Video: Team CRC On the Hunt in Lourdes

The first round of the 2015 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup took place in Lourdes, France, over the weekend where young ripper Mike Jones won his first elite career podium with a third place for Team Chain Reaction Cycles PayPal.




Team Manager Nigel Page was there to bring us this report:

The season started off with a brand new venue in the famous and very religious town of Lourdes in the south west of France. The French definitely know how to build a World Cup-worthy downhill track and the fans came in their thousands to support the racers, making it an amazing start to the premier downhill series.
The track in Lourdes was technical, steep, dangerous and ridiculously fast. Riders had to lay it on the line to get a result and this made for nail biting viewing with big crashes, injuries and mechanicals.

There were mixed emotions in the team camp as unfortunately Sam Hill, who finished last season on a high winning two of the last three World Cup rounds, had a crash last weekend whilst training on his downhill bike back at home in Perth, Australia. Sam hurt his shoulder pretty badly but thought after a few days rest he would be OK to race. This didn't turn out to be the case as his shoulder was too weak to ride and so Sam had to make the tough decision to sit this one out. He was extremely gutted to say the least after a massive off season training program and a desire to start the season off as he left 2014.



All the team as well as what seemed like the whole mountain bike world was gutted to learn that Sam (barring a few of Sam's closest rivals) would not be racing, especially here on what looked like a perfect track for Sam to pull off one of his amazing dominant race runs if all went to plan.

But we regrouped and stayed positive as we have another three amazing riders on the team and a huge thanks to Sam for helping everyone out over the weekend and showing Mike Jones all the lines he would have been taking.

Elliott rides his first World Cup race

First off come finals time in the races was our new first year junior rider Elliott Heap in his first World Cup race, only one year after first riding a downhill bike. Elliott stayed calm all weekend and rode fast and smart for such a young rider and finished 11th out of the fastest juniors in the world. This was an amazing result for Elliott and the team. It is great to have him on board – he is a fresh addition to the team and a super cool kid to have around. He, for sure, has a bright future ahead of him in this amazing sport.


Joe Smith’s race hampered by hand pump

In the elite men’s race, Joe Smith was off first after qualifying easily into the finals. Joe, however, was really suffering from hand pump on the fast rough track which was playing with his confidence and he ended up down in 57th place. Joe has the ability and speed to be top 15 at any World Cup so I know he was really disappointed especially after such a good result last weekend at the first British round on the podium. But we have a break now until the next round in Fort William, so Joe has time to regroup and be back where he should be at round two.

Welsh ripper Mike Jones takes to the track

Then it was time for young Welsh ripper Mike Jones. Mike looked super fast and comfortable from day one. After walking the track and studying every line with Sam Hill, Mike was on fire causing a lot of talk from the top riders even stopping on track to watch Mike’s lines and copying him. It sounds easy to listen to Sam Hill and ride the track how he tells you to and hit the lines only he sees and can pull off, but Mike did just that and made it look easy with confidence and commitment that had my nerves in tatters.

Mike qualified comfortably in eighth place and we all knew he had the pace for a podium position if he pushed on and hit all his lines. He did just that with a race run that had us all in amazement. The commitment he hit the gnarliest of lines and how hard he was pushing had my heart rate through the roof and Mike held it together for his first career podium and a third place finish for the team.

The speed this young lad has risen though the elite ranks in only one full season as a senior is breathtaking and he definitely has the established top riders worried. Mike Jones has definitely arrived and only has one goal in his mind: to be number one.

Mike's helmet cam footage.


Amazing result Mike, we are all so proud of you bud.

It was great to start the season off so well especially for all our sponsors that have supported us over the years and for our new joint title sponsor, PayPal. I hope PayPal are pleased to be partners with the best team in our sport. We had a lot of great comments from other teams and riders how cool it is for a company like PayPal to come into our great sport.


A big thanks to all our sponsors as always, and well done to all the guys at Nukeproof for their hard work on the new race bike. It worked amazingly and looked first class. Thanks to our mechanics Jacy, Brooks and Owen for keeping all the bikes running like clockwork.


So that’s it for round one, what a result to kick off the season and hopefully Sam will be back for round two in Fort William, in June.

Photos by Duncan Philpott.

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MENTIONS: @ChainReactionCycles

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