harriet
Shiny
Joined: Mar 03, 2005
Posts: 21
Location: christchurch
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 Posted: Thu 21/Jun/07 5:10am Post subject: Coupe De France Round 2 |
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Olivia, Mark (Punter) and I entered in the Coupe de France round 2, held in Montriond. We had been warned about the track being a bit gnarly in places, with flat drops and crazy rocks, but we were ill prepared for what we found.
Track walking day was a challenge in itself- a true alpine experience with mud, fog and torrential rain. The track was mainly pretty flat, with said flat drops in places, but nothing we weren't too scared of (compare to Champery world cup track report).
But the sun came up the next day for practice day proper and continued to shine throughout that day and the next (race day) making the track a new challenge with every run.
The track started as mud, and turned thicker and lumpier as the day wore on, with many a poor person caught with a human body weight equivalent of sticky mud attached to their bike, and with wheels that refused to turn, even when pointing downhill and pedalling.
Race day came, (my entire Ironhorse was still intact) and the track had dried even further, making parts of the track flow, and others not flow (mud that was sloppy like soup turned into glue), and by race run, Liv and I had finally put our first dry tyres on since arriving in Europe. Poor Punter didn't get the chance after another knock to
the head in seeding run after passing 3 other riders, one of whom said (on the start line, in broken English) he wanted warning of when Punter was passing so he could watch the Lahar in action!
I came 6th, and Liv got 10th (after a crash in the only mud left on the track in race run) in a reasonably big Women's field.
Matt Scholes had a great race even though it was only his 4th time down the track (thankyou grapevine-corrections gratefully accepted) and looked in great form. I'll be pretty disappointed if I haven't mastered mud riding by the end of this trip, or bike washing.
Here's a couple of photos for your viewing delight.
Harriet.
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