Green to Gold - the tough road ahead

It’s been a busy few weeks for Green to Gold with 3 weeks of back to back racing in Europe. Our racing started with Round #4 of the UCI World Cup at Leogang, moved on the IXS European cup at Schladming and finally with the IXS European round at Val Di Sole, Italy. It’s been a huge mix of tracks that we have had to race on and has been a great time for all the team to learn more about their own riding, the European tracks and bike set up.

Leogang has been on the UCI World Cup Circuit for five consecutive years now, not only for World Cup races but also for World Championships. Situated in the Austria Alpes it is quite a man made track and for this year there was more parts added to the track. Leogang as a track is very fast when it is dry with dusty condition similar to Australia. Though once it rains it can become very slippery. Practice started off with the track being quite wet and making practice very slow and technical. The boys started off their practice slowly and built up which is a real step forward for both of them. Practice went well with both riders hitting their intended lines. Once qualifying came the boys were pumped and ready to race. Chris was off first, with a solid top section of the track he became quite unstuck in one section becoming stiff for the rest of his run and loosing valuable time that comes from riding loose. He came down in 123rd, not the result that he was looking for at all. Brent who had been practising hard and riding well all week unfortunately suffered a broken chain in the top half of the track, though mechanicals are unfortunate they are part of the challenge of racing.

Schladming

Schladming has been off the race circuit for the last 5 years. It offers a unique track that is more dirt based then rock gardens and has amazing corners that traverse down the entire mountain side. This was the IXS European round and it had the largest entrants for the year with 480 riders in the event. This meant that there was great exposure for the team, our set up and our brands.

Practice started off wet and when it rains in Schladming it pours. Practice was slippery and for a lot of riders un rideable. The boys and their Pivots soaked up the track and were really enjoying themselves on the bikes. The way we were able to set our bikes up with our SRAM components and help from SRAM at the Leogang World Cup meant that we had the bikes set up optimally to compete with the steep and corner based track.

Seeding runs were taken by the boys on an 80% pace to make sure that they would be heading into finals with some energy left. They both seeded within the top 120 and were ready for race runs. Brent was off first and unfortunately went into a section faster then he had in practice and crashed off the track. He had to re-enter the tape and lost a huge amount of time, this put him back in the higher end of the top 200. Chris road conservatively in his run, not going as fast as he knows that he can and ended up in 110th position. We know that both of these guys can go a lot quicker then this. Instead of being disappointed we spent that evening analysing what went wrong for both of them to improve at their next race.

Val Di Sole

Rumoured to be either a World Cup or World Championships for 2015, Val Di Sole was a must to race to help the team even more in 2015. The track was new for the first half and to gain some valuable recognisance of this track was a must. We did a huge amount of helmet camera runs to make sure we got as much from this race as possible. Val Di Sole is one of the steeper and natural tracks on the circuit today. It has a huge amount of rock sections, roots and loamy dirt. This track tows a fine line between fun and danger in the dry and becomes a slippery slide in the rain. Practice was dry and going into qualifying the boys were feeling positive. Chris was off first and came down in 56th, an impressive result for Chris and saw him coming back to his previous results and performances. Brent had a crash in his qualifying run and pushed him back into the 90th places. There was work to do.

Sunday the team awoke to torrential rain battering down at our accommodation, though rain is always a part of downhill on a track like Val Di Sole it makes the track even harder the usual. The boy though stayed positive and went out to the race with the mindset of getting the job done and having fun. Brent was off first and managed to have fun on the track and at the same time keep it upright without crashing and came down in 71st position. Chris was having a good top half of the track, but in the woods pushed his speed just a little too much and managed to crash off the track. He was still in the top 150, but disappointed as his riding had made leaps and bounds from previous races.

Upwards and onwards

The team is still learning a huge amount as we move forward, the intention of the team is not to have good results merely for a year, but to be around for numerous years and consistently built and expand athletes. We believe strongly that we are doing this. With so many athletes from Australia finding it so hard to race in their first year overseas because they do not know the tracks or the way to ride them we know that we are helping our riders to gain this valuable knowledge for the future.

Our pit areas are attracting a huge amount of attention which is great as well. We have all our Pivots on display to the public and have had many many inquiries and people testing riding our Mach 6’s. We love our Pivot bikes and the way they ride and want to show the world.

We are now off to Les Deux Alpes for European Crankworx, a huge event for the year and one that we want to show off our team and sponsors even more.

Words : Lachlan McKillop Photos : DH247, Greentogoldassorted