Inside LA BRESSE world cup with Morewood United Ride team

I remenber when I started riding back in 97 I was looking at magazines and the crowd seemed to be pretty huge on the world cups , it looked like a crazy show.

Then when I started downhill and got my first full supension in 2011, a Taillefer Zenix (22.5kg…), a lot of people were talking about the good old days of mountain bike racing. They said that at the end of the 90's there were big sponsors, big crowd and they talked a lot about the world championship in Metabié in 93.

Last week-end in Labresse I felt like downhill racing was back at the top.
It was a pleasure to ride in front of the huge crowd from the first day of practice to race day.


Obviously because I'm french riding homesoil was making this event even more special but I'm sure that every single rider was able to feel the support of the crowd. Even in the pit area it was nice to see all those people taking pictures, asking for autographs, stickers, posters and old tires .

The thing that made me more proud of this race is that in the public there was a mix of pure passionate mountain bike riders who know everything about bikes and a people that are intersted in watching action sports show.
With such events like Fort William and Crankworx, I feel like mountain biking is slowly but surely increasing its popularity.


For the team it was the return in Europe for Mick and Tim, and it was my come back after going through surgery 3 weeks ago.

We all qualified on a dry track. Mick did 27th, I did 36th and it was tight for Tim who qualified 80th at 0.038.


The spectators were on fire for the final. The atmosphere was good even though the weather wasn’t that great. The track was now wet and would stay this way for the whole day.

The first riders to start saw a bit of sunshine but for the others there was a constant drizzle on the first part of the track. Tim was the first one to go. He had a good run and finished 46th.

For me, the challenge was bigger under the drizzle with a broken foot. Being scared of taking my foot out, I did not take any risk and finished 47th. Not my best result this year but I’m very happy about my come back since I had to fight to be able to ride after my fresh surgery.


Even though Mick did some small mistakes, he finished 14th, his best result of the year. It’s too bad to know that his foot slipped at the start because he could have clearly finished in the top 10 since he’s only at 0.5 secondes.
So one thing is sure, I’m going to keep good memories of this race, I can't wait to come back and be part of an event who makes our sport go forward.