Waking up in Leogang, Austria! Friday madness…..
First day of practice was pretty cool, had a sleep in as practice didn’t start until 2pm. Most of the World cup riders have ridden here before since it has been a round in the world series for a few years.
The reason we came to this IXS cup was to get some practice on a steep track for the next world cup in Val di sole, italy and get to know the track because it’s where the worlds will be held. Also Monday and Tuesday are for suspension testing with fox which is great.
Practice went pretty well, riding this track was quite a shock for me, it was so fast, steep and it had huge holes with nice roots sections. I haven’t ridden a high speed, steep track like this since last time I was in Europe. For me this weekend was definitely used to find my limit again and learn to ride on the edge, that’s what world cups are all about. Learning to ride on your limit. Everyone else is!
Got through practice pretty well Friday, big bro Mick made some changes to my bike so it would ride better on such a different kind of track to what I’m used to.
Saturday and seeding…
Early wake up for Saturday practice as we had seeding in the afternoon, my goal today was to find my comfort zone on the track. I still didn’t feel like i was completely confident with my knowledge of the track so I focused on that for the morning.
The afternoon arrived along with seeding runs, I headed up the top with the warm up bike, team manager cous cous and in house chef Leslie. Cous left to take photos and Leslie kept me company until my run. I was pretty anxious about this run because there were so many fast riders here, you could say the same riders would be in the top 5 any day at a world cup. Rachel Atherton and Florian Pugin back from injury, World champ Emeline Ragot racing and also speedy Jill Kitner. Was sure to be an interesting weekend.
So yeah, my seeding run went ok!
I came down with a couple of mistakes and a time 4:05 which put me into 4th place 9 seconds down from Emeline who qualified first.
I thought a lot about my run, and my riding, I didn’t have the best run, but I put too much pressure on myself. I’ve only been in Europe for just over 1 week, I haven’t ridden European tracks for 4 years, I needed to chill and take my time to get to speed, not just expect it first race.
Sunday session…
I had a good practice, realizing that I just needed to relax, and try to go as fast as I can, slowly getting better and better. I was a bit sore, I had done a lot of runs over the weekend and it’s pretty tiring on the arms. I was a bit nervous going into my race run, however I was looking forward to it. It’s a fun track and it’s always an awesome feeling to be on the track after a wait between practice and a nervous build up to the race runs.
My run was going great, so much better than seeding. I was feeling really good and really strong, I came into the last 3/4 of the track, rode through a fast rut up over a jump and then I lost the back and crashed out. I got up and on my way quickly, I finished the rest of my run pretty strong and I came through with a time of 4:02. I was so happy to beat my seeding and even with a crash. I ended up 5th, 10 seconds from Rachel Atherton who took the win.
Now we are riding and testing on the track with Fox until Wednesday when we leave for round #2 of the world cup series in Val di sole, Italy.
I am really looking forward to it.
I really want to especially thank Fox suspension for their help setting up our suspension.
Thanks to IXS for putting on another great race. Also thanks to my big brother Mick, such a cool dude 
. Thanks to my team Hutchinson United Ride! My teammates for being awesome. Leslie for cooking and Bobby for being awesome and working on my bike and fixing broken wheels and stuff. Thanks to my family for being really supportive and dad for giving me race tips.
thanks to all the sponsors of the team, we couldn’t even race if it weren’t for you, check my sponsors page : http://www.traceyhannahracing.com/sponsors.html
