Well its been a week since I put out the vibe and and spread the good word of Germany. Our team of six is now down to five after Kay Sherwood crashed riding the race course in Bern, Switzerland and took a plane ride home with a broken arm.
The race on Saturday, Swiss Trophy Cup, is a high UCI ranked race. all the big guns showed up and rainbow stripes were everywhere. The field was about 60 and my wonderful call up was #50 so that made some extra work for me in the start loops. After the start loops I was going into the race sitting right about where I got called up and proceeded to pass about 20 euro weight weenies on the first down hill and cut a few more off in the first cork screw turn. Ahhh the pleasure. This was by far the gnarliest XC race I've ever done it was a 4.5k loop with drop, chutes, stairs, and roots for a proper white knuckle experience.
A few laps in feeling good we hit a super steep climb that was almost too steep to clear and it had me reaching for my front shifter where my chain flew off and got wedged under my linkage with no wiggle room at all. The spectators were going crazy and trying to run onto the course but nothing could get it out until a guy from South Africa came to rescue after we pulled the wheel off and repeatedly compressed the suspension.
I got pulled shortly after my little dilemma but still manged to place in the 40's. Very disappointed to mechanical but it was an awesome experience. I am definitely going for it this weekend if Flims, Switzerland. The loops are under 4k and hopefully with the same amount of sketchy descents I can sneak my way up the finish list.