World Cup newbies at Lourdes by jebcas

A few weeks back my son got an offer he couldn't refuse. A teammate on the recently formed Eastern States Cup North American Downhill Team had withdrawn plans to attend the the World Cup opener in Lourdes. The team's owner offered to pay our travel expenses to France so that the team could have a presence at the race. Living in snowy Vermont, my son, Aidan Casner, hadn't been on his bike in about five months, but we decided to give it a go. We squeezed in a couple days at the Plattekill Bike Park in the Catskills and one day of hike-a-bike at an abandoned New Hampshire ski area, and that was it. A classic World Cup training regimen. This pic isn't my son, its Sick Mik Hannah. He's faster.

Our trip was about as low tech as can be and included some miscalculations and errors that made for some high-stress moments. For openers, when I booked out flights from Montreal to Pau, I saw that we changed planes in Paris. I failed to notice that those planes were not at the same airport. As a newly-minted veteran of this particular form of transportation torture, trust me when I say that the Charles de Gaulle to Orly airport transfer should be avoided at all costs. Sleep deprived and dazed by our travels, we arrived in Lourdes on Wednesday afternoon. Fighting the urge to close our eyes, we took a quick drive into the hills just outside of town and feasted on the stunning visuals of the rugged hillside farms of the Pyrenees.

We rented a minuscule AirBnB a short walk from the venue, which was one of the better decisions we made on the trip as car travel through ancient European villages is not for the faint of heart, We also got to see some early morning sky drama as we strolled to the Pic du Jer course from our apartment.

The pits at a World Cup race are a Disney Land of bike wonders. Enormous trucks, buses, and trailers unfold like Transformers into penthouses of creature comforts and bike bling showrooms. Even the smallest teams have vans chock full of spare parts and trainers and folding tables and beer coolers. On the the far other end of the spectrum were our humble quarters. We rented a small event tent, but we had nothing to put in it. A set of allen wrenches, a few hand tools and some zip ties were about all we could carry in our luggage. No bike stand, no air pump, no spare tires. No bling. We hauled a couple of folding chairs over from our apartment and put some pallets on the ground to keep us out of the mud. Home sweet home.

There's no chairlift or gondola at Lourdes. There's a funicular. Whats' a funicular? Not entirely sure, but it's a train-like thing and it's steep.

One of the best things about a World Cup is being around all the big names in the sport. The funicular is especially good for this. Aidan, who is 16 (on the left in this pic), was awed when we stepped into the funicular for the first time to head up for track walk and there were Brooke MacDonald, Sam Dale and Wyn Masters. Over the course of the weekend, Aidan had the opportunity to talk shop with many of his idols. Brendan Fairclough stood out as the perhaps the nicest and most generous of the bunch.

Track walk was a highlight for me. Lots of famous faces, foreign languages and witty banter. No stress.

The steep section of the upper course, called The Wall, was the focus of much inspection and discussion. Hard to do it justice, but it was really steep. And rugged. Upon completing track walk we encountered another big miscalculation. Turns out it's against the law in France to race without elbow pads. We hadn't brought any and it was now around 6 p.m., the night before practice. Our team owner emailed that we could tape sanitary napkins to Aidan's elbows if worst came to worst. Didn't seem like a great option, but we would have done it. After combing the pits to no avail, a frantic Google search showed a couple shops on the other side of town that were open until seven. Of course we got stuck in traffic and lost our way getting there. The first shop only sold road biking gear. When we pulled into the second with minutes to spare and saw a Santa Cruz V10 having in the window, we knew we were saved.

Friday was the first day of practice. Despite my sleep deprivation, I was awake much of the night before. I was super anxious about Aidan, how the riding would be and what would happen if something went wrong. I'm not usually a nervous guy, but the magnitude of the whole experience really got me stressed. The field was split into two groups, Group A and Group B. As a junior, Aidan was in Group B. Which meant we had to get out of bed really early. It snowed in the mountains over night and rained at lower elevations. Super pretty but treacherous for biking.

This may seem like a ridiculously obvious observation, but at World Cups everyone is really good. I was so impressed by the level of riding I witnessed. From the no name elites to the juniors, everyone rips. This is Devin Kjaer, one of four American juniors at the event, just after leaving the starting gate in practice.

The elite women also practice in group B. Rachel Atherton definitely rips. Practice time is pretty limited. Especially with the limited capacity of the funicular so a handful of runs is the the most you can hope for.

The upper rock gardens were not shown on the telecast of the race, which is too bad because this was one of the most entertaining portions of the track. Numerous line choices and progressively greasy conditions made for some wild rides though the boulders. Marc Beaumont turned heads with his aggressive riding.

Loic Bruni was absolutely lights out every time I saw him. Completely comfortable and scary fast.

On the other hand, defending champ Aaron Gwin looked tentative and off pace the few times that I saw him. Maybe that's how he operates at races. Keeping his cards close to the chest.

Not surprisingly, Josh Bryceland was having the most fun. Laughing and "yee-hawing" as he rode, Rat Boy clearly loves what he's doing.

The first road gap was the most whip-able feature on the track, and junior Brit Elliot Heap had a good one.

The infamous hip in the canyon section that gave lots of people fits last year seemed to be playing nicer this year.

Gee Atherton spent plenty of time weighing his options…

before blitzing each section.

Aidan was only able to get three runs in on Friday, way fewer than we're accustomed to at our local races. He was able to ride every feature and was feeling comfortable by the end of the morning. This big road gap had a bigger step down than he had ever been on but he sent it fine. Being a parent on the course was absolutely nerve wracking. We had no way to communicate so I had no idea if he'd made it down safely or had a mechanical or was fine. A steady stream of ambulance sirens in valley below did not help calm matters.

Saturday was qualifying day and again it rained hard overnight and the snow line crept further down into the valleys.

Things were saturated and everything was coated in a slick brown butter.

Many people switched to spike tires, but we only had the regular ones we'd brought with us. The sticky mud turned tread into a heavy, slick mess.

The Wall was nearly unrideable on Saturday morning. A huge back-up formed at the top of this section as the field kept getting red-flagged after racers tumbled, slid and cartwheeled down the cartoonishly slick face.

Many of the big jump features were too slow to hit safely in the morning. After finally getting past the bottleneck at The Wall, Aidan slimed his way down the rest of the mud coaster for his one and only practice run of the day.

The Group A riders handled things a bit better later in the morning, though many had huge brown swaths of mud on their clothes when they reached the bottom. Steve Smith had one of the cleaner kits so appears to have kept it rubber side down.

The taped course was a fluid boundary on Saturday, especially in the off-camber sections.

Aidan made it down his qualifying run in one piece but crashed on The Wall and had trouble clipping into his pedals and generally felt bad about his run.

Though he wasn't able to make the finals in his first World Cup event, he handled the pressures and uncertainties with a maturity that was new to me. He grew up a bit, right before my eyes.

To take his mind off things, we spent the afternoon driving up into the mountains to the Col Du Soulor, then had our first restaurant meal of the trip. Being in France, we ate a lot of bread, cheese and meat. The baguettes and croissants deserve their reputation.

I got up early on Sunday and walked over to the famous church on the other side of town. The skies had blessedly cleared for race day and temperatures had warmed enough for us to leave our down coats at home.

The track had dried considerably overnight and riders such as Florent Payet were able to bring the tempo back up to warp speed.

The crowds were absolutely massive for the race. Like my son, I was in the "B Group" of credentialed photographers and was not allowed between the tapes with the big boys. This wasn't much of a problem during practice sessions, but on race day the opportunities for a clean shot through the crowds were hard to find.

The Wall still claimed a few victims on Sunday, but in general the carnage was a trickle compared to the blood-letting the day before.

Nikolas Nestoroff was the only American junior to get through qualifying, and he put down a sizzling finals run to make the podium with a third-place finish.

Rachel Atherton put down her usual stunning finals run to top the women's elite field.

Troy Brosnan jumped through the crowds for a tidy fourth-place finish.

Aaron Gwin took the win for a second-straight year when Loic Bruni crashed near the bottom of the track, breaking the hearts of thousands of French fans at the finish line.

The best moment of the awards ceremony happened when Gwin, after doing the obligatory champagne spray, passed the bottle to fifth-place French finisher Amaury Pierron, who drained the bottle with an ecstatic crowd egging him on.

Lourdes was a wild ride of challenge, tension, uncertainty, beauty and dizzying excitement. For a high school student from a small town in Vermont, my son's eyes were opened wider than they'd ever been. This first race of the season will be a tough act to follow. As they say in the starting gate, its all downhill from here.