WORLD CUP 1 Maribor, Slovenia

It was back to the venue of the final round of last year’s series to open the 2008 World Cup season for downhill. Maribor is always a great venue with great spectators and a challenging track. After a winter and loads of people having ridden the track it was really hard packed this year and with a week of sunny weather it was riding faster and rougher than ever !! You forget just how fast some of the world cup tracks are when you have been riding stuff in the UK that is much slower and more technical. It felt great to be on a proper track and for it to be dry too was wicked !!

This was my first major outing on my own as the Kona team and the new Kona Nissan tents looked great. I however had a tough time over the weekend. I had a few new products on my bike which I was using for the first time and it just took time to get everything set up and feeling good. I didn’t really feel like I was happy on the bike even in the final and I never felt that I was riding fast enough to be challenging the winners this weekend. After a crash in the semi final which left me and my bike a bit battered, I ended up improving my time a little in the final, but I was not happy with how I rode. I ended up 7th.

It was a shame as I know I have been riding great and I am feeling fit, so I now just have a couple of weeks to get everything sorted and set up. I am confident I will be back to up to speed for the next round of the world cup in Andorra in 3 weeks.