Yesterday was the World Cup opener in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The weather called for rain and thunderstorms, so I was pleasantly surprised when I awoke to sun and blue skies.
The race started with a straightway leading into a steep climb. I wanted to be in a good position heading into that climb because I thought it would bottleneck there. I had a good immediate start, but before the steep climb there was a crash or something on my side that caused everyone in front of me to slam on the brakes. I didn't recover from this quick enough and a lot of people were able to pass. So I was in the mix of a bunch of other girls running their bikes up the hill. Then we remounted to do it all again at the start of the switchback climb. It was tough being off our bikes,everyone trying to get ahead, with nowhere to pass. That's a world cup start.
After a few minutes battling through some traffic, I was able to make up a few positions, but then it just felt so hard. When I made an effort to get by someone, I felt like I really paid for it and felt pretty bad for several minutes, where I couldn't do much except just keeping on riding. This was basically how the race went. I was happy with how I rode technically and that's definitely a positive I will take from this race. There was a pretty big drop that led into a gap jump that I wasn't riding, so I lost some time by taking the "B" line. Practicing those skills will be my next mission. Congrats to Emily and Catharine for awesome starts to the season finishing 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Yeah Canada!
Thanks to my great mechanics my bike worked awesome and the Scott Scale 29er just felt great on the course. It's been a great trip here to South Africa and this morning while packing up I saw a bunch of monkeys playing in the trees outside of my cottage. Now just a few more hours (like 20) and I'll be back in Canada.
