Posted by: Olivia Johnston Thursday 12th July 07 1,621 reads
Hi all
Well, Shladming World Cup is all wrapped up now, but here's my account of the weekend in Austria...
The first day training was the best, the track was still fast and no one seemed to want to ride it (to begin with), so Harriet and I had the track to ourselves. Which was a bit of a novelty, as usually we are dealing with a hundred other bikers frantically trying to learn the track too.... There was a bit of rain earlier so the track was a bit greasy, but at that stage the tree roots hadn't begun to shine through! However, It didn't take long... by the end of the day the track had a plethora of nice fat slippery tree roots and some crissrossing smaller ones. Lovely!
I was finding the track rough as guts and having a difficult time keeping my eyes looking straight ahead as they were wobbling in my head most of the time... which was frustrating. So i took my forks to Suspension Centre and found out that the reason I was having such a shaky ride was due to my bent lowers... whoopsy! So, Gery from Suspension Centre fixed me up with some shiny new ones (Thanks Gery! They are so awesome!).
On the second day of training (Saturday), the track was well ripped up! And progressively looking rougher! I tried out my new fork lowers, and they made all the difference! Smoother ride than the day before, even though the track was supposed to be rougher! The rain stayed away for most the day, although threatening clouds were constantly lurking...
Race day - Well, the sun shone, the bikers got sideways and the crowd had to pay 5 euros to watch! I qualified 16th, with a slow but steady run... the track was still a bit greasy so i had my mud tyres on still... for the race run I couldn't decide whether to ditch the muds or not.... turns out i should have... the track was SO dry by race run that you could just about grip with road slicks.. ahh well. Anywho, I came 19th overall and had a clean run, so pretty happy to qualify and to get top 20
Harriet had a whopper crash in her qualifying run, ploughing into a tree stump onto her sternum down the "Champery Section"... she had to sit it out for a bit before she had enough air in her lungs to get going again! Amazingly, she was fine, and managed to finish her run. Although, not qualifying, it's a pretty good achievement just to survive that crash! Obviously, I have passed on my skills as a human track plough to Harriet... hehe!
Well, I've attached a few photos of the World Cup and some other extras...... hope you like! I've got another race on the 21st-22nd in Wales, so I'll let you know how it goes over there too!
P.S. I've been selected for Fort William Worlds yippppeeee!! Very happy
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