iXS Dirt Masters

This past weekend the first round of the German iXS downhill cup was held at Dirt Masters in Winterberg. The downhill is a part of the whole Dirt Masters festival, that contains Slopestyle, Enduro and 4X plus a big EXPO area.

The loamy dirt

Bo and I arrived late Wedensday night so we could get situated with the pits and everything before the first practise Friday afternoon. Come Friday the sun was out and the skys were blue. We walked the track and talked about a few technichal sections before we got in our riding gear and went for a few runs getting to know where the track was going. It was acually quite hard the get in some good runs since there were a lot of people on the track and the track was changing every run because of the many startes and the new sections. After the first practise session was over, the skys opened up and the rain came down hard all night resulting in a pretty wet track for the practise Saturday morning.
Saturday I decided to take use of the license training and therefore not going up for practise at 7 in the morning. So I went up late when the track was more dry but still pretty rutted and wet. Nevertheless I got some good runs in with a couple of line changes.

Bo Andersen - Race Run

When the practise was over at 13 o´clock the seeding runs started. I had a okay seeding run ending up on 45th spot, which was okay since I did not ride two of the more risky lines (but much faster) and make a few mistakes. Therefore I knew that I could do better for Sunday and get that top 25. Bo seeded 12th in Masters and still had some in the tank for the race.

Sebastian Jensen - Race Run

Then Sunday came around which started out cold and rainy eventhough the forecast said 25+ degrees.. I got 3 runs in hitting the fast lines and actually felling quite confident that I could get down the hill in a good time. Unfortuantly that rain started again for the race and made the track a big mud hole. Nevertheless we had to race the pretty rutted and wet track. The first of the race runs seemed to be at least 10-20 seconds slow which was quite a bit on the 2 minute track, so the fast times from yesterday was out the window. Bo´s race run did not go as planned, by that meaning that he had crashed a couple of times and generally having a bad run due to the poor conditions but still managed to get in the top 20. My run did not go much better than Bo´s. When I hit the first forrest section I hit my pedal on the ground and rode the entire section out on my seat. But I got going again eager the get the lost time back resulting in making mistakes and then crashing and tearing a legament in my shoulder, but I still got down the hill in 67th place.. So now I need to heal up for 2-3 weeks before I can slowly start riding my bike again.

Sam Pilgrim - The Slopestyle hero at 222Racing

Eventhough the weekend was not the best resultwise we had a great time at the festival watching the Red Bull Berg Line from the iXS telt, which was unreal and generally having a good time with the many happy people all riding their bikes or cheering others on! I can not wait to get back next year!

Results: http://www.ixsdownhillcup.com/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=11&Itemid=529&year=2012&month=05&day=19&title=ixs-german-downhill-cup-1-winterberg&uid=d7ca848ea5f5a99289c51b0c8e335c55&catids=14&lang=de#results-final

- SJ