Per Brad Copeland’s IG feed, it looks very wet in Albstadt right now.
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This is quite possibly my favorite picture of all time
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She do a Shoey?! Must be an Aussie thing.
At any rate, I was cheering on McConnell last year during Snowshoe and she lost it right near the end (I believe due to a flat). Cool to see her pick up 2 in a row now!
Man. It was a great weekend of racing!
Epic results from the Kiwi’s in the XCC with a rider on each of the first three rows for the XCO.
All were sort of expectedly a bit further back in XCO. Hopefully they find their legs soon.
Congratulations to Pidcock of course, but I don’t much care for him riding off the front entertainment wise.
The race for second was good and Nino is in great shape.
Hopefully Nove Mesto is closer next week. It should suit Sam Gaze a bit more, and Cooper will have another week from his broken summer.
Bec McConnell looks amazing. New coach/changes to her approach is doing her absolute wonders!
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Albstadt is personally my fave of all the courses. Natural features and the climbing lends itself to a great natural selection.
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It’s gotten better each year the last few years with more tech.
I enjoy them all, but have to say I prefer the more technical courses.
First three laps were exciting until Pidcock attacked and checked out… that said he only won by a 22 second margin? So while not a super exciting race for first, he wasn’t that far ahead. Nino looks like he may focus on the overall? And stands a good chance to break 33…
And how about his riding on the first lap or two? Gapping that little double and making time on that B-line after Avancini tried to play. Ninos a legend.
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Looking forward to this one. Hopefully we get some more super tight racing.
Great looking course as always. I really liked how they made the XCC technical last year.
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Holy Schwarzbauer!
No one could live with him when he dropped that Watt Bomb!
Would love to see the file. He’s a big boy by the looks of it but must be a massive motor!
I’ll go look and see if he’s on Strava.
Kiwi’s were sort of just hanging about but not doing much of note. Hopefully ready to fire on Sunday.
Good to see Nino has good legs and a return to form of a lot of the main players. The XCO could be a doozy (if Pidcock doesn’t ride away).
I was initially really disappointed that they’d moved away from the XCC course from last year with the rock garden etc, but with the hills and drone footage it was an entertaining circuit. I have to admit I didn’t realise how steep that punch up to the Start/Finish straight was from prior years coverage.
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No Nove Mesto file up yet.
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Was thinking the same! That was an impressive ride!
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Wondering what’s up with Kate Courtney. She hasn’t seemed to really be fighting at the front much at all since pre-Covid when she had that season long battle with Neff
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My gut says she hasn’t improved as the field has come up, but that’s completely guesswork.
There was mention that she’d tried a change of training but that seems unlikely.
Some conspiracy theorists think it’s the new bike, but I vehemently oppose that.
One theory I have is that she might need to find a partner like Langvad and get back to Cape Epic at the start of 2023.
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It’s likely many factors.
The sport has moved on a fair bit on the women’s side in the last two years. Kate simply hasn’t matched that progression.
As to why, I suspect a bout of over training is the ultimate culprit. Very few riders ever return to peak levels if they significantly over train. It’s worse for professionals as they cannot simply take 6 months off to truly let the body reset.
Additionally, Kate is a great rider, but her level of competition during her successful phase was not what it is now. It somewhat flattered her. Combine that with Red Bull and the general media really hyping her up, like she was going to dominate for years. The reality does not meet the expectations.
She is a very motivated women, so she could get back to the top. Every day that goes by that becomes far less likely though. There’s an incredible number of strong young XC riders coming through in the near future.
That’s my take.
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I don’t think living in California was a good place to be during the Covid lockdown. The Governor of that state tried to lock down all activities. While her competition was training hard and improving, maybe she was stagnating or regressing. Also, it takes a mentally hard person to stay at the top end of XCO racing. If your focus waivers, you won’t stay on top.
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Yes indeed, I went looking for his ride file yesterday, but hes pretty selective with the rides he posts.
What an amazing comparison of riders after the effort; he was on the floor for minutes, and the way Red Bull cut the footage it seemed Pidcock was relatively unaffected. A post workout survey value of 10 vs perhaps an 8 for Pidcock? It was the same for Gaze collapsing when he beat Nino years ago.
Jenny Risveds on the other hand gave up pedalling before the finish line, and almost lost her podium. Then hid in the shade on the ground. The mental aspects are certainly showing.
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And the interviewer is going to bring out Risveds demons if she keeps asking her about how she’s doing confidence wise.
Just watch the post XCO interview.
Hump
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OMG yes talk about leading questions!!
“So, you’ve had major mental health problems in the public eye. Today you only came third. Last race you were second. Why didn’t you race more aggressively?”
…
Sheesh, Jenny did well to stay civil!
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I’m glad I’m not the only one that heard it that way.
Hump
