Chatel Mountain Style 2012 - Saturday Behind the Scenes
Jul 7, 2012
While Ale di Lullo will be bringing you today's action in another piece, we took the chance to see what goes on behind the scenes of a big freeride competition like this.
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 Aggy isn't an early riser, so what better way to start the day than having a camera stuck in your face? |
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| He's got a pimp new custom lid this year - LP is a school friend of his who died recently. |
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| Aggy is sharing a chalet with Dylan Sherrard and once he'd been woken up there was no time for breakfast - it's straight out to business for the two of them. |
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| As it's his first time over here, Dylan got the VIP seat in the van. |
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| You have to give Dylan some respect. He's never even ridden in a competition before, and chose to start here, on one of the toughest events on the circuit. He didn't seem too phased by it all and we only found out when he let on at the end of the day. |
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| Number one, baby, although Aggy wasn't entirely sure why he'd been given the number one plate. When Brandon Semenuk asked to take it off him there was only one answer though: "no." |
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| When everyone reached the track this morning, this is what it looked like in places... |
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| ...so coffee, breakfast and some sunshine were the only proper thing to do. |
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| Just don't ask. |
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| The Giant Factory Team mechanic showed up this morning, near enough straight off the plane from Windham. Kurt Sorge took the opportunity to get his bike some love. |
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| Heading up to the track with Pierre Edouard Ferry and Anthoine Bizzet. It's hard to know what must be going through the guys heads. Because of the weather nobody had really had chance to ride the track and they knew that in a few short hours they were going to have to send it. If the weather came in again tomorrow their qualifying runs would used as their final scores. |
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| Mitch Chubey spent a fair bit of time up top, looking at the track and trying to figure things out. |
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| Ben Walker is the head judge here at Chatel, he makes sure his judges all ride the track, not only so they can understand the gradients and scale of the hits, but also so they can understand how "humbling" the soil here is. Unless you've run down it on a bike, it's hard to appreciate how little traction there is and what that means when you launching onto it at full gas. |
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| Meanwhile down below Sam Pilgrim, Antony Messere and Andrew Taylor size up the landing for the big hip. |
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| With the wet conditions, ruts were forming on the landings of the jumps. Some shovel work will sort that out. |
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| After riders come down the face, they are faced with a selection of hucks before the final jumps - Kurt Sorge, Graham Aggasiz and Tyler McCaul weigh up which one to go for. |
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| Florian Pugin lives in the area, so she came along to watch and hit some laps of the bike park today. Her face seems to have healed fully from her horrific crash at Mont Saint Anne, we're hoping we'll see her back racing at Val d'Isere in a couple of weeks. |
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| This fella's face is hidden for his own sake. Lycra, baggies and kneepads. It's not what you'd call a strong look. |
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| This guy probably won the marshal point lottery and spent the afternoon with a prime view of the final stepdown and finish area. |
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| One of the great things about mountain biking events is that the fans can get to meet and speak to their favourite riders. Kyle Strait knocks out the autographs. |
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| You have to love Andreu Lacondeguy. When the announcer asked him how his run went, he replied it was tough because he was so hungover. Legend. |
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| Dylan was pretty pleased with his run and has a few more things left in the bag if the competition does go ahead tomorrow. |
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| When the riding is done, the work isn't. Kurt Sorge gets mic'd up for an interview. |
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| Cam Zink was keen to show off his rut in the landing area. Seeing how wild his corkflip to ballride was, it's easy to see why he's so happy he's still standing to point it out. |
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| Kyle Strait is US of A, through and through. |
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| "It's legal over here," is all Anthony Messere had to say. |
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| Can you spot what's missing from Mitch Chubey's bike? He lit the chute up so hard that when he landed to flat his bottom bracket hit the floor and his chain went flying. Tomorrow's plan is to gaffer tape the crank up so it doesn't spin to much and send it all chainless. |
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| Here we are, back where we started, dropping Dylan back off again at the end of the day. |
