Man, I apologise for such a late update on the Windham World Cup. But as I'm sure you all heard, it didn't go off smoothly to say the least.
Everything started off extremely well! Windham had an awesome course, beautiful scenery, good riding and of course, I was reunited with some South African friends! It was amazing being able to spend time with familiar faces and our time together soon became even better when none other than Mr. Casey Williams joined the crew!
Practice on the wet course went off pretty unhitched. It wasn't until Thursday (2days before the race) that things took a turn for the worse. While doing a fast lap of the course I came into one of the rock gardens, only to see that some oblivious spectators were standing in the line. In an attempt to miss the spectators I tried to move across the rooted/rocked out section, into another line, but in the process I slipped on a root which sent me straight to the ground. I fell so fast there wasn't even time to put my hands out nor time to try to tuck 'n roll. My face met the floor with a loud thud, followed by immense pain. Before I even knew what had happened I found myself sitting in a pool of blood. My nose had broken and I had a couple gnarly lacerations on my cheek and nose too. I dont know what I was thinking but out of nowhere I decided to put my nose back in place, which was shortly followed by a loud "click" and a heap load more pain.
So we made a trip to the doctor, where my obvious broken nose was x-rayed. The images were pretty crazy. The left part of my nose, where the cheek and nose meet, looked as though someone had taken a hammer to a windscreen of a car. I was also suffering from some intense pain in my right hand, which the doctor diagnosed as a mild dislocated "pinky" finger. So with a little 'pop', and a little 'click' i was ready to try take on the remainder of the day before my early morning appointment for a check up. Friday morning came, and the doctors room was where we were headed. Dr. Schneider walked in and pushed on my nose a couple times, I thought he was seeing if it hurt for me, then, out of the blue, he pushed hard and my nose made a super gnarly crack. He had pushed my nose back into place as it was still slightly skewed from the previous day. So again, I was sent on my way. A chilled couple of laps were done on Friday, before kicking the feet up for the day.
Race day was upon us. Saturday, 5pm, was when I had to put my set-backs behind me and give it everything. I lined up 3rd in a small, but super fast junior field. The 8 fastest Juniors in the world were on the front row, which meant a podium spot was going to be a very hard fought result! The gun went, pandemonium broke loose, the group of 30 juniors dived into the first corner. I got pushed wide after a good start and came out of the start loop around 15th. The long climb began to split the field up which left some really big gaps for me to close down as I began to work my way back up. At the top of the climb I had moved into 4th, but 2 riders up front were starting to open up a small gap. We hit the first single track but the gap to the first 2 riders kept opening. As we approached a double track section I made a pass on the rider ahead in an attempt to try close the gap by myself. Unfortunately after making the pass I was rammed from behind, causing my hanger and derailleur to twist. I stopped to try and fix the problem, but could only get the derailleur to work in 3 gears. I managed to time trial my way back up to the leaders, which were now all together, before the end of the first lap. Lap 2 is where my day really started. As we wound our way up to the top of the course, the group whittled down to 3, but I really began to hurt as we approached the steepest climb of the lap. I was forced to jump off and run. I began to drop positions rapidly, but I tried to stay positive and make up time on the technical sections I was able to ride. Unfortunately the race got worse with every lap. I was forced to run almost all the climbs as I was simply too tired to push the gears that were usable on my bike. In the end I was nearly an entire lap behind the leader. A very disappointing result, but a valuable learning curve.
Sunday then came round, which turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my entire life. Caitlin de Wet, Casey and Kim Williams, Alexis Ryan, Rachel Campbell and I made a trip down to New York City. WOW, what a city. It was really cool to be inside one of the busiest cities in the world, to feel so small and insignificant amongst the hustle and bustle of "The Big Apple" was just mind blowing.
We tried to cram as much of the major attractions into our day. Visiting the Statue of Liberty, Battery Park, Wall Street, Ground Zero and a number of the memorials, The Empire State Building, Central Park and Times Square!!! To see so much of such a crazy city was incredible. The Empire State Building had to be one of the highlights of my NY trip. To get to look out over the entire city, to have a ride on the Sky Ride ( an IMAX roller coaster)and to just be around good people is a memory that could never be replaced. Central Park was the host of one of my best memories of my ENTIRE US trip. We all hired beach cruiser bicycles, which had anywhere between 2 and 6 working gears, and decided to go 'cruise around Central Park. Well.... Casey and I soon went of the tarmac and were bunny hopping over logs and rocks, finding drop offs and messing around.... until..... a mildly serious man on a TT bike came blazing past. This was too good to be true, an opportunity to race on cruisers! we left the others in our wake and rode onto the wheel of the TT rider. A rather nasty climb came around which was where Casey and I tried to make our move, which ended up lasting a whole 30 seconds or so.
Now with fond memories from NY, I've just got to Missoula, Montana. Last weekend I gave my support to Casey and the kids from EXPO racing at the US national championships. This coming weekend is my last race in the states and final round of the Pro XCT National series. Then its back to SA, before jetting off to Switzerland for World Championships!
Until next time
ciao
4th of July in Albany
a rather excited Casey
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