28.05.07 - Offenburg Sludge:

We got to Offenberg the Wednesday before the World Cup race. We were looking forward to seeing a few of the Aussies. There were going to be more there than at the Belgium round. When we arrived at the course the conditions were perfect. It was a nice and sunny day, with dry turf that was perfect for the type of course that it was - by far the most technical we’d seen so far in Europe, with heaps of heaps of roots, drop-offs, and shoots. But in the end the weather would turn and create havoc.
It started raining half way through the women's race. By the time the men's race came around it was totally swamped with mud. Lining up with a sea of range jackets was nerve-wracking. I was having visions of crunching gears, sliding around, and going down hard on the rooty drops going through my mind.

I got a great start though, felt great in the top 40, but then my premonitions came true - the amount of pileups was a joke. It was like a comedy show, with riders just falling over each other everywhere. I lost count of the times riders fell on top of me and tangled with me and my bike. One guy crashed in front of me on one of the many steep drops, I ploughed into him, and then some other guy went over the bars and landed with his full weight on the back of my leg and corked my calf. Considering a huge portion of the lap was running, this wasn't good. I battled along, then flatted on the 3rd lap, fixed it, then again on the 4th. It was a cut tire from one of the sharp rocks on the downhill I think. My legs felt really good otherwise, but I just couldn't ever use them. It was always either pulling riders off me, running up or down sections, stuffing around with my bike, or pedalling with no traction or with gears slipping. I barely got my HR up. It would’ve been a great track in the dry - really techo and more of an Aussie-style profile. But for the lower-level riders outside of the first 20-30, it’s a dog fight. When you walk up the hills in traffic, have crash with others, or grind up a hill you often make eye contact with one of many other riders in the same situation and you both know what you’re thinking: “what the hell are we doing and is there any point?”

I guess the point is to just ‘have a go’. While winning isn’t everything, all the riders out there are competitive people and want to do well. It’s hard, but you need to keep reminding yourself that you love riding and racing. It just depends whether you call it ‘racing’. But for some reason we all keep going back for more. Luckily we have a couple of Aussies doing really well in the early part of the season, namely Sid and Chris. It’s good to see some of us can mix it up with the Euros.