Trans Provence & good-bye’s.

This will most likely be the hardest blog post to write about all year, because I just don’t know how to put this event – more like an adventure down into words. How do you explain to people what you experienced over 7 days out in the wild countryside of Provence on your mountain bike along with 50 other nutters, racing down super sketchy foot paths with extremely exposed cliffs on either side. Sounds pretty strange that you could be out in the wild, and in the middle of nowhere in Provence of all places, even I was super surprised at how rugged, dramatic, stunning and completely remote this part of France was. It was mind-blowingly beautiful. We rode through and up and over massive mountains, rugged and barren like high altitude Colorado mountains, then through green lush rolling hills, then through Alpine meadows and every now and then we’d end or start a stage in some small gorgeous, medieval village, usually built into and on top of a rock outcropping with old, and I mean ancient ruins and equally old men & women sitting on the benches overlooking and contemplating the world and wondering what the hell we were up to. We even rode on moonscape terrain, completely surreal and it looked like a grey version of Utah. Provence? Was I in the right department? I thought Provence just had pretty (but boring) lavender fields and picture perfect houses you’d see in Architectural Digest & Elle Décor….boy, was I wrong, and very pleasantly surprised.

And so we pedaled our bikes, and carried our bikes. Up, up and over. Over and over, day in and day out. I don’t think many of us expected this event to be as physically demanding as it turned out to be. I think everyone just read 26 timed DH stages and signed up – forgetting to read the fine print as usual, the 10 000+ meters of climbing, 7 days & almost 400km sort of didn’t stick in my memory, but I could still feel the effects of the climbs & hike a bikes a week later, walking the streets of Paris with my mom. And this was just the Liaisons in-between the timed stages, then you still had to do between 3-4 races per day, and they were not just pedal out of the gate and roll down the hill downhill type racing. O no. We had our work cut out for us during these downhill stages, and they were hard. We had to climb, run, push, hike, pedal, hang on, navigate (which was the biggest challenge for me – trying to go as fast as possible, but to go as fast as possible on the right trail), and then to make sure that you didn’t have one of the World Champions’ coming up behind you and getting in their way. O, yes, and you had to try and nurse your bike through 7 days of really rough, rocky, bike eating terrain to actually finish this event.

The mileage went by pretty slowly, but the days were amazing. I don’t think that I have ever done an event like this, and I don’t think that it will ever be the same again. Like I said before, I don’t really know how to put my experiences down into words. I’ve had some time to reflect upon everything in the complete opposite environment and world to where we rode – in Paris, and all I could think about was how thankful I am that I was able to experience such an adventure with so many amazing people and that I have been so lucky that my life has been so enriched and fulfilled by the simple pleasure of riding my bike in the mountains. Never will most of these city dwellers ever experience what we all went through.

The riding was spectacular in every sense. It was rough and very challenging and I take my hat off to every single one of you that finished this pretty crazy event. It was so great to see some of the top elite cyclists suffering and asking about chamois butter and what the hell to do with it, and wrenching & helping others wrench on their bikes with headlamps every night. Spare parts were getting handed around and shared like a bags of candy. Classic memories.

The food was unreal and the crew was just amazing. Where else do you get specially cooked vegetarian & gourmet food like paella, mussels, giant prawns and a delicious different gourmet fancy type of soup every night? The massage team actually knew how to massage and not just rub oil around your body, and the shuttle drivers were more like rally car drivers than shuttle drivers – the shuttles up to the top was quite exhilarating. This event was quite the logistical feat, and hats off to everyone involved and all their always smiling faces – when they all wanted to ride their bikes, but instead worked their assess off for us to ride our bikes.

Anyhow, I can go on and on, but until you actually just go and ride this race, and experience it for yourself, the words don’t really mean much. Sven killed it winning a few stages, and ending in 3^rd overall after a terrible first day of running and just experiencing a complete shock to the system – not too shabby for someone that managed to get 2 rides in total before this race. I ended up getting 2^nd place behind Tracy Moseley, which I was super happy about. I did actually end up winning one stage, which felt pretty great, but T-Mo knows how to ride that little Trek of hers pretty damn fast, down some pretty damn gnarly trails, and I was honored to be able to experience another amazing adventure with her and ride bikes in cool places. There were 8 women in total, and they all kicked ass – it was really great to see these girls pushing themselves to their limits and having fun while doing it. Never complaining, almost always smiling and returning day after day covered in more bruises.

Cheers to Trans Provence and the masterminds behind a true mountain biking event!

Right now I am sitting on a jet plane listening to Ali Farka Toure heading back to the US (or to our storage unit & friends couches) after spending the past 6 months in Europe – mostly France. I am sad. I have grown to love France and it feels like home to me. It is familiar. We have made & met some great people, we had amazing quality family time, drank boat loads of champagne & red wine and had very rainy trips in our trusty van and my French has actually progressed past the menu food ordering phase, and now I feel like I am leaving home…au revoir noisettes, and hello giant sized 2 pump, skinny, no caffeine, sprinkles on top starbucks coffee jugs.

Always hard to say good- bye to family, but we have our next adventure to start plotting & planning in the Southern hemisphere, a summer to go and catch and a storage unit to empty out.

Peace out

Anka x

bikes are a girls best friend

I have finally been able to ride my new bike this week, and it has been AMAZING!!!!!!

She is a beautiful brand new Santa Cruz Blur TRc, and she is an absolute beaut and oh so sexy with her matte black body and green accents colors….mmmmm, who ever said that diamonds were a girls best friend. I don’t think so.

We got her built up in Annecy – thanks to our good friend Terry Chanethomvong – the GT mechanic for sick Mick Hannah, and he also owns a company called Unik Suspensions. It is hard to find a bike shop out here in the countryside that is capable of doing a good custom build, and we all know that building up a custom bike is never easy and never straight forward, so thanks to Terry and all his patience with the non- mechanically minded Martin family we got her built up and running like a dream.

This baby is packed up in the van and ready to hit the road tomorrow, as we head out to the Trans Provence, a 7 day stage race from Gap in Provence to the beaches of Monte Carlo. But wait, it gets BETTER…you only get timed on all the downhills!!!!! We are still climbing A LOT every day, but we can take our time, and then we have between 5/6 timed downhill sections each day, and the fastest guy wins. This is soooo exciting, and I cannot wait to get this event started on Sunday 25th September. I’m even more excited to be racing my new bike and to show her what kind of life she is in for.

Here is a quick rundown of our 7 day adventure in a nutshell: 7 days, 26 timed stages, 320 km, 9500 metres vertical ascent, 15200 metres vertical descent… and most importantly: more sweet singletrack than you can shake a stick at!

I cannot think of a better way to end off the crazy season, and what better way to celebrate than to go on a 7 day adventure, with your bike & your babe (Sven) in a tent starting in the mountains of Provence and finishing up with a jump into the ocean, o yes, and sharing that with all your mates – priceless.

Thank you to everyone that made this possible. You all know who you are. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!

Peace out

Anka x.

You can follow us at the Trans Provence, and check out the daily updates here:

www.trans-provence.com

Check out all the tech specs and stuff boys are usually more interested in (I usually just like to look at all the colors) at: http://www.santacruzmtb.com/blurtr_carbon

A huge shout out to SRAM for getting this bike rolling www.SRAM.com

Also check out more about UNIK suspensions here:  http://www.unik-suspension.com

cheers to the new SRAM truck!

The beautiful new SRAM truck had a warm welcome to the world cup circus and what a great event to choose as it’s virgin pilgrimage – the World Championships in Champery, Switzerland.

May you have a wonderful truck life filled with loads & loads of miles, races, nespresso, beer & Boxxer world championships.

Cheers!

Anka x.

good times. summer. finally.

So the summer finally decided to show it’s face this year, I mean it’s only September and due to start snowing again in some places in October!

It was time to hit the road again in our trusty van for the last leg of the season. We had the final world cup to go to in Val di Sole, Italy (thank God), then a week of well deserved  holiday time & riding with friends in Lake Garda, Italy (where the sun always seems to shine) & then off to the World Champs in Champery, Switzerland (where it will most likely rain on us for the entire event).

We decided to go to Val di Sole via Provence and the French Riviera – not out of the way at all, but summer was finally here and we wanted to go for a swim in the sea. August is crazy vacation month in France, so driving around and trying to find a spot in the ocean wasn’t that easy, but we squeezed our way (white bodies and all) through the beaches, restaurants and shops all along the beautiful beaches & coves of Cannes, Nice & Monaco. After a few days of maddening crowds and shiny, vessels, it was time to head back to the hills to visit our friend Fabien Barel, and to push on to the mountains and stunning vertile apple valleys of Val di Sole.

It was the first world cup of the year where it didn’t rain, and it was wonderful. It was hot and we couldn’t complain. Great for living in the van, because we could go and swim (shower) in the river everyday, and the sunshine just brought a great feel to the event. I had a great week of exploring the little villages and the beautiful Dolomite mountains (and helping Sven with a bit of his work). I just wanted this race to be over, because I knew we had a full week of chill time ahead of us in beautiful Lake Garda – our favorite place to go, with absolutely insane trail riding and camping on the lake – it really is the highlight of our European summers. There are a few of us who have made this a yearly tradition, we have the most ghetto campsite, filled with bikes & lilo’s, but we spend our days riding bikes, swimming and eating copious amounts of pizza, pasta, wine, beer and of course gelato. This year the crew consisted of Victor Lucas, Chris Ball, Oliver Munnik & Jon Cancellier – all of us either sleeping in our van’s or in Chris’s case, on the mighty Challenger – his inflatable row boat that he bought.

The summer was here in full swing, with a heat wave that hit the lake, we were having temperatures in the 40′s every single day, so we opted for more shuttling than climbing. The place has the best trail riding, and we still haven’t even scratched the surface. It is Nomad heaven, but it beats up your bikes and bodies like none other (that is where the lake & all the lemoncillo comes in handy).

We rode, we swam, we drank, we Via Ferrata’d up a canyon (I got really scared & started crying), we hired scooters and rode around very old villages, ate some more, swam some more, shopped a little, lost an i-phone, worked a little, rode some more, ate gelato a lot and actually rested & had a summer holiday for the first time this year. It was bliss, and none of us wanted to pack up our lilo’s to head back into the gloomy mountains of Switzerland…It was time to leave, and it was the end of August, which meant all the holiday makers also had to leave, summer was officially over, and i felt really sad that that was that. That was my summer. Over. Back to real life and Sven working all day long, every day, till the wee hours of the morning. I was just getting used to this. LOL!

Champery was spectacular. The mountains are absolutely spectacularly fucking beautiful. They are so dramatic, massive and overwhelming. You feel so small, looking up all around you, as far as you can see, they surround you. The colors, the textures, dimensions and depth of these mountains really do touch you. The riding out here on the other hand, is not the most exciting, they love their very steep fire road climbs & fire road descents, but they are very scenic, and well worth the slog. I didn’t mind the slog up & down fire roads after having a week of insane trail riding in Garda anyways, and I was just trying to get some miles under my belt for the upcoming 7 day stage race, the Trans Provence that we are racing at the end of this month, so it was perfect.

The rain held off all week, of course waiting for the main racing days to come down, and I mean come down. The DH track was insane on Sunday, it was absolute survival out there. Danny Hart’s run – unbelievable. No other words to describe what he did on a bike in those conditions. Hat’s off to all the other racers, that was one hell of a hard day at the office – including the press. Sven’s camera’s all packed up and died as soon as the racing finished – a perfect end to another amazing, crazy season on the road. We did have one more thing to take care of though, the shaving of Gary’s beard that he had started to grow at the first World cup of the year and now it was time to get that thing off his face!

2011 World cup season done. Thank goodness. Another hectic few months done, another set of waterproofs that aren’t waterproof anymore, thousands of dollars of camera equipment that is either broken or needs some serious attention, a very tired, overworked, but relieved husband. Now the hard work really starts for Sven, to get everything edited and out to his clients. Hats of to you babes – you are amazing!

We do have one more very exciting adventure ahead of us, the Trans Provence 7 day stage race, where we start in Gap and race over 7 days to finish on the beach in Monaco. The best part of it all is, that they only time all the downhills and they have between 4/5 timed downhills per stage! Time to get Sven on the bike and riding, he only has Nicolas Vouilloz, Fabien Barel & Jerome Clementz to beat! I on the other hand cannot wait to have another great adventure with my good friend Tracy Moseley who will also be racing this event.

Check it out here & follow us on our adventure http://www.trans-provence.com/

That’s it for now. Time to chill with the family in Vernassal & to enjoy the slower pace of this tiny village.

Peace out.

Anka

x

enduro des nations race, Sauze D’Oulx, Italy

This post is WAY overdue, but  I’ve been too busy riding my bike in the sunshine (finally) to sit down in front of the computer, better late than never, so here goes:

I needed to get away, I needed fresh air to clear my head, and I needed to go and ride my bike, to have a fun weekend surrounded by beautiful mountains and villages, so I headed out to Sauze D’Oulx in a completely jam- packed little Fiat Panda rental on another solo mission to participate in the Enduro Trophy of Nations race. Needless to say, I couldn’t muster up a South African team, nor an American team, so I decided to compete in the solo category and represent myself.

The last few weeks of life have been pretty hectic, with everything happening at once: moving, flying back & forth, driving, life, work, immigration and so on – absolutely everything except riding bikes, so I haven’t really had much time in the saddle since the MegAvalanche – I was a tad bit nervous of what my fitness level would be like for the actual racing part, but as long as I was out there having fun and riding my bike, I’d be happy (a little sunshine wouldn’t hurt either).

I wanted to approach this race with a very casual attitude. I didn’t want to take it too seriously. I tend to do that if I really want to do well, and I get too caught up with trying to do everything the right way like at the Mega, and then it all just goes to shit when you experience a mechanical and you end up beating yourself up for weeks on end about an event that was really just supposed to be fun in the first place. So, for this race, I just wanted to go and ride my bike like I knew how to ride my bike. I didn’t want to get there too early, I didn’t want to practice too much, and I didn’t want to be too prepared. I managed to achieve all of the above goals, and ended up being just a bit underprepared when it came to how this SuperEnduro format of racing actually works.

The Super Enduro racing format requires that you pedal back up to the start of every race run. At this particular venue, we took a chair lift to a midway station, and then we had to climb roughly 400m back up to the top of the start gate, which was still a hell of a climb after every race.  The race would descend roughly 3800m and 38km on Saturday and about 1900m and 20km on Sunday.

The first obvious rule that I wasn’t aware of was the fact that you had to wear a helmet at all times. If caught without a helmet, you would be disqualified and they had marshals checking for that on the climbs up. So that explained my confusion of seeing everyone practicing with their full-face helmets and carrying their xc lids in their hydration packs.  I thought it was just some Italian way of doing things. Needless to say, I had to do all the climbing with my full- face helmet and as you can imagine, it was rather hot and claustrophobic.

The second rule that I was unaware of was that you were not allowed to swap out wheel sets, and our wheels were marked with stickers to make sure that no one switches out their wheels to suit different tracks, or to have some spikes ready for when the heavens opened up. (Good thing I wasn’t prepared for this race – usually I would have mounted some spikes on my other wheelset – ready to go).

The third rule that I was unaware of was the fact that you only had a certain amount of time to get back to the top. This meant that there was no time to catch your breath after a race run. You would literally sprint through the finish line, pop up your hydrolic seatpost and start pedaling back up the hill to get to the top in time for your next timed race run. You couldn’t have a leisurely, recovery ride, you had to really pedal hard to get back up there in time. I saw people get up to the top and roll right into their race run with no time to spare or even put on goggles. The top men were struggling to get back up there in time to catch their breath.

We all had a specific time when we had to go and physically check in down in the village square. Everyone had two check inn times throughout the day and this would be the only time that we would get a few minutes to grab some food and tend to any mechanicals. Once checked in, the whole routine would start over again, until the end of the day when we all raced and completed 5 races.

Besides all these rules, which all make perfect sense once you are aware of them, the trails were amazing. I cannot even begin to describe how beautiful the trail network of Sauze D’Oulx is. It is the perfect trail network for enduro type bikes. It is fast, flowy, long and technical and requires some fitness, but you’re not going to get some 29er riding, xc dude winning this enduro race. Loamy hero dirt cut into what looks like perfectly green mowed lawn and grass – I mean it is so perfect and so pretty. It doesn’t look real. I for one am used to pine forests with pine needles on the ground, not manicured, soft green grasses. The trail crew had marked the entirety of every single racetrack from top to bottom with tape – their main goal to prevent any kind of course cutting or cheating. It was unreal. They used over 1000 wooden pickets and about 40km of tape to mark out all the racetracks (Once again I favored from this amazing tape job– being underprepared and only getting there late on Friday afternoon, I didn’t get to practice all the tracks, but they were so well marked, there was no way of ever getting lost).

Thank God we were all given a massive sticker printout that we had to stick on our top tubes with all our times for everything.  Our race times, check in times, lift times – it was quite a logistical nightmare in my eyes, but the SuperEnduro crew pulled it off absolutely flawless. I never started a race run even 1 second later than what my sticker time was. Unbelievable timing and coordination, I have never experienced such perfection at any event ever before.  We had 5 different races on Saturday on 3 different tracks of which 2 of them were very short, and the other 3 were pretty long 15+ minutes long. On Sunday we had 2 races on 2 different tracks and then the grand finale of the mass start in the afternoon.  Saturday ended up being a perfect day for racing, dry all day with the rain barely holding off, but making the climbs in my full -face helmet a bit more bearable. Of course we woke up to pouring rain on Sunday morning and I had to replace my precious morning coffee time with putting or rather trying to put full spikes onto my wheels (nothing new this summer). We were in for a long, wet, slippery day of racing, but once out on the hill, it was so much fun – well everyone with spikes were having fun, the others, not so much.

I ended up winning the Women’s race after 7 tough, but super fun races, and I was stoked. I did what I wanted to do this weekend, and that was to have fun on my bike and to ride like I knew how to ride. No expectations, no pressure, no seriousness. It was the most enjoyable enduro race that I have ever raced. I think it has to do with the warm, passionate personalities of the amazing Italian people and organizers.  Even though there was zero communication between us, I was welcomed, embraced and included into the Italian community for the weekend. A wonderful weekend, shared with an amazing group of people that are passionate about bikes, trails, their culture, food (lots of it) and enduro racing.

There was one last rule that I didn’t know about. When you go onto the podium at a SuperEnduro race, you get to take your bike up with you and park it on the stage for everyone to check out. Unfortunately mine was in a million little pieces (to fit into the smallest rental car in the world – the Fiat Panda) and parked down at the hotel, so unfortunately my bike missed out on it’s first bike podium.

Thanks to Enrico & the SuperEnduro crew for putting on an amazing event – the best enduro race that I have ever done – I can’t wait to race more of these! Huge big thanks also goes out to SRAM and all their support – especially to Simon & Julian who was always there to help, and of course to the Le’ Assiette restaurant for feeding us like kings & queens every evening.

Loads of posts to follow soon – Val di Sole, Italy, sunshine & shreddage in Lago di Garda & World Champs in Champery, Switzerland.

Peace out

Anka x

Whistler adventures with SRAM & ZEP Techniques

It was time to head back to the states for a little while, it has been 6 months since I’ve been in the US and at our house in Bend, OR. I was heading home to pack it all up – it had finally sold after almost 2 years on the market. Only problem, we had 4 days to pack up our entire house filled with crap accumulated over the past 6 years of living in a house with way too much space to accumulate all this stuff in that we didn’t need.

We were also heading up to Whistler for the annual Crankworks festival, hard to believe that this would be my 8th Crankworks festival! I was excited, because this year it would be a bit different, I had a full program and many commitments which I was looking forward to, but also sad that I wouldn’t be able to do any racing at all – a first for me.

First up was a 3 day SRAM media product launch, where I would be riding & testing the new XO components with invited media in and around the Whistler area, but also away from the maddening crowds out in Pemberton. The plan was to do an epic XC day on some of the Lost Lake trails & also parts of the famous Comfortably Numb trail (which was amazing), then a full DH day in the park and then the grand finale – an enduro day out in Pemberton which I was most excited about. I have heard so many amazing things about the Pemberton trails, and I couldn’t wait to go and check them out. Well, the trails were absolute perfection, they were rough and raw and rocky – the complete opposite to the perfection of park, it was natural terrain, and I loved it. It was great to meet, ride and hang with a whole new group of SRAMies that I had never met before. Those guys know how to ride bikes. Hard. Up & down. So much fun!

Even with all the rain, the trails were in perfect hero dirt conditions out in Pemberton. O, I forgot to mention that it rained for 8 days straight, but I guess that is pretty normal for my summers these days. Somehow my summers have switched from swimming in lakes and sunbathing after rides to riding in full rain suits and donning the latest Patagonia fleeces, scarves and jackets apres rides. What is going on with this weather? I digress. Back to Whistler.

With all the rainy weather, comes dirty laundry, and lots of it, but it also gave me a great excuse to leave my bike behind and go to some really great yoga classes in the Village. Something that I would never usually do while up in Whistler, but it was such a great way to get away from the crowds and to just find some peace & quiet before the next big evening out.

The highlight of the whole event for me, was the SRAM World Bicycle Relief concept store that they set up in the old Burton shop for the duration of the event. It was pure class. A whole shop, with tons of goods for sale and all the money would go towards the WBR charity (www.worldbicyclerelief.org). Adrian Marcoux had a beautiful collection of his photographs printed on canvas, that was on silent auction, also to benefit the World Bicycle Relief charity (Sven & I are the happy owners of two of his artworks – yah!). I just loved this idea. It just makes so much sense, and SRAM is such an amazing company that is able to think outside the box.

My last commitment this week was a professional mountain biking coaching course that I was signed up to do. This was a 3 day course, that I was taking with ZEP Techniques to get my coaching qualification, something that I have been wanting to do for a while now, but just never been able to fit into our schedule. Time to be a student. I was super excited, but also nervous, because even though I know how to ride my bike, I didn’t know how to teach people how to ride a bike. Thanks to Paul Howard, I now have a much better understanding of how this works, and what I need to do to teach people the valuable skills of riding a bike better. I just need to shut up more, say less, and avoid the phrase “let’s play with it”. I can’t wait to start coaching, and learning how to become a better coach, and hopefully I’ll be able to take his Level 2 course sometime in the near future. Check out his website for all the amazing camps & clinics that he has to offer (www.professionalmountainbikeinstructor.com).

So stoked for our good SAFFA friend Andrew for killing it at the races! Loved all the baby bear cubs – too cute for words. Thanks to SRAM for a wonderful product launch, sick riding & delightfully decadent dinners – YUM! All in all a great 10 days up in Canada. A crazy, busy, cold 10 days, but o so much fun!

Next up: Packing up our entire house in 4 days, getting all the paperwork done for the sale of the house, tax appointments, packing for the next 3 months in Europe and doctor’s visits galore to get all our medical paperwork & X rays done for our New Zealand work visas. It’s going to be hectic. Bring it on!

Peace out

Anka x

my megavalanche (mis)adventure

So I am finally setting myself down in front of my trusty old computer to write a little something something about my megavalanche experience this year. It is pouring with rain outside, all my riding kit is filthy muddy, so I’m manning the laundromat. I have not had the urge to think back about the Mega that much since it finished a week or two ago, nor have I really had much time to gather my thoughts and to actually put some words down as we have been flying, packing up house, signing paperwork to hopefully sell our house, dealing with NZ immigration paperwork, chest  X rays & blood tests (we’re from Africa you know), Whistlering it up and getting to ride & hang out with the SRAMies here in Canada.

I made a solo mission out to Alpe d’Huez this year for the Megavalance, as my usual riding posse was stuck in Wyndham for the 5th round of the World Cup series. I wasn’t going to miss this for anything, so I jam packed my mom’s little Cleo and headed out on a road trip, knowing that there would be tons of people I knew out there to ride with.

The weather was perfect and the two tracks were super fun as usual. It is just such an amazing event and between the qualifying track and race track, it covers every possible sort of terrain that you may be looking for. It has a bit of everything, and it puts your skills to test like no other. You feel relieved every time you reach the bottom, it is sketchy, fast, scary and super fun & flowy all at the same time – a great combination for the perfect enduro race and a massive perma-grin that remains on your face all week. It takes a good 2 full days of riding to cover the entire qualifying and race track at least once before the racing starts.

For the qualifying race this year it was the same track as before at the top, but we did some urban slalom, jump, stairs & tunnel type riding before we hit a bermed four cross style track all the way down to the village of Huez where the race ended. The start of this race is always such a complete cluster – it is chaotic with people and bikes everywhere and you just try to remain focused and to look ahead to find your lines. Qualifying went really well for me after a good battle between a few of us girls – of course Anne Caroline Chausson was so far ahead I couldn’t even see her, but I had a great ride and ended up in 2nd place – 2min behind her in just under 30min. I was extremely pleased to say the least.

Of course this made me feel a little bit more anxious for race day, just the pressure that you tend to put on yourself to have to try and repeat that. Not an easy feat at an event like the megavalanche where there are so many variables and things that could possibly go wrong. I was well prepared and ready to race though, and it was an all or nothing race for me and I wanted to get back on that box big time!

After a very restless evening of sleep, we all made our way up to the top of the glacier at 6am in the morning – freezing cold and very nervous, but so ready to get this race going. The Euro techno music started blaring, the glacier ice/snow was glistening in the morning sun, the men were all up there to see what they should not be doing during their race the next day and we were lined up and ready to race. I chose to do a running start this year, to get up onto the rocks as soon as possible and off the glacier, and it worked out just like I had hoped for. We were racing. My heart was racing, my breathing was erratic and I was on a mission to get to the bottom. A few of us battled it out on the snow, over the massive off camber ice block and up and down some climbs, but eventually I made the right passes to get out in front of the rest (of course Anne Caroline was ahead and again, not anywhere in sight). I got into a great rhythm and I just rode like I knew how to ride my bike. The gaps started to get bigger and eventually I was riding alone. I had to just keep this going. Breathe, focus, ride. Simple right. Well, not exactly. After being in the 2nd place position for a long time, I felt something that every racer dreads. That feeling of complete disbelief when the back of your bike starts to drift out a bit and you know that you have a flat, but you’re in complete denial and you just keep pinning it until the bike kicks you off and smashes you onto the ground. Only then you realize that you actually did have a flat and that that was that. Race over. After you have worked so hard over two days of racing, you feel completely cheated and just pissed off. But, that is racing, and it happens to everyone. As I walked my way down the track, teary eyed, and super disappointed, I managed to cheer on the rest of the girls that were racing past me. This was not easy to do, but what can you do. I still had an amazing qualifier and an amazing week of riding in the French Alps.

I had four hours to deal with my emotions on my drive back to my mom’s house and they were pretty angry & emotional, but after the drive, it was time to move on. I had a flight to catch the next morning – back to Bend, OR for the first time in 6 months, I had a house to pack up, I had a husband to see (YAH), Whistler was waiting and we had paperwork to get ready for our new adventure in New Zealand. It was time to let go, and to move on.

I’ll be back next year Megavalanche and I can’t wait!

Huge big thanks to Dani & SRAM for all your support and help out there – it made the world of difference. You guys ROCK!

Another day has come and gone by here in Whistler, no riding for me today, I need to find some peace & quiet, away from the maddening village of mountain bikers – perfect opportunity for a yoga class. Bliss.

Peace out

Anka

x

thank you SRAM!

We had such an amazing week of riding, testing, shooting & eating cheesy food washing it down with loads of red wine, genepi and flaming shots from a flaming bar counter during the past week in Les Gets, France at the SRAM XO 10 speed DH product launch & media camp.

It was great to meet and ride with some of the crew from the Munich & German SRAM headquarters, and of course all the media. It made for some great, very entertaining days out on the bikes. The trails out in Les Gets and the surrounding area are just amazing, it has something to offer to every style of riding and even though the little town was getting ready for their biggest weekend of the year, the Portes de Soleil ride (where 6000 people show up to ride their enduro bikes for 82km all along the Portes route), the trails were still not crowded and we got pretty lucky with the weather.

We had a great day of downhill riding, with trains of up to 25 people at times and Sven trying to shoot all of us. It was a mass photoshoot, with us having a great time ripping down the trails, and Sven stressing out trying to capture everyone. In true SRAM form, we were treated to lunch on top of the mountain in a beautiful restaurant, and they even had a sherbert orange plastic throne chair for HB or Peaty – they had to fight over it, but HB ended up in the throne with the only two girls: Rad & Shred, on either side feeding him grapes (in his dreams).

Every evening was filled with a special delicacy of the region, which always included cheese of some sort. We had fondue, raclette, tartiflette, and some more cheese to end it off. It kept us going strong though on our enduro xc ride the next day. Once again we had a party of 21 people plus our guide Vincent to make sure no one goes missing or gets seriously hurt. It was such a fun day of riding, well, I wouldn’t call it riding, we raced everywhere and everyone. It sort of just happens naturally when you ride with a big group of people like that, and of course you have to prove yourself to all the guys when you are only one of two girls out there. It felt like we were having our own private SRAM enduro race with sick lines, passing on the insides, crashing, blocking, but most importantly grinning from ear to ear. Can you believe that no one got lost, no one got seriously injured and we only got 3 flats out of the whole group. Pretty unreal. Great mega training for me too!

We also managed some great photoshoots with Sven, Victor Lucas and the Parkin brothers who were out there doing the filming. I have to say that it was quite unnerving to be on a private shoot with Brendan Fairclough. He just makes everyone else look so awkward on a bike, and you feel like a bit of an idiot trying to hit the same lines (impossible, as he hits all the lines that no one else even thinks about hitting) as him and to try and look as stylish as him. Mmmm, o well, I tried my best.

All in all a great week of riding and testing all the new products with a great crew of people and new friends (Great meeting the crazy Italians – good luck in your quest to marry a Canadian girl and moving to Whistler  Tony Ollywood).

Thanks to Phillip & Dani for all your help to keep my bikes rolling perfectly – they were slaving away all week while we were able to get out and play. Thanks to Altino for organizing everything and I mean EVERYTHING – nothing was ever a problem, not even getting us a last minute private shuttle to the top of the mountain for a quick photo shoot. Thanks to Vincent, our guide for showing us all the sick trails out there. Ricky Bobby – it was so great to have another girl out there to hang with and to ride with – we need more women in this industry to keep the boys in check, and you had the coolest riding outfits EVER! Sven, thanks for making me push my bike up impossibly steep, rooty trails over and over and getting the bangers. Elmar for wanting me to represent and SRAM for giving all the riders and media a new custom SRAM Leatt DBX Pro brace. How freaking cool is that.

Next up Mega Avalancheeeeeeeeee!!!  Then off to another SRAM camp in Whistler for some more bike riding adventures.

Peace out

Anka

x

 

the (not-so-hot) van chronicles Part 2: Tribesport Enduro race Les Gets, France

Next up was the first French enduro race of the season organized by Fred from Tribe Sports, at Les Gets and yes, of course it was pouring with rain. So much so, that when the afternoon came around and it was still pouring, we went to the LBS and bought 4 mud spikes at full retail! Now that HURT. This was a first (to pay full pop for tires, but also to run full mud spikes front & rear on our Nomad trail bikes). After the first day of racing though we realized that it was the best 200 euro’s ever spent. It was like attending a mini world cup of enduro racing, with the legendary Anne Caroline, Sabrina Jonnier, Florian Pugin & Pauline Dieffenthaler all there to play & race in the mud.

The enduro races here in France work a bit differently to back home in the US. You show up on Friday, then on Saturday you get to race 2 completely different tracks 3 times on each track –  completely blind. So no practice, just show up and race your first run blind, hopefully know it a bit better by run 2 and then by the 3rd run you should be pinning it. Then just as you start to feel comfortable, you move onto the next track and repeat. So add to this exciting format ZERO visibility, great when you have no idea where to go, torrential downpours and copious amounts of mud which makes using goggles or sunglasses impossible, so you don’t use anything and just hope you don’t get too much mud caking up your eyes. It was the most fun I’ve ever had on my trail bike, sliding around with my full spikes hooking up brilliantly everywhere except for the wooden bridge near the finish which kept spitting me out like a pinball machine after every run. Spikes & wood = carnage! I ended up 4th after Saturday’s mess of not being able to see and having too many crashes to count.

During all the mayhem, they have great feed stations with all kinds of lovely French treats and drinks and the entry even includes a free dinner & drinks that evening at the restaurant at the top of the mountain. Pretty amazing what you get for a 50 Euro entry fee. The tracks on the Saturday is usually more downhill oriented and around 10 minutes long, while the tracks on the Sunday is a bit more physical lasting up to around 20 minutes a run.

Sunday rolled around with even more rain. Saturday was fun, playing in the mud, but putting on a completely wet, muddy & cold full face helmet and soggy shoes first thing on a Sunday morning takes some of the fun factor out of it. We got ourselves up on the open chair lift ( in the rain of course) for another day of “blind” racing. This time on the other side of the mountain.Today we had one track that we had to race 4 times. When we got off the chairlift at the top of the mountain, we still had another 30 minute or so hike a bike to get to the very top where the race started. Once we got to the start – we were welcomed by falling snow. I aptly renamed the Portes de Soleil to the Porte de Neige (Port of sunshine to Port of snow). It was freezing, and we had to do this 4 more times today.

With frozen hands and feet I set off on my first, blind race run of the day and managed to have a huge over the bars right off the back. The track was covered in gnarly, slippery roots from top to bottom. Cold and sore, you don’t get much time to recover as you have to head right back up there to repeat. repeat. repeat. I got stronger after every run, but couldn’t make up the time I lost  during my crash and I had to be happy with a 6th place overall for the weekend. Sven rode like a rock star, racing with all the  Dirt crew boys – their main goal was beating ( or trying to beat)  Anne Caroline every run.

All in all though, it was an amazing event. This is what I call the real deal enduro racing. It was hard, challenging physically & mentally, but super fun. Such great value for money – 10 timed runs over 2 days. It is hard to take this too seriously, as so much can happen and go wrong during 10 race runs

Thanks to Fred for an amazing event, and for the muddy photo’s. I can’t wait until the next one.

http://www.tribesportgroup.com/

Peace out

Anka

x

our (sort-of-working) van chronicles part: 1

I have been meaning to do some updates, but I just have not had the time to sit down and actually write them. So here goes: Part One.

We just got back from a 3 week trip in the VAN – which we almost thought wouldn’t happen at all, because the van is not doing so great lately. Luckily for us she decided to get us to Austria for the world cup, then on to Italy with the Atherton clan, despite a lot of black, bubbling smoke and finally the van made it to Les Gets, France for the Tribesport enduro race and the SRAM product launch & media week.

If I had to describe the trip in one word, it would be RAINYMUDDY & lots of it. In Austria I rode with my full rain suit everyday. Sauze d’Oulx, Italy on the other hand, was a little slice of hidden bike trail heaven and we had 3 days of sunshine where it actually felt like summer. Then it was back to winter in Les Gets where we had 2 days of the toughest conditions of enduro racing that I have ever experienced. Let me back up and start in Italy.

Sauze d’Oulx, Italy is a tiny village in Northern Italy, located about 80km from Turin. Really famous for it’s winter fun, it is fast becoming very popular in the summer for their bike parks & amazing trail network consisting of 3 valleys, 8 towns (Sestriere, Bardonecchia, Cesana, Pragelato, Prali, Claviere, Chiomonte & Sauze d’Oulx), 8 chair lifts & 2 gondola’s that provides you with over 50 free ride routes and hundreds of kilometers of xc trails.

We went out there for a photo shoot that Sven had to do with the Atherton’s as they are one of their sponsors and they wanted to get some shots of them riding and enjoying what the area has to offer. You know you are in a cool village when your van can’t fit through the narrow little streets and you have to park far away from where you are staying and get guided to the chalet by the little old local ladies. A town with so much history, the church dates back to 1300. Hard to comprehend coming from a “new” country.

Enrico was the perfect guide along with everyone else that really made this trip very special. The chair lifts were not open yet, but that was not a problem as we got shuttled up to the top of various mountains by locals from the village in 4×4 vans, trucks, home made trailers and big Red. Gondola lifts were opened especially for us in Bardonecchia, which was unreal. We had the entire mountain to play on with no -one else around. A definite first for me. Nothing was a problem. I love that about the Italians. There is a solution for everything, they feed you until your stomach is about to burst and then some more, and their infectious passionate attitude is something we can all learn from. These people are passionate about their bike parks and I can see why. It is almost too good to tell people about it, out of fear of spoiling the un spoilt. I can’t wait to get back there though at the beginning of August for the Enduro des Nations race that they will be hosting at Sauze d’ Oulx.

Thanks to Enrico for your passion & amazing organization, the Atherton’s for letting me ride bikes with them, the Faure Chalet for giving us internet & a bed to sleep in & the L’ Asiette restaurant for adding those extra few pounds. You guys are amazing and your beautiful trails make me giddy just thinking about them.

Peace out

Anka x

Check out this link if you want to come do some seriously fun riding & racing:

www.superenduromtb.com

www.alpibikeresort.com