- The world of surfing

The weeks between back to back world cups seem to slip by especially fast and this one was no exception. Of course it was in part due to the 600K drive between venues that was thankfully broken up by a stop over at our friends' place that turned into a two day affair of handling the mountain of dirt crusted laundry from some especially tough past days in the saddle.

Somehow time just flies in general though this is not to say that some days don't seem particularly long when living in a tiny little RV during one of the coolest and wettest springs we have ever seen. Really at this point even here in central Europe where dodgy weather is far from abnormal it has been really rough!

Perhaps not the best place to park the RV

Although our entire time in Czech Republic could not have broken out of the single digits (celcius) for more than a minute, we actually lucked out on the weather this past weekend in that we didn't have to contest the second round of the world cup in an all out deluge, the cold and threatening skies never looked so good!

Not bad weather, considering!

It was clear that the Czech people would have come out to the races in just about any weather! The hearty group in attendance filled the woods with waving flags, painted faces and an incredible variety of loud number of noise making devices to cheer on the riders! This visuals and noise really electrified the scene like few other races we have attended and made for a truly fantastic experience for the racers!!!

One of the many nationalistic folks

There was a noticeable appreciation for the bikes that often saw large groups of admirers drawn especially to the more exotic builds and boutique brands like our Kenda / Stan's NoTubes shod, SRAM XX1 built Seven Cycles!

The Nove Mesto course stands out among the world cup courses we have contested over the past years. The Rooty off camber affair was again further enhanced this season with costly rock garden implants that rivaled some of the more eye catching billboards that crowd the sides of the Czech highways (sorry that there are no pictures of either from our own archives).

The new school features also included a couple of XC style doubles (jumps) that served to add a bit of spice to the difficult course and alter the personality from its more old school rooty and rugged beginnings that we found here in the original test event held here several years ago. Now in addition to needing the climbing ability to handle the short but demanding steeps and the strength to burl through the rooty gnar it was necessary to have the finesse to handle a bit of air on the XC bike to knock out a best result on the day, A definite transition from the old school.

Other than the fantastic still shot photojournalistic work by our friends Dave McElwaine, Victor Lucas and several others in the pro shutter clicking clan the video footage of the races it the best way to give an insight into the raw features of the course and to do justice to just how hard fought these world cup races are. Check out the action on the redbull tv coverage that can be easily accessed on the uci.ch website. The amazing quality of the filming really serves to tell the story of the weekend well.

Luckly there were some professionals on hand to document the action as Mary and I found it tough to do any more than handle our own critical team business especially with the inclusion of two separate tech pits (both seemingly critical to stock) on the course. This meant both Mary and I splitting our duties (me before my own race and Mary directly after hers) to ensure we got through the difficult day in the most professional manner.

Mary gives the thumbs up on the final race tune

Being a self supported team often makes our days at the world cups a bit more challenging than that of our racing peers but we do this with No complaints as it also gives us the often exciting opportunity to reach beyond our own boundaries and into the community of the bike to ask for help.

We were happy to locate some Austrian friends to help us with race day support, great people that we met in a similar fashion several years ago when reaching out for help at another race years ago and have since remained friends. We have found that though it may be hard at times asking for help often times it is not so hard to find once the asking has been done and quite often it opens the opportunity for new friendships! Thanks once again to the Costa's for the help with Mary's feed in the more critical tech pit!

We met Fabian Costa when he helped us in our feed zone years ago. He has since become a friend and lethal force in the U23 field!

We both felt good about our race efforts in Nove Mesto and Mary especially for posting a worthy 28th position even after having to overcome a crash marred start. Luckily for her this year it was just getting caught behind other downed riders and not being on the ground herself, Thanks for that!

Making my way up from 98th

It was an exhausting weekend and we were keen to leave our isolated RV outpost near the Nove Mesto venue. We managed to drive a couple of hours before fatigue caught up with us soon after we crossed back over the German border and resorted to a hasty stop over in another random field outside another random town.

Way quieter here than in any sort of truck stop.

We had been anxious for a change scenery but instead were met with more rain and drear that made us look all the more forward to the summer that should really be coming almost any day now, for sure! In the mean time we are happily discussing some of the indoor venues, museums perhaps? that we could potentially check out in a well deserved rest week as we continue to enjoy the mission at hand!