Val di sole

Just trucked in to Leogang after a weekend in sunny Val di Sole.

I am obviously pretty dissapointed in myself for not putting together any runs the last two weekends.

The weekend started out allright, first practice was fun and both me & Niklas were excited. Think Marcus got a bit scared of the track to be honest so he was struggling a bit at first.

I always liked the track in Val di Sole, it´s steep with a lot of lines to choose from and a lot of roots & technical stuff. But I also think the track is a bit to dangerous in places. The ground is soft and underneath there are rocks & roots that you just can´t see. You have to let go and go fast even though you are not sure what you are putting your wheels on. There was a lot of crashes & injuries in practice so I´m happy to get out in one piece.

Check out the trackwalk-video from @dirt tv: http://mpora.com/videos/AAdi0xrbxgen

Still I like the layout of the track and so on but I think it needs to be prepped a bit better then it has been to be a bit safer for the speed that everyone is going.

Here´s also dirt tvs video from thursdays practice: http://mpora.com/videos/AAdi1pq4smq2

For this trip we don´t have a mechanic at all and on friday morning I lost a bit of time of practice due to a bit of wrenching on my own bike so I got a bit stressed out before qualies.

Marcus just made his way down the hill basicly, ofcourse with some misstakes & stops here & there but atleast made it down and into a 47^th spot.

Guest rider Jakob had a pretty good run going until a crash in the lst steep section but still made a 26^th spot. Juniors qualifying: http://dirt.mpora.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/44661_DHI_MJ_Results_SR.pdf

My qualifying run just sort of went from a bit sketchy and bad up top to getting worse & worse further down the hill. I made so many misstakes that I just tried to make it down to the finish without crashing. Didn´t even bother to check my result at first as I knew I would be way down the sheet.

I had bib no 18 so I was a protected rider in qualifying but Niklas could have made a bit more use of that plate this weekend. He had a stop up top and made more misstakes coming down. At split one he was all the way down in 123^rd place. He made up a lot of time towards the bottom of the track ut it wasn´t enough for a qualifyiong position ending up in 88^th spot 1.2 sec of qualiyfying position.

Full elite qualies: http://dirt.mpora.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/DHI_ME_Results_QR.pdf

I wasn´t to worried for finals to be honest. I know that I can go fast and that I just had to put things together in my head a bit more before going down the hill.

Watching the juniors race was a bit like watching the lites-class in moto, more exciting and everyone was just hanging it out everywhere with a lot of crashing and misstakes.

They showed Marcus run on the big screen and it started out pretty bad with him almost going of track in corner one, where he got unclipped and squirly. He made it down to the finish but you could see the head hanging down a bit in the last steep section where he made more misstakes.

A 47^th again in finals for him.

Jakob looked like a man on a mission with a pretty loose run. The little man made it into the hotseat

but racing was tight and he ended up in 15^th spot 9seconds down on winning Dean Lucas.

Full JR-results: http://dirt.mpora.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/44661_DHI_MJ_Results.pdf

I was pretty focused at the start. I just wanted to have an AS clean run as possible down the hill.

Made a two misstakes at the top but my first split was apparently not as bad as I thought it would.

As you are coming out of one of the steepest sections on the track I felt my back end being a bit squirly. It didn´t slow me down to much until it went all empty just as I jumped in before split two.

I rode down as best as I could but barely made it down the last bit of the track.

Felt pretty dam shitty rolling into the finish when I saw that I was up at split one at Peaty and just around the same time at split two.

Nevermind, I will figure out how to make it to the finishline before Andorra but i´m pretty bummed right now.

Full mens reults: http://dirt.mpora.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/44661_DHI_ME_Results.pdf

Next up is IXS-cup Leogang and then Spicak next weekend. Should be good times!

//Robin

New playbike!

Would like to thank everyone involved for getting this bad-boy together to replace My stolen dj-bike.

I opted to run a fs-frame (The DB revolution SS) to make the bike a bit more allround. At first i was a bit worried it would be a bit slow around the pumptrack but the thing is stiff and fast!

Tried it out on the 4X grid aswell:

Probobly one of the most fun bikes i had in quite some time to be honest, brought a bit of spice and happiness into My riding!

And a bit of an extra thanks to Tune for pimping it out with My personal hubs!

Keep it real!

Norwegian Cup-Drammen

So this weekend we set out to race the Norwegian cup in Drammen-Oslo.

The race was a Cat. 1 UCI race so i figured it would be a good chance to get a bit more training in before WC 1 together with all the top Scandinavian riders and to also try and collect some UCI points at the same time.

I have been training pretty hard the last few weeks so i had to try and consider this as a training weekend as i'm not feeling very fresh at the moment.

Last year Drammen hosted the Nordic champs but i was not able to attend it so this was my first time there.

During last week they had got 120mm of rain in Drammen so track conditions were on the wet side of things when we showed up for trackwalk on friday evening.

Trackwalk was muddy but overall i liked what i put my feet on (or sank into).

 A bit shorter then i prefer but a good mix with technical stuff, couple of jumps & fast offcambers.

Got awarded the NO.1 plate at registration so pressure was on...

Took me a couple of runs to get into it and find a rythm but by the end of practice i was really having fun.

The organsation was top notch with 170 riders turning up to race, National-TV covering the race, live-screen, sunny weather and a bit of a Crowd going it made for a great atmosphere and pretty motivating event!

My bike was running good and i was having fun but i was feeling a bit like a wimp and even struggled with arm-pump.

Qualifying came around and i made it into 2nd spot with me Alex Kangas & Isak Levisson all within the same second.

I was a bit sloppy and made misstakes early on so felt like i could improve quite a bit for My final run.

Niklas wasnt quite feeling it and was down in 11tg but JR Marcus had a good run sitting 9th overall.

Warming up for My final run felt like warming up in a Sauna with 24 degrees and sunshine the all black WRC pits got hot.

My run started out with a couple of misstakes allready in the first woods so i got a bit stressed and went on to almost going over the bars in one of the soft berms when comming in a bit to hot.

I barely rode it out and after that i had to breathe and just tried not to do any more misstakes.

I didnt think i would win on that run to be honest but it was enough to beat Alex by 0.3 of a second and Isak ending up 3rd 2secs of.

Pretty happy to get a win despite getting My skirt caught in the chain but i need to keep it together a bit better next time.

Niklas struggled in his final aswell ending up 10th and Marcus also having a bit of a dab but still securing 19th overall and a 2nd in juniors.

Overall it was a great fun weekend and i would like to thank everyone from the organisation for a well run race i Will definetly try to make it back next year.

This week i am trying to get a bit of rest in and then i Will race enduro on friday, do a bit of coaching on saturday and then pack up for a few weeks on the road on sunday.

I really look forward to go and ride some big tracks the next few weeks! #goodtimes

//R

Clinics under Scandinavian Outdoor Games

Vi kommer på lördagen under Scandinavian Outdoor games att köra två teknik-clinics för er som vill bli bättra på allt från kurvtagning till hopp & stök.

Mer info & anmälan hittar ni på:

http://sog2013.se/mountainbike/clinics-mountainbike__99

After 7 weeks on the road i´m back home soaking in the last bit of snow & winter.

I was hoping that the snow would be atleast partly gone when i got back home but it seems that winter has stayed strong back here.

Despite the fact that my bikes got stolen in Barcelona it´s been a pretty good trip for me.

The day that it happened i just wanted to go back home and i couldn´t have cared less about going racing or continue the trip. 

I actually never had any of my dh-bikes stolen before so i guess i have been pretty lucky over the years and it´s never a good time to get robbed of a bike but this year i struggled pretty hard to even get bikes together that i needed for the season so the timing wasn´t great.

However everyone involved have stuck behind me and i have been able to get a new bike together so i can go racing as planned.

The race in Barcelona was a pretty good start after a shitty week with the stolen bikes & all the stress from that i was pumped to get on the podium with all the good riders there. I was pretty focused when i was at the starting-line on sunday but before that i had a lot of other things on my mind so i do believe i could have bettered the score a bit...

After Barcelona we headed to Malaga and i had a week out there before the students from the MTB-school back home arrived there for a 2 week camp.

I enjoy coaching & doing clinics mostly because i get a bit of a kick out of seeing someone progressing faster then they would without any guidance and its good to make a bit of use of all the nonsense-info i have in my head...

It´s a bit extra fun to look back one year in time and see how much the 2nd grade-boys have improved from last year. Doing new jumps, going faster, being smoother and looking like they actually know whats going on now.

The days got pretty long as we rode downhill every morning, did lunch & then headed for the dirt jumps or the skatepark or did intervalls and then cleaned up the mess in the evening so we could do it all again the day after...

I rode quite a bit and did all the intervalls together with the boys so i got a bit of training out of it aswell but i must admit i was pretty tired towards the end of week two. Not from riding but just that it is always something going on OR going wrong when there are 8 super-pumped 17year olds in the wild & free..

On the way back home we stopped by Jordi Bagos house in Barcelona and rode a bit of enduro there before continuing back home.

We jumped on the ferry in Kiel and woke up to the most epic-sunrise ever outside of Gothenburg before driving the last 5 hours back home. It´s been one of those trips you will remember good & bad with a few

good stories to add to the Time Of My Life-book.!

 

Happy to get to go riding some bikes again!

Det har varit lite lätt hetsigt senaste veckorna och faktiskt helt plötsligt känts ganska oklart om det överhuvudtaget skall kunna bli någon satsning igen under 2013.

Jag har alltid varit och kommer så alltid att vara en entreprenör. Jag gillar inte att stämpla in och göra som jag blir tillsagd, jag gillar att skapa och känna någon slags stolthet i det jag gör.

Dessutom så är jag en riktig nörd när det kommer till cyklar i allmänhet och vad som sitter fast på dem. Det var det som från början startade hela den här "grejen" med eget team på gott & ont...

Efter att ha haft en rätt stabil säsong, med en totalseger i europacupen och avslutat med en 2a plats i kvalet i Hafjell tyckte jag ändå att jag visat att "jag kan, jag vill och jag ska". 

Jag anser att vi haft en bra set-up och med de ganska minimala ekonomiska resurser som funnits i kassan har vi ändå skapat ett internationellt välkänt team, tävlat globalt, producerat videos, bilder & annat samtidigt som vi tävlat sisådär 15 helger non-stop.

När säsongen började gå mot sitt slut hade jag för första gången på ett tag en del olika alternativ att välja på i  team-väg, jag valde att tacka nej till till allt efter en hel del övervägande hit & dit så kände jag ändå att det som är bäst för mig är att känna glädje i det jag gör. 

Även om det finns stunder jag skulle kunna strypa min lillebror (troligtvis ganska ömsesidigt) så har vi jävligt roligt ihop och så länge vi vill mot samma mål, varför skulle vi dela på oss?

Fördelarna med att svälja stoltheten och stämpla in i ett team går ju inte att blunda för, de är rätt många. Men det förutsätter att det är rätt lag med rätt människor, cykel och struktur. Den syd-europeiska kulturen brukar sällan rimma speciellt bra ihop med en svensk som gillar ordning & reda...

Efter mycket om & men så tackade jag nej till det som fanns upp-dukat, jag lagar hellre eget men tack ändå.

Att vi inte skulle heta Team Åre bikepark stod ganska klart för mig för flera månader sedan, inga problem Intense har trott på mig och supportat det jag gjort hela vägen. Förra veckan fick jag då beskedet att de måste dra sig ur pga deras ekonomiska läge.

-En av de mer klassiska svaren jag fått senaste veckorna är, Fan vad kul att det går så bra, vi skulle gärna vara med men...

Jag är rätt inställd på att det här skall lösa sig, jag är också rätt inställd på att jag kan presentera en lösning i slutet av denna vecka.

Kikade i garaget, det finns nog en del gamla klenoder att cykla på så det skall vi kunna ordna upp.

Tillsvidare vill jag önska alla non-believers ett riktigt hjärtligt FUCK-OFF.

//R