Lisboa Downtown

Things went well today in Portugal at the annual invitational Lisboa Downtown. As always the track was amazing, with some pretty crazy sections including a jump over a pick up truck. The race is through the streets of Lisbon, from the castle at the top of a hill to the finish line in the streets down below. The entire course is on cobble stone streets and down city stairs in this beautiful European setting.

Qualifying this morning went quite well and I finally felt the winter shaking itself off. I qualified in 2nd place with a solid run, which made me fairly happy and gave me the confidence to pin it in the race run. I gave it a good go in my race run, but my tires slid out from under me on the slippery cobblestones and I spent a few seconds trying to right myself. Since I knew I had lost loads of time with this unfortunate little crash I knew I had to pedal like crazy to make it up. I was successful in cracking the top 5 (I finished 5th), and I finished less than a second off 3rd place. Not bad with a crash!

Now it is back to the UK to catch up on some partying with my best buddy Katrina Miller before next weekend's NPS 4X race.

Vigo

Well, the 1st World cup has come and gone. It was quite the weekend! The track was completely unforgiving! Both NZ girls Scarlett Hagen and Vanessa Quin crashed and had serious injuries. Helen Gaskell also did not race as she injured her back. This was the same track I broke my ankle on last year. Good way to start the season!

4X: I felt fairly confident on this track. I only qualified in 6th place, but I was fairly certain that I could be in the final. When the semi final came around I spent most of the race in 3rd. Coming to the bottom of the course I gave a shot at jumping the road gap at the bottom. This would have put my atleast into 2nd place as neither of the leaders had jumped it. When I took off I am pretty sure I lost my chain and from there I had one hell of a crash! Thankfully I was going fast enough to clear the jump, however I still managed to land hard and slide quite a ways, almost to the finish line. The crash was good enough to make the front page of the Vigo paper and to be shown on National TV! I guess if I had to crash it might as well be a good one :) I managed to pick myself back up and grab a shuttle to the top but by the time I got up there they had run my small final gate without me. I was a bit upset about that but atleast I wasn't hurt too badly.

DH: was fairly uneventful. I think the number of crashes that occured this year combined with the memory of breaking my ankle here last year played on my mind a bit and I just took my time down the course. To be honest I am just happy that I have completed the 1st World Cup this year and I am still in one piece. I guess that already puts me a step ahead of the last two years! I finished in 12th place.

I am in Lisbon now getting ready for the Lisboa Downtown race. Time to shake off the cobwebs and get back up to speed and I figure racing down cobblestone streets, jumping over cars and down stairs in downtown Lisbon is the perfect place to do it!