2 Weeks in Champery, Switzerland led to my best World Champs result ever, 7th! If you've never been to the Swiss Alps I would say it is one of the most beautiful places on earth and a must visit. Champery is nestled right in the middle of the Alps with giant glacier covered mountains, sweeping green valleys, quintessential swiss homes and giant cows with bells that seem to defy gravity to stand on 45 degree hillsides.
The course is most technical we ride all year when it's dry. When it's wet, it's the most technical I've ever ridden. It is like Mt Snow if you took all the dirt away and it was just roots and rocks. I was shooting for a top 5 finish in hopes to qualify for the Olympic team this year. I knew I had pretty good fitness, the Epic 29er was the perfect bike for the course and I had ridden what felt like a million laps of the 4.5K course leading up to the event.
The day of the race there were a lot of clouds but it was dry when we lined up for the start. My jump off the line left a lot to be desired as I missed my pedal and went from 2/3 row to 40th place by the time we rolled through the s/f after the 6 minute start loop. I had also crashed off a drop trying to avoid another rider that had crashed and burped my front tire. I had 21 psi in it to start with and I think it dropped to about 15 psi after. I thought about stopping the pit to change the wheel but at the start of the race it's so tight if you stop for 30 seconds, you loose at least 20 places. I figured if I could make it off the jump with out the tire rolling off the rim I'd be good to go and sure enough it held.
For the first half of the race I moved up steadily and probably got into the top 20 by the midway point in the race when the rain started. The course was already slippery since all the bark had been ridden off the roots and they were white and shinny from the tens of thousands of laps ridden on the course prior to our race. When the dirt sections started to get slick from the rain I started to move up even faster and had cracked the top 10 going into the 2nd to last lap. It's much easier to move up when you're further down the field then when you're passing guys up front since the speed is so much higher. I almost caught Vogel for 6th place on the last climb but he held me off and I managed to make contact with him right as we hit the 100 meter finishing straight. He held me off in the sprint but I was still happy to finish 7th, my best place ever at Worlds(previous best place was 8, 2 years ago)
I went through a lot of emotions in that race. I was very excited before and looked down at my HR when I was coasting through the pits and it was 125 when it's normally about 70 in that situation. Then when I had such a crappy start I was just wanting the race to be over. By the time the end came I was so fired up and just wishing I had one more lap to try to get up to the top 5. Funny now racing works.
My teammate Jaro killed it like he has all year and took the jersey he deserved, the rainbow stripes. Susi finished just behind me in 8th and Burry crashed into a metal bridge when it started raining and he was just off the lead group. He wasn't able to finish. We all rode our 29er Epic and the bikes were incredible. With so much technical, rough pedaling sections, it just ate up the bumps. Plus they looked really cool since they're 2012 model bikes:)
The party after the race was fun and the DH the next day was crazy. I flew home on Monday, Jaro went back to Czech to do a press conference, Burry and Susi went to Zermatt to film videos, the staff split up with some flying straight to Bejing for a tri event and the rest going to Zermatt.
Now I'm in the process of getting ready for cross. I've been gluing up Zipp wheels/Specialized tires all week. I've been trying to get out on the CX bike since Vegas is only a week away but the trails are in such great shape it's hard to pull myself away from the MTB.
Here's the Worlds Recap:
I wonder how the Darts' wrist is healing up....
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