Hot Right Now... Training day at Vallnord World Cup
 |
 Greg Minnaar out in the early morning riding solo... but not on a Solo. |
 |
| Jill Kintner on office hours, getting her warm up for the day in at 9 a.m. |
 |
| In order to repeat his success from Val di Sole, Florent Payet hired the best mountain guide in town. CG leads out in the buoyancy aid come protective vest. |
 |
| Polc and Strobel wait for a gap in the traffic to push off again. There aren't many comfortable places to catch a breath on this course so any place to park up is in high demand. |
 |
| It's longer, it's bluer, wait n see if it's a do-er. Gwin looked nifty on track, dialing it in mostly on his own today and looking to cut down on 8th overall after two rounds. |
 |
| Marsh Guards: they're not just for keeping mud out of your eyes and off your fork seals; George Brannigan's awaiting a custom built knee brace from a new sponsor and discovered that zap strapping a Marsh Guard to the ensemble works wonders for adding that extra bit of coverage. |
 |
| A lot of dirt got shifted today and despite a significant bedding-in, the course held up pretty well. Especially compared to the Val di Sole lava flow. |
 |
| Aurelien Giordanengo ping ponging through the trees in the mid section of the course. |
 |
| Gaetan Ruffin charging the chicanes out in the heat of the brief open section. |
 |
| Marcelo Guiterrez richocheting down the track like a ball bearing rattling down curving, swirling, drainpipe from a Salvador Dali painting. |
 |
| Lorenzo Suding just bagged his 5th national champion title last week at a great race in Prali, Italy... apparently celebrating today with an on-track somersault for each of his wins. He told us it was a combo of all the grease on the lower slopes and stiffer forks that had him head over heals more than once. |
 |
| Matt Walker representing for all the bear-lovers out there in this desert camo tie-dye special. The Kiwi on a Pivot almost stole the show at Crankworx Les Deux Alpes in Pump track and Dual Climb. We'll see if those fitness and bike handling skills can be translated into Catalan during the qualifying tomorrow. |
 |
| Lots of roost here in Andorra. The track is freshly built, and with a day free of rain things are starting to loam up a bit and getting fast. Stevie gives the dirt a taste test.. and so does my camera. |
 |
| Wyn TV was riding typically fierce this afternoon, loving nothing more than a bit of foot-out roosting. After a miss at Fort William, Val Di Sole gave him 24th...the only way is up. |
 |
| Winning and losing is about consistency. Markus Pekoll logging in his suspension settings on the new Marzocchi rear damper before Andy Ward, the wrench, slaps it back in his frame. |
 |
| What you're looking at is Santa Cruz's new "Steering Technologies Dampener"--or STD for short (and the acronym is intentional)... Basically, as Doug Hatfield put it: "two bits of metal we machined ourselves to offer 8 millimeters of fore/aft adjustment. We use a Chris King Preloader to make the entire thing act as a steering dampener, while at the same time offering the cockpit adjustment." Don't go running off to Santa Cruz's website to buy one--these are strictly machine shop one-offs made to order. |
 |
| Bruni sits in 6th overall after two rounds, thanks to a 16th and a 4th combined with strong qualifying. Here he gaps some of the undulations on one of the fastest, straight down the mountain sections. |
 |
| Sam Dale is becoming a rider to watch. Mid way down the track, he demonstrates proper high marking form on a micro berm a touch outside of the main line. Note the gentle touch to the very base of the tree in an effort to push into the next turn. Textbook riding out of his mind. Simply text book... |
 |
| Bryn stepping out at pace across the loamy off-camber a quarter of the way through. He'll want to keep it clean in qualies this time after taking a punishing stack and missing finals in Val Di Sole. |
 |
| As the track dried out, gratuitous roost was everywhere; Needles brushing out a micro catch-berm at the bottom of one of the steep-ish lines. |
 |
| Happy birthday Mitch Delfs! Hopefully you can get your plate number lower than your age this week.. |
 |
| Up and over the bridge. |
 |
| Multiple line choices is what every proper DH course should allow. Hart leads out Gutierrez. who is in fact currently ranked 30 UCI places above him |
 |
| Robin Wallner going with the man in black theme to counter point last season's man in many colors look. And going flat out on this bomb-hole filled section of track. |
 |
| Floriane Pugin trying to catch her own shadow. Thank god they're both running the same wheel size. |
 |
| Morgane Charre getting as many laps as she can in the short amount of time women had to practice this morning. Top 20 UCI plates for women were allowed back in later in the afternoon for timed training and get some extra practice laps in. |
 |
| Pompom's skipping down the track looking light & now rocking the new, more slim-line Fox lid. Are the improved aerodynamics enough to put time into Rach? |
 |
| Petra Bernhard's first world cup appearance in the RRP colors. An injury kept her out of the game for the first two rounds. |
 |
| Steve Smith rode pretty mellow for a good chuck of the day, as he usually does during practice. Cranking up the heat a little bit for his last laps. |
 |
| Throwback Thursday with Greg Minnaar leading out Bren-dawg like it was 2007 all over again with Bren-dawg the junior racer on the Honda G-Cross team and Minnaar the big dog leading the charge in practice one more time. |
 |
| There's a fine line between balance and disaster when riding full spikes at speed on a rapidly drying and wildly off-camber track. Blenki gettin 'er done. |
 |
| Aaron Gwin, doing his own business today... They were so right to cast Gulevich instead for the 'Couples Ride' with Darcy. |
 |
| 24. Happy Birthday, indeed. |
 |
| Damien Spagnolo was tired of only getting to spectate. Injury has kept him outside the tapes for rounds 1 and 2. |
 |
| Mick Hannah is holding the walls together almost on his own this time. A good part of the Hutchinson UR squad is out of the games due to injuries. |
 |
| Troy Brosnan speed of a Mongoose...but he doesn't ride for them anymore. He currently sits 9th in the standings, but he got that taste of the podium last race in Italy. |
 |
| The unofficial, Unofficial Whip Off Worlds on the only real jump on the entire course. and CG made it...who'd have thunk. |
 |
| More than 50 entries on the junior's start list. Noel Niederberger is on the top of it. |
 |
| Brendog was totally rampant all day, clearly loving every minute of the course.Will this be the race we finally see a serious turn up from the Southern Englander? |
 |
| Mickael Pascal's extra tall handlebars don't look so out of place as they used to only a couple of years ago, when sweeper sticks were the way to go. |
 |
| Remi Thirion looking downright maniacal in this slotted out little gully about two thirds of the way down the track. Check the image out at full size to see what I mean... |
 |
| Gwin mysteriously went missing during track walk yesterday. He may have done a solo walk that wasn't documented. Took most of the day cruising the course and checking things out. Only tomorrow will hold what Aaron has in store with a new bike and a month off to train and prep. |
 |
| Greg likes it here. He's the main man for keeping neat when the terrain is blowing other rider's bikes and bodies apart. Having won the warm-up event here to test the new track he's a dead cert for a nice qualifier tomorrow. |
 |
| Hill was out on the hunt with the CRC lads and looking positively rambunctious. Remember 2009 when he rode away from his superbly violent, high speed crash off the fade drop and into the snow?? |
 |
| Mark Fitzsimmons putting the mechanic's favorite tool--a hammer, any kind of hammer--to work in the Fox Racing Shox pits after the day's practice. |
 |
| Photographer's Paris Gore (R) and Matt DeLorme (L) renewed their trackside pecking order with another fierce display of dominance at the end of practice. Delorme clearly has the edge on Gore--putting not only his greater size and vertical leap with camera bag into effect, but his "real" fashion sense as well (opting for working man yet trendy Dickies shorts over Gore's just plain trendy mtb shorts). |
 |
| While some were fighting dirty others were keeping it clean... Yes my friends it takes true athletes to compete on a course such as this one...and it takes balls. And balls are best kept slightly below body temperature as these chaps rightly strive to maintain. |
 |
| Loic Bruni throwing stones in your face telling you to tune in tomorrow for the good stuff!! |
Author Info:
Member since Jul 19, 2007
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
Looks like there is no live stream for the quali?