. We recruited Gary Wolff, the Maxxis team manager, to go with us. It turned into a bit of an epic ride with us gravity type struggling uphill for over 2 hours straight, but in the end it was definitely worth it. The views from the top down into each of the countries were amazing!! We cruised down the many meters we’d climbed up and ended up in a small town in Italy. It was just a nice rolling ride back into Slovenia on the road to end off a 3.5+ hour ride.

Looking back onto the race venue as we're riding to the border crossing

Holy crap, we've been climbing
for 2 hours now, are we there yet????

The view into Austria

Looking down into Italy from the top

Looking back into Slovenia...epic views all around!

The World Cup Traveling Circus

The moon rising over the Scottish Highlands

Me and Melissa doing a little training in Fort Bill

Jaymie analyzing mine and Buhl's urine samples before and after
training...and yes, she's doing it on our kitchen counter...ewwwww!!

The World Cup Circuit is a bit of a traveling circus, in my opinion. ☺ Each week that there is a race hundreds of brightly colored vans full of tents and racers arrive in peaceful little mountain towns and take over for the week. Tuesday and Wednesday see the pit areas come to life as each team and support group sets up their pop up tents attached to vans, motorhomes, and even huge trucks for a few of the teams. For some of the teams, the racers travel in luxury, flying from place to place showing up once the pits are setup and just in time for practice, as someone probably even stands in the horrible registration line for them. For others, all of the “to do” is done by them. I’m traveling with Fionn Griffiths whilst in Europe, and even though she is one of the best in the world at both 4x and DH, she does it all on her own. She runs and manages her own race program. She’s got a sweet van all pimped out and able to carry around 4 people and 8 bikes, as well as a full tech area setup! She was kind enough to invite me along on her program for this summer. There is no way I could have come over here and made it to all of these races without her help!

Fort William has the BEST crowd and spectators ever!!

Anyway, the rest of the week pretty much goes like this: Thursday, register with barely enough time to get up the track and walk the DH track, then rush down to get to 4X practice because it’s probably already started! Practice 4x for ~1.5 hours, which in my opinion, is never enough time considering the magnitude of the courses that we race on. Friday see DH practice starting at 8:30 till 2:30 for everyone and then times run practice for the top 20 women and top 80 men. After that is more 4x practice and 4x qualifying. Saturday is filled to the brim. DH practice is in the morning and then DH qualifying is in the early afternoon. After that there is a bit more 4x practice and then 4x finals. Sunday has a little DH practice in the morning and then DH finals at 1:00. After all of that, everyone scrambles to tear the pits down, shower, eat (sometimes) and then find out where everyone is celebrating with whomever was on top of the block for the day! Monday usually sees a late start as people make their way home from wherever they found themselves at the end of the night and recover from all of the celebration. Pack up the rest of the traveling circus and move on to the next spot. I’m sure the locals are happy to have us, but they’re probably also very happy to see the entourage heading out of town! ☺

Melissa, Jaymie, and me. I'm so lucky to have such amazing friends!

Ah, the crew at the afterparty

No Internet = No Updates

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I haven't had internet all week here at Fort William, so updates will have to wait until I do. :) Scotland has been mostly sunny, full of EFFING midges, and home to a DH race track that ties for my top favorite!

Home Away From Home

Mmmmmm, afternoon tea with clotted cream and a fruit scone. Delish!!

I've been living the life of luxury here in Innerleithen, Scotland for nearly a week now. Jaymie has been such a wonderful host, it's almost as if I feel like I've moved in! We're heading up to Fort William tomorrow (to continue on with my 800+ mile tour of the UK), so I'll be leaving this wonderful mecca of MTBing, but I won't be leaving without many wonderful memories, several amazing MTB rides ticked off, several dinner and brekkies in the garden in the sun, and an amazing Cream Tea adventure!

Jaymie having to hand wash the Lucozade van since we sat around talking too long to take it to the gas station pressure washer!

It's world cup racing time again, and I can't wait! I love the Fort Bill 4x track, and I've been dying to ride the DH track for ages! More to come from the Scottish Highlands as the week goes on!