It is always a pleasure for all mountain bikers to finish the season down in southern France with consistently good weather. Roc d’Azur is a huge and nice racing course which had brought together 16000 competitors from France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, or Norway.
After a good warming up, I went in the line “100 to 500”, (I was number 326). Numbers 1 to 100 are the international elites. This is for the first wave. There were 6 waves and less 4000 crossers.
The press helicopter took off and we heard the gunshot. The pace was very very fast. In the first rises we felt hot and the puls don’t came back under 175. But supporters cheer us.
I rode with a guy who was at the same pace than me before Christoph Sauser, the cross-country world champion 2008, overtook us with his world champion shirt.
But a problem happened. I cut my rear tire in a very rocky fast descent. I could patch up with a air tube but I hadn’t pump up enough and 200m further the same problem happened but I had no more spares. And one hundred competitors or so overtook me. I had to link up the assistance. On the road I met a Norwegian who was in the same case. My tire remove of my rim and I should keep moving on foot during 30min.
After fix my tire on the assistance I decided to finish the race to indulge myself. And I was very happy to finish this race even though my ranking is 1048 after 3h36 whose 3 quarters of an hour lost.
1 commentaire:
Bad luck !
But the most important is safe : the "fighting spirit"
And I know what I'm talking about : Flat tire is - was I hope - my speciality ;-)
Vive le français !
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