I know when my alarm is set for 3:40am; I’m mostly going to be jetting off somewhere, usually somewhere nice!  This was my first abroad trip of the 2011 season and I was so excited; I was looking forward to a change of scenery, riding in dust for a change and to get a decent dose of Vitamin D! My hotel was literally across the road from the beach and down the road from the track. The only thing was that I knew I wouldn’t get to spend much time at the beach – I had to do my Uni work while I was there! Gutted

The first day of practice went really well, the track was dusty and very fast; I had absolute awesome fun! It is a pretty rocky and rough track also, with some cool jumps, so after 5 runs I was pretty tired! They had made some changes to the track; the big north shore jumps had been taken out and a lot of smaller ones replaced them. Which were fun but I wanted bigger jumps to prepare for South Africa. However, this track required a lot of precision riding – precise line choices, which is similar to SA.

The next day of practice was great in the morning; my first two runs down were awesome. I had the lines dialled, now all I needed to do was let go and hang loose!! I had planned to do a couple of runs in the late afternoon – however – it rained really hard from 1.30pm onwards and didn’t stop until 4pm. Riders were coming down looking soaked and I heard it was going to be a nice day tomorrow. So I decided not to ride, to stop the course getting beat up and there was no point riding in the wet if it was going to be dry tomorrow.

The next morning I woke up only to see that it had rained all through the night and continued through until 9am. So my first practice run was pretty wild but was amazing fun! I only had time for one practice run and then I shortly went up for my qualifying run. The run itself was not the best, there were many sections I wasn’t happy with and I lost a lot time. I qualified in 3^rd place with Myriam Nicole 1^st and Manon Carpenter 2^nd.

I went up a little earlier for my second run and had a look at a couple of lines at the very top where I lost a bit of time.

The race run went well, was smooth and I was happy with it. It was by no means a perfect run and there are areas I intend to work on this year. I finished in 1^st place, with over a 3 second lead ahead of Myriam Nicole 2^nd (who got 5 UCI World Cup podiums in 2010 and a 6^th place at the UCI World Championships in 2010, and she didn’t crash in her race run!) and Manon Carpenter 3^rd.

I was really happy with how I was riding and I felt strong on the bike. I am now looking forward to the next couple of weeks racing; next weekend Pearce Cycles Series #1 at Hopton and British Downhill Series #2 at Moelfre before I head off to South Africa for two weeks where I’ll be racing the SA National Series race and for the start of the UCI World Cup tour.

I would like to thank Trek Spain, 23 Degrees and Trek World Racing for looking after me this weekend.