Fork unlocked, shock unlocked, gears shifted, saddle down, full face on. Ready. 3, 2, 1, Go! Pedal, look ahead, arghh whats that i cant look up, shit forgot to put goggles on and they’re in the way behind my head, should i stop? faff faff loosing time, ok stop and sort it, panic panic 30 seconds wasted, right forget about it, back on it, focus, corner, on the brakes, look ahead, shit thats steep wasn’t expecting that, yeaow this is fun, drop, watch out for the rocks, off the brakes, more steep corners, legs burning, wheels drifting wow these tyres are amazing thought i was a gonner, flat bit – saddle up, pedal…!
Read at high speed and you have an idea of stage one of the Bluegrass Enduro in Rombach at the weekend. Another trip to a random little village in the depths of the forest covered hills of Alsace in France and another fun enduro race on awesome trails with cool people. The trail builders in this area have a very definite building style, the courses are always full of tight steep loamy switchbacks and bus stop features. In Rombach the trails were steeper and more technical than Dabo, one section we rode twice finished in the centre of the village with the track switchbacking down what looked like a cliff face when you looked at it from below. In the race there was no time to consider how steep it was you just have to get on and do it, and riding it in a downpour the second time made it even more fun.
The stages were long, 2 of them around 11 minutes and when you’re trying to be 100% focused its a long time to concentrate and also an absolute killer on your legs since you’re standing on the pedals the whole time. I still haven’t get my head around blind racing, I felt like I rode large parts of the race well but lost far too much time making stupid mistakes and finished 6th. Overall a great event, plenty of chance to chat to other riders on the liasons and it was cool to see loads of girls from all over Europe there this time.
Nice video of the race here. Thanks to Bilger Lionel for the photos.
The next round is in Ireland with a separate race for the girls, will be savage – do it!!