Europe

Three weeks, two World Cups and a week in Morzine with two downhill bikes and two road bikes, Ralph Jones and I headed down to Dover for the standard midnight ferry. A couple of hours driving into France before pulling in for a sleep in Hotel Van ! Waking up the next day at a French service station, the mighty Scotty Mears was also pulled in for a sleep in the next parking bay !

5 star !

La Bresse
Used for the first time in 2009 it was back on the circuit ! The French seemed to put  a lot of effort in to the event, with some great features on the natural track. Everyone seemed keen to have the event in town and there is always a good buzz in France after the Tour de France.

La Bresse

The track was quite short, but had plenty of line choice and options and some new jumps from the old track, the finish jump had to be made smaller after some serious cases ! After some good practice I was feeling good for qaulifying, but after missing two lines and losing some valuable time I was worried I wouldn't make it into the final as I knew the times would be super close ! I ended up 54th which was all good as I knew I had more time for the finals !

Half way Chalet huck !

Race day and the rain came, changing the dry track into a boggy fest and it looked like a lot of riders were struggling ! I put a full spike on for the final and was looking forward to it ! Sat at the start I could see the 2nd turn which had some deep ruts in, the line I was hitting had filled up with water, no time to change lines now so I planned to back off a little through the puddle ! As I left the start and got the first few ruts nice and fast I completely forgot the plan and hit the rut flat out, going straight down in a big splash !! Game over, I was soaked but nailed the rest of the track and ended up 75th, on such a short track you couldn't make a mistake let alone have a big crash ! Never ride through puddles if you don't know how deep they are !

On the deck !

Minnaar won with a storming run, Barel's run was awesome to watch and he finished 4th later annoucing his retirement. His race runs will be missed, he was the man for one off races, have a watch of his worlds run below ! Al Bond ended up 19th with a bent chain ring his splits were top 10 ! This was one of the best World Cups I have done, good organisation and the crowd was immense, on a short track the crowd lined it the whole way down !

Race run !

Morzine
A nice chilled week before heading to Italy, after a bit of a stitch up we had another night in Hotel Van, before Al Bond hooked us up with some top accompdation. We hit the Avoriaz climb on the road bikes, round about to round about, I completed the climb in 48 mins, Ralph was infront till the Yop got the better of his stomach ! Al Evans finished just behind me and Bond ten minutes behind on his xc bike ! Morzine seemed pretty quiet 'til the Shrewsbury massive of Titley, Meercat and co found some bangers ! Most of the tracks were pretty beat up but we still had a few good days riding ! Later in the week Ralph destroyed me on the time trial Morzine to Les gets and back ! Headcam from Morzine below
Thanks for help and Go Fast haircut Roland !

Morzine

Italy

Italian motorways 

The valley of Sun

Val Di Sole

The toughest track I raced on in 2010 and it was the same in 2011, really hard to pick a line and keep your speed, and it was tough on the arms and brakes. This year the sunlight made things even more awkward in the woods with patches of sun in the dark dirt making it difficult to see.The BCF failed to enter me for this, even after a reminder, eventually I got it sorted ! After some good practice runs with Matt Simmonds I went into my qualifying run feeling OK. I made two mistakes ending up in the tapes twice, ending up 121st a lot of other Brits didn't make the final, so it was a weekend in the sun for Ralph and I, Ralph just missed qualifying by .4  !

Roots and Rocks

After not qualifying for the finals, Ralph and I decided to have a go at the road climb to the top of the mountain, 24 kilometres of climbing, 1 hour 28 minutes for me and Ralph four minutes in front, then we enjoyed beating the cars back down the 24 k !

Aaron Gwin won the race, with another one of his standard runs that he has been doing this year, a different league at the moment ! Should be interesting at the champs if its muddy though !
Danny Hart's run was awesome to watch, and what hasn't been seen on any of the videos was how big the cloud of dust was that he sent on the last corner ! Troy Brosnan looked fast all weekend and got his first podium, Simmonds finally getting back up to speed after injury finishing in 16th.

The long drive home and a couple of races left before winter ! Cheers Ralphy, a top few weeks

All the best

Barel Worlds run !  Committed

National Championships and Bala

The National Champs were at Llangollen, or if your listening to Al Bond CLlangollen ! As this is the biggest British race the organisers wanted to test the riders so they decided to use the original top section in the woods. This is the steepest track that is raced in the UK, and when walking the track it looked like it was going to be tricky in the muddy conditions! Luckily for the organisers the sun did its job and started to dry things out making it a little easier to ride over the slick log drops! I managed 6 practice runs on Saturday, its not a great uplift system so 6 or 7 was the most that could be done, some slackers even managed 2 or 3! 

Race day, i got on one of the first uplifts that set off to the top, which didnt go to plan, as one of the local farmers decided he needed to move his cows from one field to the next blocking the uplift road! Top bloke!

After 2 practice runs i went up for seeding and came down in 14th with a steady run! For the finals i had the main man Steve Peat following me down, which was a bit of a worry! I had a good run, just making one mistake which proved costly as i finished 14th just 0.5 seconds from 11th! Top 15 was all good though, and i thought i would have some good UCI points, but someone pulled a sli move so it was just the top ten getting them and not top 25! Ruaridh Cunnigham won the race with a storming run, Al Bond took a deserved 2nd, showing he could deal with the pressure of his local fans, Adam Brayton slipped himself onto the box in 3rd after he seeded in first! 

Click below to watch my-
Headcam from National Champs

Full results
http://www.rootsandrain.com/race291/2011-jul-24-bds-uk-national-champs-11-llangollen/#hsenior-champs-m

Top pics
http://www.rootsandrain.com/rider333/robert-smith-elt/photos/

Bala (The Shrewsbury track)! Always one to look forward to as the Pearce crew put on a great event and the track is always good, nice to see some changes on the track to freshen things up. Its a little weird how people can deem certain things on tracks dangerous, but on this one they were happy to have a barbed wire fence in the track! After some abuse from fellow elites i hopped over it in practice! The uplift drivers do a great job getting us to the top quickly at the pearce races, but it doesnt impress us when they try to drift round corners so we get to watch our bikes getting roosted by stones! Save it for the ps3!

Racing, after a few crashes earlier in the week and in practice i was covered in the muscle relief pain cream, and after a solid first run i was in 3rd place which i was really pleased with as there was some top competition in the elites. Second run i went a fraction of a second slower but still rode well and finished 4th on the same second as Joe Smith and Harry Heath who were 2nd and 3rd. Matt Simmonds was 5th, just cruising at this one ready for the World cups in the following weeks! Younger brother Ed's took 4th in the experts and David 7th in elites a couple of seconds behind me. Alex Bond (Shropshire/Wales border) destroyed everyone with a gap of 5 seconds between him and second place, everyone else was left speechless when his time popped up! A well organised race on a great track. 

Nice video from the race including me at 55 seconnds !
http://www.pinkbike.com/video/209566/

Full results
http://www.rootsandrain.com/race298/2011-jul-31-pearce-cycles-4-bala/#helitem

Ive been in Europe for the last few weeks so will have a report on that soon ! 
All the best !