The first World Cup of the season is always an exciting one. Time to start traveling after a long winter at home, heading to an amazing place to ride your bike and meeting up again with friends from around the world. Not to mention of course, finally getting to race after a winter of training, testing and hurting. It’s easy to forget, the racing is the easy bit… (well kind of!)
For the team, this would be the first time we would all be getting together, Kazuki met up with us at Durban airport having flown in from Japan and it’s safe to say, fitted in immediately. It’s funny how language is no barrier when there’s common interest, we were a little apprehensive though about making sure we looked after him properly, racing is all about the details and to understand those takes consideration and discussion. Luckily, Kazuki’s enthusiasm and our determination met somewhere in the middle and for now, with some English, some hand waving and a lot of laughing, he’s fitting in just fine. It’s going to be a fun year for sure.
Pietermarizburg has unfairly been labeled as just a pedal fest, the reality is, it’s so much more than that. Technical, challenging, high speed and yes, it tests your fitness but guess what; this is professional bike racing so no surprise there! With a few changes to the World Championships track of 2013, there was plenty for the riders to get stuck into, man made rock gardens, a natural off camber section replacing a big berm and some slight adjustments here ‘n’ there, that brought out new challenges in old familiar sections of the track. So with track walk out the way, the riders were keen to get up the hill for practice to figure it all out.
With the new schedule for double World Cup weekends (XC and DH) Friday was qualifying. Hot and dusty was the order of the day, a welcome relief for us Brits who have spent the last six months under rain. Manon first up for the team, was looking to put a great run together, wanting to shake off the demons of her World Champs crash on this track last year and of course start saving up some points for the series. She did just that, taking 1st place and a 9 second advantage, a fantastic start to her campaign but she knew there would be a bigger fight for the final on Saturday and kept her focus.
Sam and Matt up next, equally keen to start the season off right, were content for now with 10th and 11th places. Pushing hard on the technical top sector of the track had proved a scrappy affair and without so many mistakes they both knew they were in the game for the final.
That just left our new boy, Kazuki Shimizu, his first World Cup and on a new bike, he went for it and pushed hard, a little too hard resulting in a crash in the loose, Pietermaritzburg dust, picking himself up quickly he kept fighting to the line and was rewarded with a place in his first World Cup final. Great work Kazu!!
So with the first run jitters out the way, it was game faces on and time for race day. It felt kind of weird after last season when the riders pretty much got the day off on Saturday before finals on Sunday but it was good to be cracking on with the job! This season, when a World Cup is DH only, finals will be on a Sunday, when they are double or triple-headers, the DH will run on Saturdays. It will be interesting to see how that works out for spectators and viewing figures online. Talking of online, coming soon on the Red Bull coverage will include, on board footage of a selected few top riders qualifying and final runs, once the details get ironed out, which should make for some amazing race footage thanks to GoPro!
Finals time and there was Manon, last woman on the hill as we all watched on the big screen at the bottom. Off to a decent start she was riding smart, not pushing too hard, just getting it right and staying on line, she knows she has a strong mid sector at PMB and this was where she opened up the taps, gaining time on the rest. She held the advantage through the bottom split and just had to make it through the fast turns and jumps to the line. Jumping the ‘money maker’ and sprinting for the line, she’d done it! Her first Elite World Cup win! With a look on her face of relief to begin with, quickly followed by delight as she looked back to the timing board one more time to see her name at the top. We know it’s been a long road, a lot of hard work and a lot of frustration to get here, so well done Manon, awesome job!
As you can imagine news in the pits that Manon had taken the win, had the lads all fired up. They started their preparation and headed up the hill with the mechanics. Kazu would be first down and charged hard, he has a great aggressive looking riding style and was popular with the spectators track side. He crossed the line and went into the hot seat and waited for his team mates. Matt up next and he was on target through the first split, only losing a little time through to the bottom of the hill and went into 5th place. Time to wait and see what the rest had got.
Sam's turn then and he was looking strong, loving his Saracen Myst after a winter of testing and tweaking, a happy Sam is a fast Sam and he was looking good! Crossing the line, he must have relaxed a bit too much, losing control and sliding up to the hot seat under his bike, maybe he was tired and delirious, thought he needed to score a touch down when he saw the white line…?!
So with the last rider down it was Sam in 7th, Matt in 13th, Kazuki 74th and Manon with the win, which as it turned out was enough to give Madison Saracen Factory Team the overall team victory for the weekend, so everyone hit the podium along with the Team Myst and we all went home with a dirty great smile on our faces! Now the hard work really begins as we head to Cairns in Australia (I’m not taking the micky honestly, it’s tough on the beach in OZ) …the hard work begins as Manon has a leaders jersey to defend and we all have a yellow team leaders number board to look after. More news in a couple of weeks from the Cairns World Cup.
I got to see Manon win her first race. On top of that, the only other rider that seemed as happy as Manon was Rachel! She jumped off the podium to go give her a hug.
This is going to be a kick ass season for the women. Manon and Tahnee are pretty much on pace and ready to throw blows. The only thing I want to know is what happened to Holly Feniak?
Hahaha - can't question his commitment, went down like a sack of spuds.