I think the UCI has a thing for homophones. For the past two years an event in Australia has closely followed an event in Austria. This makes explaining my plans a bit awkward from time to time. Fortunately, both of these places share not only a sequence of letters, but some pretty good bike riding and general scenery. I’d give Oz the nod in actual riding but the Austrian Alps sure are scenic. I’d be hoping to avoid the scenery whilst racing around a World Cup Finals track in Schladming that, to be honest, didn’t really capture my imagination…

Fortunately, I had a partner in crime for a week of responsible exploration. Anders (I’m not going to butcher of his last names in print) is a member of the Norwegian Etto-Hoydahl team which happens to ride Giant bicycles on account their own merits and a little help from the team’s namesake and Giant Global alum, Rune. This made Anders a natural pick to fill our already full Taxi Maxi Apartment to the brim. We were glad to have him for both Norwegian culture Q&A and another riding partner. We took a nice tour of the Rhormoos-Dachstein valley on a beautiful Tuesday to loosen the legs up. Then on Wednesday we rode to the Reisenwasserfall (big waterfall I reckon) as our warm-up for some practice laps. Anders was keen to get a tip or two on riding the kind of slippery, rooty goodness that we had in Champerey last weekend. I like tips, and goodness. Unfortunately, there were only two roots on the Schladming course and I promptly crashed on the second one. Must have been the (lame) hardtail not riding itself… We reviewed why I’d crashed (front brake lever engaged while crossing muddy off-camber root) and agreed to not make the same mistake again. Then Anders used his youthful enthusiasm (2x U23 World Cup podium finisher in ’09) to do another practice lap while I grumbled about sore legs and a lame, grassy, up and down track then headed for the bike path to nurse my (nonexistent) wounds…

This root wasn’t nearly enough to take me out, or bolster my still sore legs on Saturday, but Anders did have a little interaction with it… I rode up and down the steep hills as best I could for six laps. Finally loosening up enough to do a respectable job of it on the last lap and riding into 21st. Not exactly keeping the 8th place streak at Schladming alive, but maybe a bit of punishment for skipping the inaugural event here in ’04. I’ll chalk it up to what I like to call the late season ebb and flow. Essentially nobody who rode well at the Worlds in Oz rode well in Champerey the next week, nor did anyone from Champerey ride well in Schladming on Saturday. I got to ask a couple of my previous week’s top 10 compatriots why we sucked so much as we wheezed in the 30’s somewhere. Made for light conversation at least… Fortunately, Oli Beck was in da house to hustle his stick-man figure up hills proper fast. He did just that, turning the previous muddy race struggling into a solid 19th place to finish the World Cup season off. Top shop, Beckingsale. Now, back to Anders. He was stoked to be using good form in a climb to 35th position or so when, on the last lap, 2k from the finish, he washed the front wheel on the very root I turfed on Wednesday and somehow got his chain bent and rendered useless. In the 2k of running/coasting/scootering to the finish line he lost 25 places to finish 60th. Oops. Jose Antonio Hermida won. That meant drinks were on him. Which they were, mostly on his shirt actually, the last time I saw him on the dance floor at about 3am…

That’s it, that’s all. World Cup 2009 is in the books. Oli and I planned to respect the limits of our physiology after a trying ’07 and ’08, which I think we did a good job of doing while not racing like total twats. 19th and 34th overall are our worst showings in, ahem, a while, but I think the mental and physical refreshment of this year will go a long way to building a stronger run at London in 2012. From here on out, that’s the plan. Game face on. And a bit of play in there just to keep it, how do you say, real?

This is my kind of mountain biking. Riding a hardtail across a lawn. I might start a series.

Oli did a much better job on lap one, charging up the outside on the grass and making it happen. Looks steep? It is.