Dally Forest

Dalby Forest World Cup

Ya, I'm a little slow with this post, I've had to take a couple of days to think about and reflect on race for the weekend. In short, things didn't go as planned, and I'm not super excited about how I performed. It was a pretty neat course, a couple tough technical drops and some fast singletrack, but a lot of fast double track sections. Oh ya, the wind was so gnarly!!!! So the race ended up being very much a road style race, with drafting being extremely important.

Off to a relatively good start I found myself in top 30ish and feeling good. Jockeying for position through the tight sections and along the road sections a felt pretty in control of my race. The longest climb on the course was a double track section just under 4 mins long with a steady grade. I powered up the first quarter of the climb and then settled into a nice healthy rhythm for me. I lost a couple positions but was confident that it was a sustainable pace. Down through the bmx course I railed the jumps with a little air and cross up... Haha not quite....

Well yes to the air!!

I held my own and was happy with how things were going up until the third lap and then I started to suffer. Not sure what the trigger was but I really started to fade and loose touch with people I was riding with.

Being mentally tough and staying positive is something that I have been working on and something I really need to continue working on. This day was particularly hard for some reason. But to take a positive out this situation, you really learn a lot about yourself. I finished 51st on the day so hopefully I learnt a lot!! Haha.

Monday after the race we had the opportunity to ride the London Olympic course in Hadleigh. Hadleigh Essex not Hadleigh Suffolk where our gps took us, but that's another story which includes speeding along Englands highways at 150 km\h in order to make the venue before it closed. It was really neat to get the opportunity to ride the Olympic course, kind of gives me chills to think about it.

Tuesday we headed across the water on one of the roughest flights ever. And now we are chilling in the most beautiful area I've been to in Europe....Durbach just outside of Offenberg in Germany. We tucked up in the top fold of a valley and all you can see are rolling vineyards.

This is the third time that I've raced here and this is the hottest and driest that I have ever experienced. But as I speak it's starting to rain....but I'm really not complaining, the course really needs the moisture!!!