Matt reports on the European Championship

European Champs-Slovakia

In the weeks leading up to the European champs there was a rather interesting fact that came to light: nobody in England, myself included, seems to know anything about Slovakia! So I was excited by the prospect of discovering somewhere new, learning about a new country…and trying to beat a few other European mountain bikers in the process!
We flew into Bratislava at around 10 and arrived at the hotel at 11. We had eaten at the airport, but when we heard the chef had stayed up late to prepare us a meal, it seemed rude not to sample some of the local cuisine. It was a pasta meal that contained so much wild garlic it nearly blew my head off! I enjoyed it nonetheless, and when we retired to our rooms to find they were more like apartments in their own right, the trip was starting to really look up!
Riding the course the next day was fun, it wasn’t super technical, but a straight up, straight down sort of affair. It would make a good racing course, it was obvious the race would blow apart on the first lap and would be won on the big climb. The other thing that had to be looked at was the heat. At around 30degrees in the midday sun, I was pretty cooked at the top of the climb, so I knew I’d have to be on top of this!

Race day was different to usual, as we had a very late start at 5 in the afternoon. This was no bad thing as it would be much cooler at that time of day. We did the usual warm up, then off to the pens, where the biggest challenge was keeping cool as they were directly in the sun! The GB coaches had arranged for us to have umbrellas shading us while we continued warming up on the turbo in the pens….I felt a little bit pro at this point!
The start went off pretty quick, I was up in about 10th until the “first lap kamikazes” flew past up the first climb and I slipped through to about 20^th. This has happened at all the European races I’ve done, it just seems to be a feature of their racing style, you can usually bet about half of these guys will out the back by the end of the race! Sure enough, as things progressed, I managed to wind up as the race went on and steadily climbed through the field to finish 12^th. I will take that, I know I didn’t go there with my best form and that I can still get better from here. I do need to pull myself into a better position on the first lap, I hope that once I can do this the rest of the race is likely to be more straightforward, rather than having to pass fading riders!
Next stop…WORLDS! This takes place in Champery, Switzerland. I’ve been to Switzeralnd once before and rated it as the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen! I’m very much looking forward to being able to go there with a bike and get to ride what I’ve been told is the must totally nuts track on the xc circuit!