We travelled up to Cahors to check in at the Mounatinbike and Trials World Championships in Champery. Waking up to a breath taking view across the Alps. We checked through the sections and then it was time to pack the bike up!? Yep, I had to leave for a show in the UK!!!
On Sunday we got to watch the best motorbike trials riders in the world ride the exact same sections as us. It’s always great to see these guys move their huge machines through the same obstacles as us. Watching the world champion Toni Bou was a real highlight and also Britains top rider, James Dabill was there showing his skills and making the sections look easy! Best of luck to James for the rest of the season!
We travelled from Martigues to Cahors, which is about 100km north of Toulouse in France where Rick Koekoek and myself were invited to an international competition with the top riders in the world. The sections were huge and the the evnt is run for both mountain bikes and motorbikes. Our competition was run on the Saturday evening under big spot lights. The format of the event was the French “open free” style. This makes the competition much more spectator friendly and easier for the public to work out. It was two laps of 5 sections, first lap riding each section in one direction, and the second lap riding them in reverse! I had a great time riding (although still very tired from the week of training!) and with great crowds it made it the bext event of the year so far. Can’t wait for the next competition! Big shout to Vincent Hermance for helping with the competition and the invite!
So after the world cup in Pra Loup and our awesome day riding DH, we headed down to the south coast of France to Martigues, the home of Gilles and Giacomo Coustellier. Gilles has won countless world cups and world championships and his brother, Giacomo, is not far behind! We spent four days riding mainly with Gilles, who took us to a few of their local spots. Its a beautiful part of the world and the weather was perfect. When you see where they train you can understand how they have achieved such a high level of riding. It was a great experience and great fun riding with all the riders there and I am looking forward to getting back there as soon as possible!
After a busy few days of riding trials in Pra loup, we decided to do somoething other than trials on the monday, so we hired some downhill bikes! Pra Loup has some amazing trails at the top of the mountain for down hill and free ride. So we jumped on the gondalas and headed to the top. With Rick Koekoek, Janine Jungfels, Hannes Herrmann and myself it was bound to be a good days riding. Rick took the lead for the first run, and sure enough, about a minute into the first run, he had a big crash coming off a 2 meter drop! But fortunately he was fine and carried on. We then found the bike park and hit the black Norths Shore style run. With built up wooden tracks where you need more balance and control, we were loving it! We will have the video from it up soon so will let everyone know about it, with Rick’s crash too!
So this weekend I have been competing in Pra loup, high up in the Alps. This was the final world cup of the season and was also the best result for me so far. It was scorching hot on the day of the competition. I was really lucky in the Semi-finals, I started on the easiest section and had a five straight away and thought my day was over before it had really begun! But I managed to stay consistent enough for the rest of the competition and placed 7th, qualifying for the finals. The finals sections, in traditional french fashion, were full of huge moves. One of the sections went right over the point of the top of a building. I managed to make it through some really tough riding and found my focus that I was lacking in the beginning of the season. Overall great event, with great crowds, great sections and great weather.
Rick Koekoek had a great ride to 4th place in the 20” category, leaving him to take 4th overall this season.
Janine Jungfels also placed 4th in the competition, missing the podium by only 1 point! But this was enough to secure her 3rd place for the 2011 season, not bad for her first ever year of international competitions!
Next we are off to Grenoble to train with top French rider Aurelien Fontenoy for a couple of days.
After the Show on the saturday evening, Tim Wills and I drove all night to get to Whitley Bay, Newcastle. 3Sixty is a Trials team of some of the top and most experienced riders in the UK. They set up a competition in conjunction with the Urban Games, and event which featured many street sports that are not included in the Olympics. The guys put in a huge effort to build a great arena with huge wooden cable reels. We rode a few sessions through the day and each round had a different feature. I managed to win both the challenges set in round two. These were attempts to match current world records, actually set the day before by the team! I managed to equal both which is great! Three times World champion Jack Carthy won both the high jump competition and the long jump competition and Brett Penfold won Best trick. Also my old friend Joe Oakley (Britain’s got Talent star) was competing for his first time this year after taking a year out to concentrate on shows and training. He showed he has kept well on top of his game! Unfortunately Tim had an ankle injury that stopped him riding on the Sunday. All in all it was a brilliant event and glad we made the effort to get up there!
Before our Evening show, we headed up to Dartmoor to do some training and a photo shoot for some new gear we are testing out. Smartwool have sorted us out with some new products to try. First impressions are good, the clothes feel great to ride in and cope with sweat very well. Check out there website for more details: www.smartwool.com.
We were also joined by a whole group of local riders which was great to ride with the guys again after being away so much.
On Saturday, Team Rider Tim Wills and myself set the rig up in Simmons Park in Okehampton, Devon to do shows for the Battle of the Bands. It was a great event and we had fantastic crowds. We were also joined by the Oke-Freeriders, a group of guys that build free ride trails in the woods and also do a few shows promoting the venues. Moor Cycles put up some prizes for best trick over the big double they had set up, which was won by Jack Gear with a massive tail whip followed by a backflip! Not easy in wet conditions on a slippery ramp! So massive well done to Jake. Looking forward to seeing him in September at Bestival!
After Poland, We travelled back to Holland to train with Rick Koekoek for a couple of days. Its always great to ride with other top riders and practice techniques, and training with Rick always pushes me!