Wednesday, June 11, 2008

World cup Downhill – Vallnord

Words and Pictures from Matej Charvat who rode a Scythe at the world cup in Andora.

'Second World cup of this season was for the first time ever in Andorra - Vallnord. It is really nice place with big mountains everywhere. There are so many different downhill and freeride singletracks, which make this area ideal for mountainbiking.

As there was raining for about almost 3 weeks before the race, the DH course was wet and soft on few places, but on the others there have been hardpack which absorbed water. This combination was really hard to choose tires for and also for riding on still changing surface on one course.

Qualify was on Sunday morning. It was raining at night, so the course was really wet. It was really difficult to ride without fall or big mistake. I rode carefully, did few small mistakes and qualified on 61st place of 231 riders.




I changed tires for the finals because of the track was much dryer than in qualify. There was really dry surface on the open sections and in woods it was still something like peanutbutter mud. I did really smooth run, but unfortunately my back wheel was flat. It happened about in first third of course. Bad luck. I finished my run on 73rd place.
Next race is UCI C1 race of Czech National Series in Spindleruv Mlyn(CZE) on 14th-15th June. '