Video: Forrest Riesco & A Year of World Cup Racing as a Privateer
Words: Akta Bikes
We caught up with Forrest Riesco post-season to answer a few of our questions and give some insight as to what goes on behind the scenes of racing internationally as a privateer. Catch all the action from his season through a collection of clips from Louis Citadelle on our Youtube channel as well.
 | There is definitely a big push to make the sport more “elite” and this is noticeable in how the organization keeps making it harder for smaller teams and privateers to attend and perform. Registration fees doubled for us and we were given a lot less, we didn’t even have a place to park at a few of the races. And information about practice times would be told to the big teams the night before, but privateers were not told till the following afternoon. I’ve definitely gotten more efficient and better with everything over the years. In the off season it's a constant juggling act between talking with sponsors, arranging travel plans, building bikes and training. Plus working a few jobs to make ends meet. One nice thing about being a privateer is you can travel where you want and with whoever you want. This has been a lot of fun over the years, I have good friends from around the world now, which I wouldn’t trade for anything. On race day it can be a lot though when you’re trying to get in laps and working on your bike in between. If things go wrong, say you blow up a wheel, it can be a real time crunch to fix it and get back out in time to finish the practice session or get up for your race run. I’m doing everything I can to put myself in a place to receive more support in the future. |
Credits:
http://www.aktamtb.com
Photography: Sebastian Sternemann
Videography: Louis Citadelle
Author Info:
Member since Sep 28, 2022
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Am I missing something? Where is the interview other than the two paragraphs without questions?
PB scaled it back for this feature.
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