Today was the first day of practice here at Hafjell and it was a long day with an open practice session in the morning before the top 80 men/top 20 women had their own practice session. It was a fun day on the course though, the general consensus from the riders is that the track is a whole lot of fun and a good race track to boot!
The jumps at the top of the course saw the riders having some fun throwing down some big whips, this meant a fun day for everyone else watching!
Lets take a run through today’s proceedings;
It was a tentative start to the day with no one quite knowing what the cloud and fog had in store as everyone got on the gondola to head up to the top of the track…Fortunately as the gondola went up it broke through to the sunshine and the weather stayed dry all day. On another note, check out the roofs of the local houses here in Norway, got green?There was no shortage of riders serving up the style up the top of the track as Connor Fearon demonstrates!Some riders were slightly more business orientated, such as Mark Beaumont and were keeping it race through the jumps. We could literally have a whole gallery of action from these jumps. There was a huge cable cam set up through these jumps, rumours were it was for an upcoming Anthills Film movie…You can’t blame them though, no matter which way you look the scenery is fantastic as Josh Button demonstrates.There’s more to the track than the jumps at the top! We sat in this rock garden and it doesn’t surprise us Steve Peat was the fastest in timed practice. He studied this rock garden for some time and then proceeded to hit it smooth and fast, won’t back down! Stevie Smith on the other hand ‘rode the buffalo’ laughing and hooting his way down, Josh Bryceland described it like “a monkey in a sidecart”. Josh was commenting that there still wasn’t an obvious line yet while Stevie was saying on this track because it is so fast in some places you are forced to take one line!Before the riders hit the track the UCI actually went through and smashed out various rocks from what riders are calling the ‘rock jungle!’Ben Reid threads the rocks and trees, there are numerous line choices all the way down the track.Sam Hill didn’t hit the track in practice until relatively late, he did a few runs scouting lines, being a new track many riders were taking slightly longer to get up to speed.Aaron Gwin was getting around on board a custom Trek made to commemorate his overall 2012 World Cup series win. Things weren’t going all his way, going down in the rocks, you can see the mud on his right shoulder.This track is a physical one, you could hear how tired all the riders were near the bottom of the track!If you didn’t know it was there you would miss it! Can you see the man carrying the torch cut into the side of the hill?It was good to see Brendan Fairclough back riding, he was doing runs with Andrew Neethling and Sam Hill at various times of the day.Damian Spagnolo always seems to be a bit of a dark horse, he was looking good today.Conditions were good, the biggest issue today was the news the UCI may decide to lower the amount of points female riders are awarded in the series and thus reducing their value on a pro team for the overall teams classification. More news on this issue as we get it.
That wraps up the first day of practice, tomorrow the riders have another practice session followed by qualifying.
