Friday - showed up in Offenburg - staying in a nice little hotel (3 stars!) in Durbach, a little town about 6 km from the venue. I took the day off, two days before the race, but joined the Swiss Team for cleaning bikes afterwards, etc. At around 10:00 PM, we got news that bikes had been stolen. Patrick Luthi lost his Rocky Mountain ($10,000), Vania Shoemaker lost the same (10,000), Emelien Barban lost his Trek (7,500), Fabian Paumann lost his Merida 96 (12,000), Patrick (coach) lost his Haibike (10,000), and Matthias lost his Merida 96 with NoTubes 1180 gram wheels (15,000). The bike room was open from the inside door, and a table was propped up against the outside door. The theives came in THROUGH the hotel, snuck the bikes out through the Sauna room underneath the hotel while we were preparing for bed - the people assigned to sleeping with the bikes (two coaches) arrived to find 6 bikes missing.
Over $50,000 was written down on the police report. After the same thing happening in Houffalize last year, we were stunned. Fortunately, all were able to get new bikes by 2:30 the next day. Matthias rode on Ralph Naf's, Patrick on Florian Vogel's, Vania on Nino Schurter's, Emilien on his own from home, and Fabian on a 96 from Jose Hermida. It's nice to have a tight-nit swiss cycling family around to rely on. :)
To give you some perspective on the fancy hotel, we were staying in the same hotel as the Scott SwissPower team -the best team in the world with an almost unlimited budget. The garden was immense, and the rooms were great! Unfortunately, I didn't sleep a wink the entire two nights. Nerves and heat got to me.
Saturday - rode the course. I can't even tell you about it. Words, pictures, videos, they don't give it justice. However, to get a taste of the course, visit this link:
http://freecaster.tv/mtb/1007774/xco-course-walk-germany
To view the race highlights (and a half-second section with me at 3:16) visit:
http://freecaster.tv/mtb/1007790/nissan-uci-mtb-world-cup-offenburg-xco-highlights
It's probably my favorite mountain bike course I've ever ridden. This stuff would make Meghan scared (a hard thing to do on the downhill). I met up with Marc Gullickson (head of USA Cycling MTB) at around 10 and slipped into my stars and stripes. It felt like all the pressure of my country was on my shoulders, but also the support therein. Unfortunately, this ecstasy only lasted about 12 hours, and the next day, the pressure was overbearing the excitement to compete for my country.
Anyway, the course. The course had 5 technical sections constructed specifically for spectator enjoyment. Indeed, the WHOLE course was constructed in this way. All five are easily accessible by a 15 minute walk down a "spectator path" where, during the race, 30,000 people crowded into every corner of the forest with Bratwurst in hand to watch the race's many successes and failures.
Dual Speed - a section of the trail that splits into two singletrack sections, each littered with 5 separate log drops from 3-10 feet high. (not mandatory drops, mind you, but enough to get your heart in a stupor). The right line was easier, but as all easy lines go, it was also slower. The only option for me was the left line, the faster, which included three consecutive MANUAL drops - where you actually have to lift up the front to keep from going over the bars. Here, Matthias demonstrates exceptional ability on the Left line of Dual Speed:
North Shore - A section of steep tight switchbacks leading into a 30 foot WALL of a descent into a sharp left hand birm. By far my favorite part of the course, if you hit the WALL just right, you can launch it, if not... well, fans are softer than rocks. : )
Kathrin at the bottom of North Shore. Kathrin didn't have the race she was looking for, after a good start, she ended up dropping out on lap 3.
World Class Drop - Does this need any explanation? 5 feet of airtime into a 50 degree pitch for 20 feet and then a sharp left hander with no birm and PLENTY of brake bumps.
Wolfsdrop - a scary drop. Scarier by the fact that it's followed by a ridiculous climb out of the pit.
"A scary drop?" (Tanja after her respectable finish, 16th, after a crash at the beginning of the race)
Finally, after 2 km of smooth climbing and descending road and singletrack, comes the Snake pit, a section of trail littered with roots rutted enough to taco wheels, flat two tires at the same time, and break bikes (many many bikes). After as many laps, this was the toughest section of course, over 200 m long, requiring utter concentration and a hellofalotta flex in the arms. I came out every-time feeling like I'd just been on the bench press for an hour.
The descents are fast and scary, tight and littered with random trees and stumps marked with neon orange spray paint, that nonetheless take me off guard several times. I love this course. I'm fast in the pre-ride, and I'm sure that Rob and the other US guys are a little nerved. They ask me about training in Switzerland, and about European racing, and I let them know. When it comes to the race, however, I'm not teaching anyone anything... It's them who need to be teaching me, because evidently I am still far from the strongest American here.
186th. The number doesn't sound so bad. 4 laps down gives my race a little bit more of a perspective. 4 laps. I only completed THREE laps before the bald UCI official directed me off course and I silently teared up. 3 laps. 1 hour. It wasn't even a race, it was a slaughter.
The start was utterly hell. Standing in Box 8 filled with 50 or so other riders (the last box had no assigned amount of riders, it was just 190-and up), I could see riders from the first box being20called to the line... they were over 200 yards away. The call-up took 30 minutes. 250 riders, 250 carbon racing bikes, 250 national jerseys and jerseys of the most respected teams in the world. 14 Americans, if I counted correctly. 4 U23 Americans, all in the bottom 100. I looked up with 2 minutes to go and saw what must be the same sight of a professional soccer player at a world cup. 30,000 SCREAMING, yelling, shouting, whistling, horn-blowing fans - in a giant stadium, along the sides of the barriers, up and around the start loop, on chairs and tables, all screaming, all watching us. I felt not even a scrap of nervousness at the start--I remember thinking how weird it was, considering how nervous I'd been for Matthias's start--I was completely overcome by20the spectacle, and when the gun went off, it all disappeared to my eyes and ears. The next thing I saw and heard rocked my brain, and still haunts me. 25 meters into the race, in a gravel section on the grass, 20-30 riders went down without warning. Handlebars were stuck in my wheels, bloody elbows and arms were fighting against me to hold position in what, for most that went down, was a less-than-3-second ordeal. I was not caught in the crash, but behind it, and had to back up and out in order to free myself from the chaos. CHAOS. For one whole start lap and half of the first lap, it was utterly unbelievable. I have abrasions and contusions from everyth ing on my legs and elbows - other legs and elbows, chain rings, chains, a considerable variety of tires, handlebars (in the face mostly) and cleats. I learned more foreign curse words in 200 meters than I ever would traveling around Europe through the slums. People hit me, pushed me, purposely grabbed my front brake, knocked heads, threw bikes, spit on riders and... so did I, at least, the semi-civil stuff. I fought more than once for a spot in line that inevitably would only be a half-second faster than the other, and for me, NOTHING to brag about. We RAN our bikes through each technical spot. I shouldered my bike, gave up riding, and just ran down Dual Speed - much too steep to run, mind you. In that fist lap, I lost all sense of sanity, and so did everyone else.
After the excitement of that lap, things deteriorated quickly. By the middle of the second lap, I was fighting mentally against myself, and the negative side was winning... "You represent your country. You wear your nation's flag on your shoulders. And YOU have let your country down." "You let USAC down; Marc will regret putting you on the team, he will regret inviting you to Germany, and won't want you to race Houffalize."
Prominent features of an exhausted and defeated mind.
When I heard the moto coming up on me after 3 laps, I started beating myself up to get to the finish in time to complete a fourth lap. Never would I live down a World Cup where I finished FOUR laps down. In all my time in Switzerland, I had a lways completed my lap goals. In Neiderhelfenschwil, I was one lap down, in Schaan 2, and in Tesserete 1, these had been my goals... My goal for Offenburg was to complete 5 of 7. I was on my 3rd when the official gestured to me in the most demeaning way. I teared up, alone for a minute, behind the cover of my opaque lenses, and then I got over it. I went to Marc, and apologized very seriously, though he laughed. I went to the mechanic and did the same - "sorry for wasting your time" - to typical responses: "Oh no, you did well, you did what you could, I am proud of your finishing the race." when really, deep down, I know each of them feels a twinge of what it is that had me apologizing to them.
I only teared up once more, though no one noticed, when I came upon the entire Swiss National team, surprised to see me out of the race so early. I have never been so humiliated in my life, and so comforted by the joking words, "was it hard?" Their judgment was softened by the fact that many of them suffered equally the day before. I had just completed 3 laps, and they knew what was going through my head - though I insisted on telling them so: "I'm very embarrassed" was all I said, and was happy to get no reply... That's what I needed.
Beat provided only a congratulations and constructive criticism.
I trusted my camera to Michelle Hediger (not normally my kind of thing, but I was so excited about maybe having pictures of me for once, and the fact that the hotel didn't seem to be a safe place to store valuable things... anyway), and she took over 200 photos of my and Kathrin's race.
They are really really great photos, and I am very happy to have them - chocolate for Michelle. Michelle dominated in the Junior race - 2nd place, and Vania was 3rd, the French Swiss rider. Both rode extremely well - Tanja Starkemann (16th?) crashed hard in the beginning, and came back through the WHOLE field to 16th (?)
Reto Indergand was the first Swiss Junior. He rode like a star against the dominant Germans and Italians, and was not expected to do so well. The photos of his post race are some of the best I got - he's usually a very quiet guy.
Matthias was under too much pressure... and didn't have the race he was looking for. He rode strong though, and was not unhappy for more than 10 minutes following the race. You can't be on top everyday.
Fabian rode extremely well to somewhere in the top 20. A very good result for the 17-year old.
Patrick Lüthi is one of my favorites among the Swiss guys, always smiling, always great to be around, always talking with a heavy french accent, which is great! haha
Bene(dikt) at the start. Unfortunately, he had a flat in lap three, and was forced to DNF - which eventually lead to an inside joke around the cliche "shit happens" which eventually turned into "shit happens in Liechtenstein" which lead to the following photoshop from me:
That's all for now. Watch the next World Cup - Houffalize - Live on Freecaster.tv! It shows 8 hours earlier in the US in Colorado, so figure out your time zone, and watch the race. Houffalize is arguably the biggest and most famous (or infamous) mountain bike race in the world, with over 300 Elite Men starters (including me) and 50,000 fans... wow. It's going to be a heck of a race.
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