We spent our day in Parnitha near Athens improving Drops and high speed Berms ! All the Guys showed a lot of improvement ! WE ARE REALLY PROUD OF YOU! no more to say, let's roll the photos and don't miss to LIKE us on facebook!
FIRST THING:
...Find a good box, pack the bike...hope it will arrive in one piece...
Fly to Pisa in Tuscany borrow my mum's city car (fit the Session and the bags inside) and gooo 350 km and... Pila here we come!
........PILA view from the drop..................................................
The race was hard, an other sport compare to Greece ! Very hard full of super Pro from all over the world, not only Europe ( Australia, New Zealand, South Africa...)!
It went ok considering that I raced with a couple of cracked ribs... :S
Yes, unfortunately in the practice run before the qualification I had a massive crash at high speed and went over the bar...
After one hour I decided to ride the qualification anyway even if the doctor was not happy with my decision! ( I was riding with a very good chrono before the crash and I didn't want to waste the all race for this accident.)
I did the qualify so...ready for Sunday race in pain but happy.
Still in pain I raced and catch the two guys in front of me, but I could not pedal or ride hard because of the ribs ( and also the overtaking took me some time...) , so...the time was not good enough for being in the top of my category, just 19th.
At least I taste the pro circuit again and I know that with more training for this level of races I can still do well !
here my helmet cam! (unfortunately only of the middle part of the trail!)
the winner Florent Payet from France
PS: the Pro are Aliens !
thank you to all the sponsors, a special thank you to my fiance Helen for supporting me, Simone "Zaffa" and the guys from the chair lift of Pila for fixing my bike, Michel Angelini for riding with me and all the friends from Italy and Maximum Attach for keeping me smiling (even if with ribs problems was really painfull to smile :P )!
You're looking at Aaron Gwin's Trek Session 9.9 carbon downhill race bike, the very bike that he rode to victory at the Mont Sainte Anne World Cup just two races ago. That race also happened to be the 9.9's coming out, as well as Aaron's first race aboard the new machine, having thrown a leg over it only a short time before heading to the Canadian round of the World Cup. Not a bad debut! While the 9.9 is almost identical to the Trek World Racing aluminum team bikes, it should really be thought of as an entirely different animal from the consumer version, the 2011 Session 88. That isn't solely down to its carbon construction - for about a year and half now the team has been riding a version with a slew of changes, including big changes to both the bike's geometry and suspension layout that greatly effect its performance. Oh, and the new carbon frame happens to be about 800 grams lighter than the 2011 aluminum team frame to boot, with the complete production version of the 9.9 projected to weigh in at around 35 pounds.
The 2012 Production Session 9.9 in all its glory. While any new downhill bike stirs up the rumors, Trek's new carbon Session took speculation to a new level. Forums were filled with wildly different details of the new machine, but everyone seemed to agree on one point: it would be made of carbon. Then, at the Mt. Sainte Anne round of the World Cup series, the carbon Trek made its public debut as Gwin rolled out of the pits for his first practice run aboard the new Trek. The internet immediately went into overdrive, with photos of it popping up worldwide on every mountain bike website. At that point, little was known about the new bike, beyond that it was obviously made from carbon and that it would be called the Session 9.9. Pinkbike spent the last four days in the Austrian Alps with Trek, learning about the Session 9.9 and about the technology that Trek used to construct the new chassis. The 9.9's carbon frame includes an impressive range of geometry adjustment - the very same setup the the Trek World Racing team is using - and features a quick-change rate chip that either tunes the suspension to better handle square-edge bumps on a race track and to hug the ground - or to pop better and pedal firmer for pedal-heavy tracks, or sessions in the bike park. The production 9.9 sports Trek-developed proprietary Fox suspension, including a radical Fox Hybrid Air fork that uses an air-assist spring that you'll find only on the 9.9, and a custom shock tune that is currently used by the TWR team.
Trek World Racing's Tracy Moseley (GBR) and Aaron Gwin (USA) have walked away with the leaders' jerseys of the series after a display of blistering speed, strength, and determination in front of a huge crowd in sunny Pietermaritzburg. For Tracy it was her first World Cup win in the coveted rainbow jersey of the World Champion, and for Aaron, it was his first World Cup win ever, and the first by an American male since 1999.
Aaron said: "I'm pretty speechless actually. It's a dream. In the first sector I made a little mistake, hitting some trees with my shoulder, but then I just regrouped and put as much power down as I could in the middle sector. By the end, the legs were really feeling it, and then it was a pretty nerve wracking waiting in the hot seat. The bike is amazing, I can't praise it enough, and the whole time here in South Africa with the team has been so great. Can't wait for Fort William, I love that track."
at the and of is final run Aaron was almost 7 second faster then Steve Peat ( downhill legend and 2009 world champion )
First 10th Men's Results:
1 GWIN Aaron USA TREK WORLD RACING 4:08.634 2 MINNAAR Greg RSA SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE +00.241 3 ATHERTON Gee GBR COMMENCAL +01.921 4 BAREL Fabien FRA MONDRAKER FACTORY TEAM +04.246 5 PEAT Steve GBR SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE +06.809 6 SMITH Steve CAN DEVINCI GLOBAL RACING +06.934 7 BEAUMONT Marc GBR GT Factory +07.237 8 HILL Samuel AUS MONSTER SPECIALIZED +07.399 9 BEER Nick SUI SCOTT 11 +07.965 10 BRYCELAND Josh GBR SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE +08.281
Tracy said: "That was so tough today. Towards the end I was running out of steam and had the rear kick up on something in the lower section of the track; then I heard the onsite commentary say it was going to be close, so I dug deep until the end. It means a lot to win my first World Cup at my first attempt since earning the World Champs jersey, it just means so much."
First 10th Women's Results:
1 MOSELEY Tracy GBR TREK WORLD RACING 4:56.166 2 GRIFFITHS Fionn GBR TEAM GR +00.288 3 RAGOT Emmeline FRA TEAM GR +01.584 4 JONNIER Sabrina FRA TEAM MAXXIS-ROCKY MOUNTAIN +02.173 5 PUGIN Floriane FRA SCOTT 11 +02.268 6 GROS Gioceline FRA TEAM MORZINE +04.248 7 SIEGENTHALER Emilie SUI SCOTT 11 +06.344 8 CARPENTER Manon ° GBR MADISON SARACEN +15.617 9 SUEMASA Mio JPN +16.238 10 BERNHARD Petra AUT ALPINE COMMENCAL AUSTRIA +16.415
Now check thi out !!!! Cedric Gracia was hot on Josh Bryceland's heals during practice at Rd 1 of DH World Cup in Pietermaritzburg (RSA)... the result was Josh almost landing a one-footed table right on CG's head... on the 15m long high speed table mid-way through the course. (CG had the camera on his bars, not helmet!)
(Waterloo, WI & Malaga, Spain) – Trek World Racing welcomed rising DH star Aaron Gwin (USA) at the team’s training camp in Malaga, Spain, recently. The 2010 World Cup 4th place finisher joins a program that features defending World Downhill Champion Tracy Moseley (GRB), American podium threat Neko Mulally (USA), and TWR veteran Justin Leov (NZL).
Resplendent in the team’s new camouflage livery, Gwin spent the week acclimating himself to his team-issued Session 88 and getting acquainted with his new teammates and team staff. “It’s awesome being here with the whole crew,” Gwin said. “This team is an amazing combination of talent, support, and equipment and I feel great going into this season.” When asked what his goals were for the 2011 season, the newest member of Trek World Racing simply replied “the world.”
Fresh off of her Cape Verde title run, it was during team camp that Moseley received her 2011 custom-painted world championship Session 88, which proudly displays her wellearned rainbow stripes across the seat stays. “2010 will be hard to top but I’ve got a lot of things I still want to do in this sport,” Moseley stated. “Cape Verde was an amazing start and I’m looking forward to defending the stripes when the World Cup season kicks off.”
Trek World Racing’s downhill riders will race the 2011 season aboard the Trek Session 88 with new TWR paint job!
Unior Tools Team ready for the new season racing some World Cup and IXS cup races NEW SLOVENIAN GRAVITY UCI MTB TEAM supported by TREK Bikes.
Selection of best Slovenian DH and 4X riders will start new season in white and blue jerseys of new UCI MTB team Unior Tools Team. They are joined by Greek female downhill champion Maria Michalogiannaki supported this year by the Greek Trek Importer Cyclist.gr.
Team riders had together won countless national championships and already made impact on the international scene. Maria Michalogiannaki aka Lady M is the faster Greek female rider with good results on European scene. In 2010 she came back to the racing scene after big injury and had a lot of bad luck with wet courses (she just can't train that at home), but for 2011 we expect good results from her.
Unior Tools Team roster for season 2011:
Ladies: Neža Knez (SLO,4X-BMX), Maria Michalogiannaki (Greece, DH)
