Hi From Poland
After the obligatory 24hrs in a plane to get to Europe a hotel for the first night's sleep was the way to go. There were 3 of the Mountainbike Orienteering (MTBO) crew in on the same day so sharing accommodation and some transport to the race area lowered the costs somewhat. Despite many years of communist rule the country is beautiful, with fantastic sand-dune forests and an abundance of blueberries and rasberries ripe to pick almost wherever you ride.
The 6-day, 7 stage race was about 3 hours north of Warsaw, and featured 2 world ranking events (WRE - our version of a world cup race). Given the worlds will be about 20k from this location almost all of the worlds best were there trying out their form.
We met up with our NZ friends and #1 OZ rider Adrian Jackson (fresh from his BC Bike race successes) at our hut for the week. It was pretty basic fare, but at $25/day it is hard to expect more. I unpacked my ARC and went for a bit of a ride. Trails were sandy and a bit rough as soon as you left the main vehicular roads. I found that the best option was to run my tyres at about 20-22psi (love those Stan's rims!) and the effect of having a hardtail was minimised.
The Races: Racing went very well for most of us. After a wet and muddy start to the week, the days for the WRE's dawned fine - but with muddy puddles everywhere. Adrian won both races, one closely and the other convincingly. I had two solid (if a little jetlagged) rides to score a 5th and an 8th, which was better than I could have expected for such a close flight. The rest of the week saw wins for AJ almost all the way through, and first on GC. I had two easy days (as I continually seemed to wake at 4.30am) then rode the last race hard for a 4th place on the day, and 5th on GC.
One of the problems of trying to navigate whilst mtb riding is that you aren't looking what you are riding over. On the last race I managed to crash spectacularly! I think that it was a stick that caught in the front wheel, or perhaps I caught the pedal on something.....I don't really know as I was reading the map at the time!!! All I heard was a clunk, then half a second later the bike pivoted on the front wheel and I was catapulted over the bars. AJ was 100m ahead and it was loud enough that he heard and turned to see me tumbling along the road. In his words he "slowed up to see if I was ok....as those are the sort of crashes you sometimes don't get up from". A sore hip and shoulder was all the damage I had, and I was able to get back on the bike without delay.
All for now
Alex
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