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