Val di Sole MTB World Cup

We went to Val di Sole in northern Italy for the second last of the mountain bike world cup series. Val di Sole translates to the valley of the sun and we weren't disappointed with temperatures around 30' daily! The dusty courses made for some great racing, in the XC, 4X and DH.

The women’s xc was won by Nathalie Schneitter with Italian favourite Eva Lechner in second place. The men’s race was a spectacular dual between World Champion Nino Schurter and world cup leader Julian Absolan. As we've seen before this year, Schurter managed to out sprint Absolan, thus taking over the leaders jersey with only one round for the world series to go!

In the womens downhill, Emmeline Ragot took a decisive 2 second victory on what was the most physically demanding course of the year. The men’s race was won by British rider Marc Beaumont, after many of the favourites failed to deliver. Fastest qualifier, Gee Atherton described his run as a struggle, fighting the bike rather than flowing while the second fastest qualifier Arron Gwin had a big crash after being 1.5 seconds up on the first split time.

The world cup circus heads across the water to America for the final round of the world cup series and then to Canada for the World Championships.

Mega Avalanche Race Results

Wow what a day, 5.30 wake up to be up at the gondola for 6am, the race started at 9am. Niall finished 19th out of 2000 riders who entered the event, beating off many top professional racers, happy days! Race report to follow soon.

Mega Avalanche Qualifying

Starting from the 4th row Niall finished 10th out of the 200 riders in qualifying today. The course was mainly downhill with just a short section of climbing. He’s riding a standard Trek Remedy with 150mm of travel front and rear, perfect for the job. The top 39 from each of the 12 qualifying groups go through to the main Mega Avalanche race on Sunday. Should be good!

Mega Avalanche Practice

Rough as hell this year and very hot! The qualifying track is the same as last year with loose rocky sections at the top, flat out fast grassy meadows in the middle and tight trees at the bottom. It’s a real mix and a great test of ability to hang on, 95% is downhill so its tough on the body.

On a side note, I got chatting to 6 time winner of the Mega Rennie Wieldaber earlier today, he was asking lots of questions about the new Columbia sportswear backpack... There’s a sure sign that the Columbia have got it right! Check out the review of the Mobex on http://www.spoke.ie/?p=2803#more-2803

The track for the main event is much the same as last year but the big problem will be the snow. With Europe experiencing somewhat of a heat wave, the high temperatures are causing the snow at the top of the course to melt. That’s going to be interesting come race day!

Mega Avalanche 2010

This week we are heading to France for the Mega Avalanche, the world’s longest downhill bike race. This is our second year in a row at the event, once you get a taste for the events it’s hard to stop coming back. Steeped in cycling culture, the event is based in the Alpine mountain resort of Alp d’Heuz, the site of many a great Tour de France stage. The Mega Avalanche itself is a mass descender (everyone goes at the same time) with 2000 riders fighting it out to be crowned the world’s best biker.

The thing we love about the Mega:

1. Euro techno music at the start line (LOL!)

2. French bread

3. The 2km glacier section (the start is at 3300mtrs altitude!)

4. Sunny weather (we hope)

5. 2000 riders all after the same line in the single track!

6. Chairlifts to get you up the hill

Booking for next years races

The mountain commission are looking for volenteers to test out their new booking form for next years mountain bike events. Here's what Fergal had to say

The Offroad Commission need your help in testing our new online event registration utility. We are looking to use this system in 2010 for as many offroad events (NPS, Nationals etc) as appropriate, the system can be used for registering XC, CX, 4X, DH etc... Test forms have been created for all 4 disciplines so you may register for as many as you like. The system is ready for testing now and will be taking test registrations for the next week or two. Below is the link to the main form from which you can pick your event to register for:

Offroad event selector form

The event forms request basic info, like Name, Email, Licence number (if you have one), Category, Event from the user. You will receive a confirmation email to your inbox from offroadevent.reg@gmail.com when you have registered for an event. If you notice any errors or have any suggestions please email offroad.commission@gmail.com. We'll let you know how the testing goes, we expect there should not be any major issues with the system, but we would like a signifiant amount of users to create a few registrations to ensure all goes smoothly.

It only takes about 30 seconds to register for an event, if you can register for more than 1 discipline or event then
that would help even more.

So log in and give it a try!