The fifth round of the iXS European Downhill Cup is in the books: Last weekend, 230 riders from 19 different nations spent an exciting weekend in Châtel (France), a little village near the Swiss border and belongs to one of the largest mountain bike areas in Europe. Portes du Soleil is regarded as one of the best regions as far as the number of courses and trails is concerned. In 2008, Châtel played host to the iXS European Cup for the first time - today the “Bike Patrol”-track belongs to the annual agenda of the European series. With its 1500 meters it belongs to the rather short tracks of the series, but with approximately 300 meters there is still a lot of vertical to play with.
Ziga Pandur
On Friday, the riders had their first training sessions, while Ruaridh Cunningham (GBR - Unior Tools Team) introduced them to the track in the GoPro Course Check. Unfortunately it started raining in the afternoon and continued the whole night through, which made the track slippery and extremely hard to ride. Even Saturday morning’s sunshine was not strong enough to dry off the track and so everyone was waiting for a nerve-racking seeding run. In the Elite Women category Miriam Ruchti (SUI - SC-Intense) set the best time, after she had failed to win in Châtel in the past five years. Joel Connell (GBR - SC-Intense) dominated the Elite Men category and not even Ziga Pandur (SLO - Unior Tools Team) went faster than Connell, who temporarily sits atop the men’s overall standings. On Sunday morning the rain had finally turned the track into a chute for every rider. The course was wet, slippery and far from easy, but even when all riders and bikes were covered in mud, they all still enjoyed the day and had a lot of fun.
The finals on Sunday were opened by the Masters category, which was dominated by Stencel Rostislav (CZE - Bikeplac Racing), followed by Paolo Alleva (ITA - Team Scout/Nukeproof) and Neil White (GBR - Fanatik Bike Co. USA).
In the U17 category, Silas Grandy (GER - Moto Club Faro) failed to defend his overall lead due to a 3 second gap and a best time that was set by Loris Revelli (ITA - Argentina Bikes) already in the seeding run. On Sunday he even dropped down to fifth, while Revelli won with a time of 2:53.631 minutes ahead of Thibault Laly (Cycleworks GT bicycle) and Bryan Pfeiffer (Valloire Galibier Vtt).
Zarja Cerniloga
The fastest woman in the Elite Women category was Zarja Cernilogar (SLO - Blackthorn GT), who succeeded over her strongest competitor Miriam Ruchti. The podium was rounded out by Ruchti in second and Carina Cappellari (SUI - Suspension Center) in third place. Cernilogar extended her lead over second place Jana Bártová (CZE - Bikeplac Racing) in the overall standings and already can be seen as the winner of the series in her category.
Ruaridh Cunningham
In the Elite Men category, Jack Moir (AUS - Yeti Fox Shox) was one of the first riders down the hill, as he had a flat in the seeding run. He stayed in the Red Bull Hot Seat for quite some time, watching one rider after the other coming down the hill, but nobody was able to take his lead. Even last year’s Swiss champ Lars Peyer (SUI - SC-Intense) could not dislodge him from his seat. The only one who went faster than Moir was Ruaridh Cunningham with a best time of 2:47.763 minutes. Both the last participants Ziga Pandur and Joel Connell had some problems and did not reach this time. In the end, Cunningham won the race, followed by Jack Moir and Lars Peyer. The temporary overall standings are led by Joe Connell (369), Miran Vauh (366) and Ziga Pandur (360), followed by Marcus Klausmann (316) and Manuel Gruber (313).
Elite Men's Podium
The last race of the iXS European Downhill Cup will be another highlight at the end of the season, when the participants will fight for the last points that are still on offer in Maribor (Slovenia). During the upcoming week, a highlight video of the last weekend will be available on www.redbull.com/bike. All other race dates and information can be found on ixsdownhillcup.com.
Photos: © Thomas Dietze
Pretty stoked to see some footage come outta this. I feel like you cannot tell how steep that place is just from helmet cams. Judging from their slope course, which happens to be one of the gnarliest, if not the gnarliest (I consider Rampage a big mountain event), there has gotta be some parts that are absurd.
Also, why do pinkbike members always get insulted by observations? That trail doesn't look too wet at all but if you had half a brain you'd realize I'm basing my comment off of only on the previews and after-race articles with pictures that shows the riders with no mud on them or hardly any in their race runs... so I'm not the most informed on how greasy it really is which is why I cannot wait to see race FOOTAGE... EnduroManiac- you may have been too blind by internet anger to realize this but I did make mention at how absurdly steep the terrain is there and that I was excited to see footage that represented it properly...
Plus nothing says the pics are from race day. Finally, have a look on the podium pic (obviously from race day? or am I too stupid?). 5 guys are nicely clean, but one looks decently muddy. So with my half brain (or even less according to you) I find quite logical actually changed there clothes for clean ones. But it could be that the sixth (why 6 guy on the podium? an additional visitor?) guy just decided to wear old muddy clothes ("kit" right?) to get on the podium. Who knows what you think with your full brain...
Race day was absolutely pissing down, I was there and the rain, mud was savage, 2ft deep ruts in corners and steep steep roots everywhere. Nearly un rideable. Riders crashing everywhere in front of each other. Its was a mad race.