“AT HOME”, tourné dans le massif des Vosges (France) avec la participation de Rémy ABSALON, Gwen FOUCHE (IRWEGO COMMENCAL) et Jérémy ARNOULD (IRWEGO COMMENCAL).
Dans ce film, Rémy ABSALON nous raconte sa vision de la pratique du VTT, en pro et en loisir avec les potes. Version complète à découvrir très prochainement.
Second round of a new fourcross world series 4X Pro Tour was happening in Poland, in Szczawno Zdroj. Szczawno is a traditional location for big fourcross races and every time it is great to race there. This year the organizers did also live streaming on internet so even people at home could enjoy the action.
The track is really fast with attractive jumps but it is also quite physical because of the pedaling. During the practice there was dust everywhere and we had great weather. Unfortunately as the qualification went into the second half, black clouds came to Szczawno and for the last 10 fastest riders it started raining. We had to change tires quickly and check the track how it changed. The course became super slippery and even the best riders went down and didn´t qualify. I took a safe run on the mud to get in to the race and finished on the 28th place.
The whole night it was raining and the race was becoming really interesting. I was feeling great on the track, had some good lines and I went through all my heats in to the final where I finished on the 3rd place!
Just after the race I went home and next morning I drove to famous bike camp of Velo magazine to enjoy some riding and coaching.
Cheers
Kamil
The new fourcross series 4X ProTour kicked off last weekend in Belgian town of Houffalize. It is a traditional venue for fourcross and this time the race was again part of UCI World Cup in cross country.
As it was the first race of a new race series, we were all expecting how it goes. Although the qualifying day was little bit long and finished at about 11pm, the race day was great and everything was just perfect, as it should be.
Almost 100 racers were ready at the start of qualification, but just 64 fastest qualified for the race. My qualification run wasn´t so powerful as usual, I did some small mistakes and ended up on the 10th site.
The next day was way better and I was feeling great on the bike. I went through my heats all the way to the semifinals, where I had a bad start and I went to the small final. I crossed the finish line in third place and finished the race in Houffalize on the 7th place overall.
The race was really nice with awesome atmosphere and in combination with night-lighting it became a truly great show for a large number of spectators. Just an amazing evening!! The 4X ProTour will continue in 3 weeks in Poland, Szczawno Zdroj.
Pictures: Martin Husar
It is so nice to feel the fresh spring air again and be riding outside on the sun. After winter when we had few crazy days with minus 20 degrees we were lucky with last 2 weeks full of sun. Every day it was blue sky and we were able to pin it on our bikes. Riding BMX, downhill, freeride, jumps or cross country. Whatever it was we were happy as a little kids to be on bike after winter again and have that nice feeling.
After 1 year we decided to visit again a small bikepark in small village Kalnica in Slovakia. Even the hill is really small it is such a great place for riding. They have a ski lift there which take you about 3-4 minutes to go up and then you can choose from several different tracks to go down. They have about 5 DH tracks, short dual slalom, they are building fourcross track and there is a pumptrack as well. To many things to ride. It doesn´t matter that one DH run is just about 1-1,5 minute long because you can do easily 30 runs per day!
It was first unofficial riding week in this bikepark and I think that there should be about 50 riders and everyone had smile on their face. The very special thing was ubiquitous dust everywhere. If there is someone behind you, you just ride as fast as you can and on the last second you brake really hard to give your friend little bit of dust for a lunch. Well, not little bit but as much as possible. He is bit angry about it for a second but you start laughing and by the end you both laugh. Yes, it was a perfect day.
Nothing extra happened but on the other side it was extra day full of riding, full of fun and full of happy people. I also have to say big thanks to Martin Husar for nice pictures!
It was one of the last free weekend as the race season is already here and first big race of 2012 season is upcoming weekend in Belgium –
www.4xprotour.com
Enjoy your 2012 season.
Cheers
Kamil
Photo credit: Martin Husar
More pictures: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150732532894233.422903.72998689232&type=3
After a few years I visited again a popular downhill series called Woodbike Series that was in the Czech region Moravia in Otrokovice. I the morning I wasn´t sure, if to go somewhere or not, because we had 2 Celsium degrees and few snowflakes, which is not ideal weather for riding bike. However, I decided to go and at the end I had a great day of riding and racing, even with some sun.
The system of the race is a little different than the classic downhill races and everything is pretty exciting until the last moment. During the race you ride on 2 or 3 different tracks, 4-5 runs altogether and all times count together. There is no room for any mistake and you have to do several perfect runs, each about 1 minute long. There were 3 tracks and 5 runs waiting for us in Otrokovice and overall time was over 5 minutes. The good thing on WBS races is that you can race the tracks on DH bike as well as on hardtail. Already from the beginning it was clear that competition is relatively wide, and that you must go on 110%.
Finally, I gave five solid runs and I managed to win the race overall. It was great to start this season with race like this and I enjoyed it a lot and had fun all weekend. The organization was great too, so hopefully I will have the opportunity to go racing WBS soon.
Picture: Jiri Lastuvka