It was bike-building time in the cool weather in front of my bed and breakfast. We’d been spoiled by the sunshine in Nove Mesto and Germany was showing us why it has the reputation of being rainy and green! My place was just a few blocks from the venue, so I took a quick spin over there and took a look. I was pleasantly surprised at the course. It was really steep but all very rideable. Before I left home I watched the Red Bull Replay of the race from last year, it had been raining so it was a muddy slippery mess that was honestly quite worried about. Even the men were slipping and crashing all over the course. There were multiple injuries. So the course designers did some work to make it an “all-conditions” course (such as making the “Albsdadt drop” lower). Thursday I was riding the “A” line with Shaums March coaching. As I came around the tree I lined my body, not the bike (don’t I know better yet?!). I tumbled down the “A” line and into Shaums. I broke my garmin mount and unfortunately I injured my knee. I collected myself and planned to ride it again but the adrenaline had my hands shaking for a few minutes. I moved on to the rest of the course. My knee stiffened up so I headed home. I knew this meant coach Lynda would advise heavily against racing the Eliminator the next morning. In hindsight, my knee has healed pretty well so I’m sad I didn’t race it. However, it was the conservative decision, which is how you have to play it if you want to have a long season! Saturday I returned to the “A” line to dial it in only to watch a guy crash on it and break his arm! So that was it. I rode the “B” line during the race. It cost me a couple of places, but I wasn’t in the mindset to ride it.

Bike building in front of my bed and breakfast

The race course

scoping out the A line