Rag doll start to Austrian Sprint races....

As I flew through the air without my bike I immediately regretted my decision to fight for the lead, but all I could do was tuck up into a ball and hope not to smash myself up too bad..... 

Now I will tell the story of how I got to the above moment :-)

And it kind of seems bizarre that I made it onto the podium. Oh well all will be reviled below.

Onto the story of the day AUstrian Sprint Eliminator trip:

After picking up my sweet Volkswagen Passat 2.0L Diesel (with less than 700kms on the clock), I heading out onto the open road for a trip to Austria. I still can't get over the contrast between the flat lands of Germany and the Mountain of Austria. There is something about it that is almost magical.

So the first of the two sprint eliminator races was at St. Johann in Tirol ski resort. I rolled up in my sweet wheels after a 4.5hr journey from Offenburg. I found myself hitting speeds on the autobahn that you would get locked up for in AUS :-). For some reason it feels safe, I guess it is because everyone is going like 100kph faster than me. haha Ohh and the roads are made to be driven at these speeds, super wide with no corners and the car has totally different gear ratios.





Anyway I met up with Nic Rohrbach (A Swiss rider), who is also doing the sprint races then we headed down to the track. I set up my bike and got the roadie out and had it as a warm up/down rig on the trainer. We then went out on the course....

It was crazy! Ramps, log gardens, stair ramps, jumps, drops etc. all packed into a 300m track! I was actually wishing I had my Edict in the car :-) After a few moments I worked out the lines and all was looking OK for the Time trail ( Eliminator format reminder: Time trial, followed by 4 up knock out rounds with two riders going through).

I was ranked no. 2 which was a surprise. I eventually got called up and was out of the gate tackling the obstacle course while trying to hold speed. I ended up with 5th and opted for the safer run. The time trial was 1 lap and the heats were 2 and the final was 3, it was around 30sec ish per lap.

Next up was the quarter finals and Nic and I were in the same heat.... we made a plan to try and hold off the others and get 1 and 2 and move through. For a change this worked and we had a pretty easy heat.

It felt like no time and we arrived at the semi finals. We were up against the number 1 rider. As the gate dropped I also dropped the watts and made the hole shot and the fast line over the logs. Then I was getting chased by number 1 and stupidly opened the door to allow an inside suicide letting him past. This was still OK because first two go through. Unfortunately I was forced onto the rougher log ride and this proved to be detrimental to me finals hopes....

(on the right line there was a log sticking out a bit which made contact with my back wheel throwing me off my bike!

I found myself in the air, without my bike!!! I had hit a log that was sticking up on the wrong angle which bucked me clean off and I was high in the air thinking 'this is not looking good for my shoulder!' Instinctively I tucked my arms in and landed on my right side...sliding on the road with my bike bouncing along to the left of me. Oh boy... a quick check to see if my shoulders were in place and to my relief they were. Phew. Now for broken bones.....nothing seemed to be too badly hurt. I had destroyed my X-Bionic Knicks which was devastating.

So with no big final birth I was relegated to the small final, but I was happy to find out that there was still money for the first 2 in that :-). I span the legs out and was assessing the rest of the damage, bike looked OK. Body was OK. Ready to race.

In the start gate we were told about the extra lap...oh boy. Luckily I managed to get hole shot in the small final and with such a tight track I could block most of it. I sprinted out of the corners where it opened up and crossed the line first (5th overall). I was a little annoyed as I knew I could have done better if I rode a little smarter in the previous heat. At least I covered all of the weekends expenses :-)

Nic tucking into the Pizza post race.  

Tomorrow night is the next sprint race in Kaprun, Austria. Only 1 hr away. Its double the money, so hopefully I can ride smart and get into the big final. It's exciting racing and I love how we are bringing the sport to the public. I'll try and get the photo from my crash because I was a long way up in the air and surprised myself that I only suffered minor grazes.... I could hear the crowd going 'oooooo' :-) I was a very lucky boy today.

I just hope to keep it rubber side down tomorrow. Need to switch my brain on fully :-)