iXS Swiss Cup - Wiriehorn

After Spicak we drove the 700 km down to Wiriehorn, where we had a little apartment 5 minutes away from the track, so that was pretty ideal. After a week of recovering from my injuries from Spicak, I felt okay for riding on friday, but my thumb was still hurting from the crash. Nevertheless I got 5 runs in, getting to know the course, which was quite awkward in places due to the dirt/gravel. But when I got to know the track is was quite fun, having a bit of everything from wide open bits to slow technical bits, which was good. 

Almost there 

For the practice on Saturday I got 4 runs in finding some more speed in bits I felt slow, so I was felling quite confident that I could put in a good time in seeding. My seeding run did not got as planned since I messed up the top section pretty bad costing me a lot of time. Nevertheless I came down the hill good enough for 26th, so I knew that I could put in a good result for the race on Sunday. 

THE bike

For Sunday I went out early because I really wanted to cut some seconds for the race. Unfortunately I ended up crashing in one of high speed sections on the course in a gravel turn that headed out to the asphalt pedal section. My front wheel sled out and I ended up head first into the ground sliding a fare bit.. My bike ended up hitting a pole or something bending the cranks and denting my fork in the right stanchion. That pretty much ended my weekend because I did not have a spare fork or stanchion with me and the dent was so big that I could not do a run without drying out the fork.. 

Fortunately there are more races this year and I did learn a lot this weekend, so it was not a total waste. 

The view from our room

- Sebastian 

EDC - Spicak

Since I am finished with school and I do not have any plans to got to Uni in the near future I decided it would be cool to go on a two months trip with Mads Weidemann to race some iXS cups here in Europe. So the first one on the calendar was a European Cup in Spicak, in the Czech Republic. I had never been there so it should be fun the see the place and get some riding in. After it got of the plane from Munich, Mads picked me up so we could get to Spicak a day ahead of the first practice, so we could get situated and prepared for the race. Thursday flew by fixing bikes and getting ready. 

On my way to Munich

After we had walked the course I could not wait to get up in the track and ride because it looked super fun! The first day I got five runs in and got up to speed pretty quick. It was pretty good to ride with Mads because of the fact that he is a bit faster than me, so I need to push myself in order to keep up with him. Nevertheless I felt pretty confident on the track and was having loads of fun. 

Saturday I only got two runs in because of the top 80 training, which I was not in apparently.. So I sticked to my two runs and rolled down the hill on one of the super fun tracks, where I ended up getting a mechanical getting a front flat and blowing up my back wheel, not ideal 3 hours before seeding, when you do not have a spare wheel or spokes. So I nursed it down and tried to find some spokes, which the bike shop luckily had! So I quickly got I fixed and got ready for seeding. The seeding run went pretty good actually, ending up i 59th, with was okay since I just needed to come down with a fast and solid run. And I knew I could got faster for Sunday so I was not the worried. 

View from the DH track

The sunday practice went well I look at some spots where I could got faster and let of the brakes which made me feel like I rode a lot faster then my seeding run. My race run did not go as planed, I got the top section as good as I could but after the first rockpit I got of line and went head first into the ground, I could not se because of my visor was knocked down and my bike was tangled into the netting and finally my brake lever was pointing backwards, so it took some time to get back on the bike. After my spectacular crash I decided to give it some gas again with resulted in another crash flying over the bars landing on my head again.. After that I thought that it might be a good idea to just roll down because my tumb had been dislocated and my knee did hurt pretty bad.. So on the racing side of thing it was a bad weekend, but I learned a lot during the weekend riding with Mads, so I am really confident that my speed will increase over the next flew months. 

- Sebastian

Danish DH Cup #3 - Fyn

So the third round of the Danish Downhill cup went down on Fyn, which is a pretty flat part of Denmark. Nevertheless they have a okay DH track there with a couple of rockgardens mixed up with some jumps and berms making for a good track..
I arrived Saturday at 1 pm after driving the 250 km from the north of Denmark. I got some good runs in with my teammate Kasper Nancke who lives on Fyn, so he knows the track pretty well. I fairly quickly got up to speed on the short track so I called it at day after 5 runs. After I got the car packed up again we headed into Odense, where Kasper lives. We got a good burger for dinner and went to bed to get some sleep in.
Sunday, raceday we arrived at the track a about 10 am to get some runs in before the racestart at 12 pm. I got some runs in on the even more wet track, because of all the rain that came down overnight. Nevertheless I opted for the Maxxis Minions for faster rolling and more grip on the rocks and roots.
My first run of the two went pretty good, I could have carried some more speed in bits, but overall it was a pretty good run coming down on 46,320 about 4 seconds faster than second. The second run was almost identical with the first, holdning a bit more speed in the sections I felt slow on, crossing the line in 46,084 which lead to the win with a combined time of 01.32,404 which was 6 seconds faster than second spot. This was also my 9th win in a row, which I am quite happy with :)

Results: http://dh-cup.dk/ under resultater and Fyn.

Here is a little clip from the podium :) Enjoy - http://vimeo.com/46967929

Right now I am sitting in Copenhagen waiting on my plane to Munich so I can get on with my races for the next two months :)

- Sebastian Jensen

2012 Summer roadtrip

These past 14 days - 3 weeks myself and my buddy Christian decided that it would be fun to pack up the old Citroen Jumper I could loan from my grandfather and head down into Europe to do some iXS races and get some time in on the bikes i 2 Alpes and the Morzine area in between the races. 

THE car!

The German National Championships in Ilmenau was the first stop at the race. After driving through the night from thursday to friday because I needed to work :( Nevertheless we arrived about 9 am after a couple of detours :) So we ended up walking the track two times because we were too tried to ride and we would just end up crashing, so we headed to the hotel to get something to eat and get some sleep in, so we could rip it up on the saturday practice! 

Practice went good, I knew where the track was going since it was the second time I had been racing there. The track was alot of fun with a couple of jumps and berms mixed up with some good roots and rocks to keep it technical. Nevertheless we got some runs in and I felt confident on the track for seeding. Seeding was okay but with a complete stall up top so I knew I had something for the finals. 

Come finals day I was pretty excited to put in a good time because I knew that I had the speed to get into that top 20, which is my goal at the moment. Nevertheless I could not ride the finals due to a sprained ankel I suffered in my last practice run, which was pretty fustrating.. 

Chilling in Ilmenau

Next stop was going to be the European Crankworx i Les Deux Alpes were I had planned to participate in the Air DH if we could get down there in time to get situated, but unfortunately we arrived at about 11 am where the practice was underway so we decided to find our appartment and rest the ankle and buy a ankle brace so I could ride. Fortunately there was about 15 people from Denmark in 2 Alpes aswell thanks to Podium Sport. Luckily Lars Wilbur was on the trips aswell so I could lend a   anklebrace for the entire stay at 2 Alpes (thanks!!). So with my ankel sorted we got the key for our super small appartment and got the bikes fixed :) 

The following week we got a lot of riding in, riding from 10 to 17 everyday, which was super fun since there is a ton of fun an flowy tracks. One day we took the drive over the Alpe d´heux to have a go at the top of Mega Avalanche course which was an experience due to the different conditions from snow to rock only to gravel to dirt. It was quite a trip down starting at 3300 meter it seemed like I stood on top of the world :) It was a super scenic and fun ride down the mountain! The only thing that was lacking in the stay at 2Alpes was more "real" DH runs with technical rock sections steep passages but nevertheless it was a good week of riding and getting the know the Legend MKII more. 

Morzine

The last stop before the iXS cup in Bad Wildbad was Morzine where we meet up with two danes, Jakob and Rune Madsen also known as Team Madsen Racing. Rune was riding his bike after a two year break so it was set to be a fun 4 days of riding in the Morzine area. Once again we got so much riding in that I could write a book about each run, so I will just stick to the highlights of the days. As always the Avoriaz mountain is super fun to ride, with a lot of roots and rocks it makes for some super fun and technical tracks another highlight would be the day trip over to Champery to ride the legendary WC course, and it is true what they say.. it is pretty steep, I think it would be hard to do a full race run down that hill!! Nevertheless it was a great experience to ride the track and get over there because we need to get over three mountains with fun decents and good views. It was pretty good few days riding different tracks than in 2 Alpes! 

Bad Wildbad here we come!

Geneva Lake 

So for the last stop we had decided to participate in the #4 round of the German iXS cup in Bad Wildbad. Bo Andersen and Christian Lynæs took the 1000 km drive from Denmark to Bad Wildbad to race there and take a couple of days off in Todnau, Lac Blanc and Hahnenklee before heading home. For the first time on the trip Christian and I arrived in a respectable time at about 3 am so we could get a nights sleep before the trackwalk and the first practice session on friday. The iXS course at Bad Wildbad is pretty rocky and rough but super fun to ride, when you get to know it. Since I had done a race there in the past I knew where it was going so I could push it a bit more, which was fun! 

Bad Wildbad 

The seeding on saturday afternoon did not go as planned since I went of track and caught up with the rider infront of me, but I still managed to seed 34th, which was okay considering my run. I was quite confident I could crack that top 20 if I could hold it together.. Unfortunately I had a crash in the top section in my race run, but still came down in the same time as my seeding run.. Pretty gutted since I did some runs with Danny Sørensen, also from Denmark, before the finals and followed him pretty good and he ended up 21th, but thats racing I geuss... 

So that was my recap from my 2012 summer roadtrip :) This weekend I am going to race a Danish DH cup on Fyn which should be fun! 

Until next time

Sebastian Jensen