We check in with Connor Fearon for his last report from World Cups in 2014;
So the World Cup finals where in Meribel, France. I had never been there before nor had I heard much about the track although being a European track there was a high chance of it being a steep “proper” downhill track. Fortunately it was probably the best track of the season! Mainly natural rough terrain with deep dirt, lots of roots and minimal pedalling. I was sitting 25th overall in the points coming into the final race and the points where very close either side, so I could either move up or down the ranks depending how I went in the race. Moving down in the ranks wasn’t something I wanted to do and I’ve had a string of good results so I had high hopes. The first practice day proved the track to be pretty difficult. It had rained the night before and made the track pretty wet so some of the harder sections felt quite slow. Since the track was relatively fresh each run I did on the track there where new lines getting ridden down the whole track. In fact from the first day of practice to my race run I was essentially riding a different track from taking different lines the whole way down. One thing I struggled with on the track was just learning the course. There was a lot to think about and there’s not very much practice at a World Cup. Your qualifying run is probably your 6th or 7th run down the track for the weekend and if it’s a new track like Meribel you’ve never ridden before it makes it even harder.
I had a bit of pressure on me for qualifying because the top 20 qualifiers get points towards the overall which I desperately needed. I had a solid run and qualified 17th. I was still learning the track so I was confident if I walked the track and had good runs in Saturday morning I could improve. Race day rolled around and I felt confident. As far as changes to the bike go I didn’t make many I was using the Maxxis Shorty tyres for the first time at a race, mainly due to half the track was really dry and dusty and half was still wet and muddy. The shorty is a good spike that worked well in both applications. My race run was good I felt like I was to conservative at the top so I let the brakes off a bit to the bottom and had a few close calls but held it together to finish 13th.
Out of the last four races I’ve actually competed In I have had a 9th, 13th, 14th and the worst was a 17th. This is the form I wanted for the whole season but have had some bad luck with a crash at cairns and was sick for Mont St Anne. I finished 20th overall which is great considering my year. Next and finally on the calendar this year is the World Championships in Norway. The track is not my favourite but looking forward to the whole event and finally flying home for the year. Thanks to all that help me Kona Bikes, Fox Head, SRAM, Rockshox, Stans No Tubes, Maxxis, Truvativ, Yakima racks, Jarah Breese/Swift Performance, HT Pedals.
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