After having a quick look at Borovets bike park in 2010 I was keen to come back in 2011. The setup is amazing with a really good track, nice quick chairlift and hotel at the finish line, its a very popular skiing resort in Winter.
I was missing the BDS at Llangollen for this race, and younger brother Ed's was also doing the same for his first trip to ride and race in a foreign country.
After an all night drive down to Gatwick I wasnt feeling too good and we landed in Bulgaria to a nice 32 degrees ! We headed straight to the Ram factory to build our bikes and set everything up, once again thanks to all the guys at Ram for looking after us and sorting everything out.
Driving to Borovets
We went for a quick track walk Thursday night and the track was looking awesome with some fresh sections, but it was seriously dusty, so I was hoping for some rain which was predicted for the weekend !
1780 meters
Standard Bulgarian Hammer for Track maintenance !
Nice view from the start
Practice started Friday with no clouds in the sky and 35 degree heat, Ed's and me did 6 steady runs getting used to riding in the deep dust before heading back to the hotel and the swimming pool !
Konstantin Dimov, Lubomir Nedyalkov and pals did about 15 practice runs, and then as many laps in the swimming pool, before spending the night tuning their bikes and making sure they knew what to do if they ever needed to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher! Mad men!
Talking of mad , it's worth spending abit of time watching the hardtail riders come down at these races, they pin it and aren't shy of having a big crash !!
Out the start and into the woods
Saturday was nice and cloudy and damp so a nice slippy morning practice session before the afternoons seeding run. I did 4 practice runs and then a good solid seeding run, going fast in all the woods but not pushing on the pedalling sections That put me in 1st place 7 seconds infront of Rossen Kovachev who was looking good in practice. Ed's had a solid run and put himself in 3rd which was good. Back to the swimming pool for a chill !
Practice
I have been to Bulgaria a few times now, mainly because the people are so nice and keen for riding and the tracks are amazing. Each time its cool to see the improvements the riders are making getting faster and faster, they just need to start putting some race runs together now and get some sleep the night before the race !!
Sunday, race day, it was sunny again so the track was back to full on dust with loads of the corners getting blown out. I went up for my run feeling good after a good 3 practice runs. I again did all the wooded sections nice and fast and pedalled the flat sections as much as I could, after a good run I backed off in a few blown out turns towards the bottom and crossed the line going into 1st place by 11 seconds , And it was Ed's who was leading before me so we both finished 1st and 2nd, awesome. Rossen crashed on one of the steep chute's towards the bottom but still managed 3rd place.
Something you don't see at a race very often and it just shows how close the community of riders are in Bulgaria, one of the older riders went to the podium and proposed to his Girlfriend with all their friends around, she said yes ! I got a nice bottle to spray in Ed's face , cutting my finger in the process ! Borovets is an amazing track and is a venue that could hold a world cup in the future !
Next up was a weekend of road riding and xc as I didn't have the funds to go to the two world cups in Canada and the USA. First off, along with Sam Motocross Hyde and Jason Hillclimb Powell, I entered an 82 mile sportive around Shropshire starting from Blazing Bikes, it was a perfect day for it 25 degrees and a slight breeze and the lovely Shropshire views !
Ready to go !
Team Haribo !
Me ! Full HTC !
After losing around 30 minutes waiting for a few friends who took wrong turns we completed the hilly route in 5 hours 41 mins, after plenty of water bottles, gels and bananas ! All good !
The following day was the CRC marathon, I planned to do the middle route of 50k around the Longmynd, but after a few kilometres with legs like Jelly I decided to do the shorter route of 25 k and have some fun overtaking on the downhills ! I must of had at least 5 guys have a go at me ............ sorry next time I will just walk down behind you ! ha !
Next up its National Champs and a few weeks of ebay action !
