worldcup round 7 La Bresse
Day 4:
La Bresse- UCI mountain bike world cup 2018 is in the books with a final, which had potential for going into the books of history. Like in qualification rain kept pouring down. The conditions were already difficult on the day before, but every rider since then had a massive impact on the track. Roots were coming out, ruts appear and the dirt became real loamy.
Mike was the first of the MS Mondraker squad- he had (by his own words) a too conservative run and was not able to beat the time of Martin Meas, who crowed himself to the winner of this final world cup round. Mike finished in 23rdplace. Laurie, still handicapped by his twisted ankle, also could beat the time of Meas and finished in 18thplace. This got him into 5thplace of the UCI overall world cup ranking. As it looked like no one could beat the time of Martin Meas or even could get on the podium, Brook started into his run. With the two fastest top split times, he opened the race again. He lost some from split 2 to3 and some more from 3 to 4, but he was still in reach of second place. Brooked crossed the finish line in 3rdand there was just one more rirder to come down. Season dominator from France Amaury Pierron was the last man to come down and it looked like he would beat the time of Martin Meas until he crashed in the last corner before the finish jump. In the end Brook finished in 3rdplace and managed to make up some positions in the overall from 8thto 6thplace.
Overall we had a very good race weekend and we can’t complain of how the season went. We showed a strong performance and we were in touch with all top teams. We finished as 4thin the team overall ranking and we are proud to achieve that with our rider squad.
Now we have a weekend of till we head to our season highlight the world championships in Lenzerheide/ Siwtzerland. Stay tuned.
Day 3:
Massive weather-change from training days to qualification: after 2 ½ month of no rain in La Bresse the sky opened it’s doors and it was pouring down for the qualification round. While Brook qualified in 4th, Laurie took it easy to save some corns for finals- Laurie finished in 49th. Mike had a massive mistake in his run. He cased the first jump out of the woods and had no speed for the upcoming jump line. Apart from that he had a good run and managed to finish in 9thplace.
The co-factory had a bad day. While Fabian could not start because of an ongoing knee injury, Patrik, Johannes and Brage could not qualify in these horrific conditions- shattered dreams.
Day 2:
Even the track is short it seems to be amazing. Riders like the mix of natural sections, with man made jumps and berms in combination with rock drops and flat out pedaling. As said the track is with 2:20:00 pretty short, but the timesheet from timed training showed it’s going be a tight race.
Brook was on fire and finished 5th. Johannes had a pretty good day as well and finished in 16th. Laurie was still a little bit handicapped because of his twisted ankle from Mont Saint Anne and finished 41th without having a full on run so far and Mike Jones finished in 33rd.
Day 1:
Here we are at the last round of the 2018 UCI MTB world cup in La Bresse/ France. We have been racing here back in 2009 and 2011, but on a different track. The memories were not the best and so the excitement level wasn’t really high, but after track walk we have been happy. The Track shows everything we want to see: flat, pedaling parts mixed with steep bits and man made sections mixed with natural terrain. The track will be around 2:30:00 long, but we will know for sure after the first training session.