My two weeks of mass starts & glacier mayhem – welcome to the French Alps!

I have not had time to write about my Mountain of Hell mayhem from last weekend, so I’ll start off with the most recent race that I just completed, the grand daddy of them all – the Megavalanche in Alpe D’Huez… Happy girl on top of the world.

It’s 4:45 am and I am lying in bed, wide-awake waiting for my marimba alarm clock to go off. The stars are still bright out and the white snowy glaciers from across the valley is almost luminous as it shines bright in the morning hours. I am like a giddy kid that can’t sleep anymore and as I lie here looking at another beautiful day unfolding, a big, content smile appears across my face. It is Sunday morning here in Alpes D’Huez and my biggest race of the year is over, I am sort of in one piece and I am a very happy girl on this beautiful day. This morning it is Sven’s turn to get up early and head up to the glacier battlefield to fight his fight from the front row start that he earned in his qualifying race.

The views in Alpe D'Huez never seems to get old. I love single track & flowery meadows.

Loving my Nomad in the dry, rocky terrain under the brilliant blue skies.

Try & spot me on the single track above! Good thing I was wearing some bright Sombrio kit.

Showing some of the boys where the best lines were during practice - lol!

Testing out some faster, straighter lines for race day, this one was pretty fun.

I qualified 5^th on Friday, which was a tough battle in itself, as the line up this year was absolutely stacked – definitely the most competitive women’s field I have ever raced against. All four girls that finished ahead of me had rainbow stripes! The track was so beat up as we went down last so it had seen some 2000 men come screaming down the mountain before it was our turn. I was really happy with the qualifier but knew that race day was going to be a whole other ball game and that the target was definately on my back.

Happy girl (with a dirty face) getting in the mini bubble lift after qualifying in 5th place behind 4 World Champions!

On race day, I ended up in 3^rd place behind super legends Anne Caroline Chausson & Tracy Moseley. It was an absolute battle from the start, with really sketchy glacier conditions, you had the choice of starting on jagged rock, snow, ice blocks or a little bit of everything. I opted for as much rock as possible, as I am not that comfortable on the ice. The glacier was getting soft and we knew we had our work cut out for us – we were getting our running legs ready, and boy o boy, did we have to run, the entire bottom section of the glacier was too soft to ride, so we went running. Of course the whole experience was completely surreal, an outer body experience like no other, you just go through the motions and do what you have to do. Survival, and in this case slow motion running & bumbling through the snow. Under normal race circumstances you would usually be red lining towards the end of the glacier, mostly due to the adrenalin rush from the mass start and the whole bike on the glacier part, but yesterday was even worse. The level of fatigue that I felt after running the glacier was insane, and then you had to actually start racing. So many things happened in that hour, so many almosts, so many crashes, so much fighting in my head, so many decisions, line choices, pushing, pushing, pushing, cramping legs, spitting & snotting into your helmet, arm pump & elation all wrapped together in one measly hour of the day. It is unreal that you can feel and go through so many emotions in one hour!  I am still trying to process all the occurrences that happened during that torture hour yesterday, but for the most part they were great memories. Friends & spectators were cheering us on so hard on the climbs and I was just feeding of their energy. After what felt like an eternal battle, it was a sprint to the finish line with 2 other girls and I ended up in 3^rd place. Hats off to fellow Kiwi Rosara, a top pro xc racer for finishing 4^th in her first ever attempt at this craziness. I think she’s hooked now J

Hanging out & trying not to get too nervous on the glacier with two of my very dear friends, Sabbo & T-Mo. Good times.

Ready to get this show on the road - hanging out on the glacier for 3 hours before the start is very nerve racking & cold!

Glacier riding with my good friend from Nelson, NZ - Jamie

Heading down the glacier on race day, trying to keep my bike upright.

Once I crossed that line, I just started crying, I had so many emotions that I worked through during this race and then finishing & realizing that I had reached my goal was pretty overwhelming. I know this sounds like something you only write when you win a race, but to me this was winning a race. I had finished behind two cycling legends, and I was really happy. This race has been on my mind and irritating me for the past year, after qualifying 2^nd last year and then flatting in my race run, I had to come back to face my demons and now I have conquered them. Thank God, because I couldn’t deal with another year of stressing & worrying about this race.

Standing on the podium with Anne Caroline & Tracy is something that I will never forget & is probably the most special result of my cycling career.

How many times do you do these kinds of races? For some it is something that you check off on your bucket list, or just finish, for others it is something you keep doing until you are completely satisfied with your performance and results. I am very satisfied with my result – it only took 5 tries to get there, but I got there, so now I can stop chasing this demon and keep coming back to this addictive race if I wish to or not, but whatever happens in the future, I know that I got a solid result here with some of the fastest ladies in the world and that will keep bringing a smile to my face for a very long time to come – Like Jerome said to me after the race “you earned your brakes, Anka” - Cheers Jey!

Mountain of Hell Mayhem!!!

Let’s rewind a bit and go back to last weekend though, it feels like a lifetime away, but it was only last Sunday morning that we were huddling up at the top of another glacier just across the valley from here at Les 2 Alps, where we were getting ready to race the Mountain of Hell. It was snowing at the top with a whopping temperature of -9 Degrees Celsius! Nice summer weather out here in Europe. The best way to describe this race is a smaller, more disorganized, more French (if that is possible), less rules, mass start race where 700 people – including the women start together on one fast, straight, crazy glacier where all you can do is hold on for dear life and hope to god that your bikes speed wobbles don’t turn into high siding flingers.

Shaly rocks & steep ass shoots is what the Mtn of Hell was all about.

Another beautiful Sunday morning on top of a glacier. Happy to have qualified 3rd to get a 7th row start amongst the men.

I qualified 3^rd for this race & ended up in 4^th place which I was very happy about. It was Anne Caro’s first shot at this race, and of course she took the win, but said that it was the craziest race that she had ever raced. Second & third place went to the French junior girls, Morgane & Isabeau - little pinners they are and really fun to race & battle with. It is great to see a whole new young generation of girls on the Enduro scene and I am sure that this discipline of racing will attract many more girls and women in the future. It is hard for the women to have a fair race at this event, because so much of it depends on how many men you get stuck behind and it just becomes a mass of people waiting in line to ride the trails. The women get spread out between all the men, depending on how you qualified, so you never really know where the other girls are to gauge how you are doing. Of course most of the guys go balls to walls on the glacier, so it was probably the scariest thing that I have ever been involved in, with guys flailing, flying and hauling past you at mach speeds and then piling up in every turn.

I am really happy that I was able to survive these two races. They were my two big races this year where I really wanted to do well, and I am really happy with how these two weeks in the big mountains turned out. I am feeling these two weeks in every part of my body, I am bruised & battered & scabby, but happy – I think I’ll give my bikini a skip for a few more days as I may get some strange looks from the skinny, model type girls on the glitzy beaches and they may want to lock Sven up for abuse…

Next weekend is the Enduro of Nations race in Sauze d’Oulx, which is such a great event and I look forward to carving some turns through their beautiful, green meadows and to not see a glacier for a while. Then back on the xc bike for some serious training for my personal favorite event or "gathering" of the 7 day Trans Provence race in September. www.trans-provence.com

I could not have done these events without the help of Jon Cancellier & Todd from SRAM, they were so amazing and made sure my bike was in tip top shape everyday and took care of all the stresses that go along with putting your bike through this kind of abuse day after day. Of course Sven helped me to get through all his crazy lines, sort of and he is just the most amazing partner ever ;) Jerome Clementz & Pauline for all your help – cheering squad, masseuse provider, French translators, van fixers – the lot – it is really nice to have some good friends in a foreign country where English is not really spoken so much.

Jon, Sven & I with the SRAM support van - THANK YOU for everything!!!!!

Now it is time to head up to the hill climb and cheer Sven and the other lads on to push that little bit harder! (Obviously this post is a day late, so the men's race has happened & it was an absolute nightmare of a start for the front row men - Sven included. The guys were forced to start on a massive ice block and there was just one massive pile up right out of the start. It was absolute chaos, with loads of injuries and crashes. Sven was lying in 6th place, made it past the crash, only to get mowed down by someone slamming into his back and taking him out. He struggled to get going again, because the guy that slammed into him somehow managed to get his entire seat stuck between Sven's spokes and the only way to get it out was to man brute the spokes apart. Poor guy. Even after all this carnage, Sven finished in 53 place after the horrible start and a bruised as hell body - not to mention his concussion from earlier in the week. I am so proud of him & I think that is a brilliant result. Well done to all the guys that had to charge off onto that ice slab.

So happy that we made it through the week in one piece - sort of. Time for some much needed R&R. Thanks for all the amazing photo's Sven!!!

Peace out

Anka

x

My long overdue European summer adventures update.

It has been another whirlwind summer over here in Europe, I can’t believe we have been here for 2 months already and have 3 more months to go before we get to go back to our much missed cottage in the woods of Nelson, NZ.

Sven has been off working nonstop at the various World Cup races, and I have been guiding guests from all over the world through the beautiful, big mountains of Provence (I know, hard to imagine that in Provence, but the mountains there are big, dramatic and out there, with not much lavender fields around).  I have been helping Ash from Trans Provence with guiding these 7day trips and it has been magical. Hard work, but very rewarding to experience and share this adventure with other like-minded people.  The trips would start near Gap and end roughly 300km later on the glitzy & glamorous, Ferrari & bikini clad beaches of Monaco. During one of the weeks all of our guests were from Czech, so communication was not easy, but we managed to figure it out, and it just proved to us that bikes and trails didn’t need a common language. We all experienced the same amazing feeling of shredding down unknown trails in the middle of nowhere. It was SUPER as the guys would express after every run. Perfect. It is amazing how well you get to know complete strangers over the span of 7 days, and it was usually quite sad when it was time to say good- bye at the Nice airport.  Just one more reason why I LOVE to ride bikes, the amazing and varied group of people you end up meeting from all different walks of life.

You can get a look into one of our guided weeks that one of the guests made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4beoLvhHXpM&list=UUBkmDU3X741TrmFpmcNVFMQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Apart from guiding, it was time to do some Enduro racing here in France. Enduro racing in France has been around forever and it is a hugely popular discipline with up to 400 entrants at most events – that is a huge amount of crazy fast Frenchies. First on the schedule was the first round of the French Enduro series in Samoens. These races are intense, you do between 8 – 10 races over the 2 days, and all the tracks are blind. Yes, you have no idea what you’re sprinting off into, but that is what makes it such a great event. You have to wear full body armor, fullface helmets & kneepads, and you don’t see any lycra anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, they are extremely physical, meaning you definitely have to be fit and strong and be able to ride uphill, but it is more downhill oriented, and you need to know how to ride technical, fast downhill tracks to do well here. The girls are fast. The field is big and the racing is close, with only seconds between people after two full days of racing. I ended up in 5^th place at this first round, which I was very happy with. Conditions were very tricky with the sun shining, but the woods wet & slimy from weeks of rain.  We sported full DH spikes on the front all weekend, which took a while to get used to again, and made the climbs feel even harder. Overall it was a great weekend and the fact that I had some friends from the UK & NZ over there made it even better.

The next race was the second round of the French Enduro series, this time at Val d’Allos and it was to be a special 10 year anniversary weekend where we were going to be descending 10 000 meters over the 2 days of racing. That meant 10 races over 2 days, with the races being between 10 – 25minutes each. It is more like marathon downhill racing, as there is no time to relax in between races, or to work on your bike, it is just go time the whole time. It is unreal how knackered you feel after doing a weekend like this. Again, all the races are blind, and you have no idea where you are trying to go to as fast as possible, so you are mentally pretty drained from trying to navigate the whole time. After this marathon event, I ended up in 6^th place, missing the 5^th spot by 10 seconds - so close after so many races, but that is how it goes. There are so many things that can happen and that does happen during 10 races – it is pretty impossible to have 10 perfect races, the riders all really respect each other and the level of the racing.  Again it was fun to have Tracy Moseley & James out there and my friend Jamie from NZ to hang & ride with.

At this very moment I am sitting in the media center in Les 2 Alpes, getting ready to head up to the glacier this afternoon to go and practice my bike snow sledding maneuvers. We have been out here since Monday, as this is the first year that they have turned the Mountain of Hell race into a weeklong Crankworx festival – a “sister” event to the popular Crankworx Canada.  The riding out here has been amazing. This place has big mountains, big views and a lot of descending. My bike has been getting all the love and much deserved attention from the SRAM guys after months of riding and abusing, so my beloved bike is happy yet again. Thanks guys!

Yesterday, I spent the morning with my crazy Italian friends photographer Matteo & and Lukka, the editor, shooting for their magazine 365 - it was so fun, they even got me onto some north shore stunts which I usually avoid like the plague – look forward to seeing the article when it comes out.

This weekend I have the Mountain of Hell race, similar to the Mega Avalanche race, but I guess I would explain it as a smaller, more disorganized event where no one really knows what is going on and nobody speaks English. It makes for a very exciting weekend of racing. We have a qualifying race on Saturday and then we have the actual race on Sunday where there is one mass start from the top of the glacier on a completely separate track – with all the men, so organized chaos I guess would be a good explanation for this event. What makes it even more exciting is that you never get to practice the main glacier start section or the last section to the finish line – as that is a highly illegal hiking trail that is always shut to bikers and only open on this day of the race. Nice. Of course you head into these events with all kinds of expectations and plans of doing well, but there are so many variables and things that can go haywire during these mass start events, that you really just have to go with an open mind and try to have fun with it. Ride the best that you can ride and hope that you won’t get taken out by some flailing weapons all around you.

If I survive this race on Sunday, we head across the valley for another week of riding and racing at Alpe d’Huez for the famous Mega Avalanche. The absolute grand-daddy of endurance racing. Last year I qualified 2^nd behind Anne Caroline and was lying in 2^nd during the main race, when I flatted, so I guess I have some unfinished business there which I’d like to finish off.

After these two crazy races I head over to Italy to defend my Enduro des Nations title which I won last year at the amazing resort of Alpi in Sauze d’ Oulx, then we head to Canada for the Crankworx festival & a wedding down Blue velvet – yes, a wedding train! Then back to Europe for more races & some training, then the grand finale race – the 7-day Trans Provence race in September, which I am soooo looking forward to.

This season I have been a very lucky girl to be sponsored by Sombrio clothing, and I have been absolutely loving their threads. They have hooked me up with such nice riding kits and the casual clothing is to die for too. It is such a nice feeling to be rocking a great brand and to be representing Sombrio in Europe.

Also, be sure to buy the latest issue of Dirt Magazine – The Adventure Issue, and also the new Spoke Magazine and have a wee look at the feature article that I wrote in there about riding the Heaphy Track in New Zealand, and how to tackle this 3 day overnight trip – Racks, Packs & Six Packs.

I am in the process of updating my blog, so check it out and have a look at the guided mountain bike trips & adventures that Sven & I will be offering out on the other side of the world, in stunning Nelson, New Zealand and join us for some sick riding. http://housemartin.wordpress.com/

To find out more about the Enduro Racing in France, see some of the links below and get your butts out here to experience raw racing & magnificent riding.

Mountain of Hell race report to follow next!

Peace out

Anka x

www.tribesport.com

www.avalanchecup.com

www.sombriocartel.com

www.les2alpes.com

www.transprovence.com

www.sram.com

www.worldbicyclerelief.org

Trans Provence & good-bye's.

This will most likely be the hardest blog post to write about all year, because I just don’t know how to put this event – more like an adventure down into words. How do you explain to people what you experienced over 7 days out in the wild countryside of Provence on your mountain bike along with 50 other nutters, racing down super sketchy foot paths with extremely exposed cliffs on either side. Sounds pretty strange that you could be out in the wild, and in the middle of nowhere in Provence of all places, even I was super surprised at how rugged, dramatic, stunning and completely remote this part of France was. It was mind-blowingly beautiful. We rode through and up and over massive mountains, rugged and barren like high altitude Colorado mountains, then through green lush rolling hills, then through Alpine meadows and every now and then we’d end or start a stage in some small gorgeous, medieval village, usually built into and on top of a rock outcropping with old, and I mean ancient ruins and equally old men & women sitting on the benches overlooking and contemplating the world and wondering what the hell we were up to. We even rode on moonscape terrain, completely surreal and it looked like a grey version of Utah. Provence? Was I in the right department? I thought Provence just had pretty (but boring) lavender fields and picture perfect houses you’d see in Architectural Digest & Elle Décor….boy, was I wrong, and very pleasantly surprised.

And so we pedaled our bikes, and carried our bikes. Up, up and over. Over and over, day in and day out. I don’t think many of us expected this event to be as physically demanding as it turned out to be. I think everyone just read 26 timed DH stages and signed up – forgetting to read the fine print as usual, the 10 000+ meters of climbing, 7 days & almost 400km sort of didn’t stick in my memory, but I could still feel the effects of the climbs & hike a bikes a week later, walking the streets of Paris with my mom. And this was just the Liaisons in-between the timed stages, then you still had to do between 3-4 races per day, and they were not just pedal out of the gate and roll down the hill downhill type racing. O no. We had our work cut out for us during these downhill stages, and they were hard. We had to climb, run, push, hike, pedal, hang on, navigate (which was the biggest challenge for me – trying to go as fast as possible, but to go as fast as possible on the right trail), and then to make sure that you didn’t have one of the World Champions’ coming up behind you and getting in their way. O, yes, and you had to try and nurse your bike through 7 days of really rough, rocky, bike eating terrain to actually finish this event.

The mileage went by pretty slowly, but the days were amazing. I don’t think that I have ever done an event like this, and I don’t think that it will ever be the same again. Like I said before, I don’t really know how to put my experiences down into words. I’ve had some time to reflect upon everything in the complete opposite environment and world to where we rode – in Paris, and all I could think about was how thankful I am that I was able to experience such an adventure with so many amazing people and that I have been so lucky that my life has been so enriched and fulfilled by the simple pleasure of riding my bike in the mountains. Never will most of these city dwellers ever experience what we all went through.

The riding was spectacular in every sense. It was rough and very challenging and I take my hat off to every single one of you that finished this pretty crazy event. It was so great to see some of the top elite cyclists suffering and asking about chamois butter and what the hell to do with it, and wrenching & helping others wrench on their bikes with headlamps every night. Spare parts were getting handed around and shared like a bags of candy. Classic memories.

The food was unreal and the crew was just amazing. Where else do you get specially cooked vegetarian & gourmet food like paella, mussels, giant prawns and a delicious different gourmet fancy type of soup every night? The massage team actually knew how to massage and not just rub oil around your body, and the shuttle drivers were more like rally car drivers than shuttle drivers – the shuttles up to the top was quite exhilarating. This event was quite the logistical feat, and hats off to everyone involved and all their always smiling faces – when they all wanted to ride their bikes, but instead worked their assess off for us to ride our bikes.

Anyhow, I can go on and on, but until you actually just go and ride this race, and experience it for yourself, the words don’t really mean much. Sven killed it winning a few stages, and ending in 3^rd overall after a terrible first day of running and just experiencing a complete shock to the system – not too shabby for someone that managed to get 2 rides in total before this race. I ended up getting 2^nd place behind Tracy Moseley, which I was super happy about. I did actually end up winning one stage, which felt pretty great, but T-Mo knows how to ride that little Trek of hers pretty damn fast, down some pretty damn gnarly trails, and I was honored to be able to experience another amazing adventure with her and ride bikes in cool places. There were 8 women in total, and they all kicked ass – it was really great to see these girls pushing themselves to their limits and having fun while doing it. Never complaining, almost always smiling and returning day after day covered in more bruises.

Cheers to Trans Provence and the masterminds behind a true mountain biking event!

Right now I am sitting on a jet plane listening to Ali Farka Toure heading back to the US (or to our storage unit & friends couches) after spending the past 6 months in Europe – mostly France. I am sad. I have grown to love France and it feels like home to me. It is familiar. We have made & met some great people, we had amazing quality family time, drank boat loads of champagne & red wine and had very rainy trips in our trusty van and my French has actually progressed past the menu food ordering phase, and now I feel like I am leaving home…au revoir noisettes, and hello giant sized 2 pump, skinny, no caffeine, sprinkles on top starbucks coffee jugs.

Always hard to say good- bye to family, but we have our next adventure to start plotting & planning in the Southern hemisphere, a summer to go and catch and a storage unit to empty out.

Peace out

Anka x

bikes are a girls best friend

I have finally been able to ride my new bike this week, and it has been AMAZING!!!!!! She is a beautiful brand new Santa Cruz Blur TRc, and she is an absolute beaut and oh so sexy with her matte black body and green accents colors....mmmmm, who ever said that diamonds were a girls best friend. I don't think so.

We got her built up in Annecy - thanks to our good friend Terry Chanethomvong - the GT mechanic for sick Mick Hannah, and he also owns a company called Unik Suspensions. It is hard to find a bike shop out here in the countryside that is capable of doing a good custom build, and we all know that building up a custom bike is never easy and never straight forward, so thanks to Terry and all his patience with the non- mechanically minded Martin family we got her built up and running like a dream.

This baby is packed up in the van and ready to hit the road tomorrow, as we head out to the Trans Provence, a 7 day stage race from Gap in Provence to the beaches of Monte Carlo. But wait, it gets BETTER...you only get timed on all the downhills!!!!! We are still climbing A LOT every day, but we can take our time, and then we have between 5/6 timed downhill sections each day, and the fastest guy wins. This is soooo exciting, and I cannot wait to get this event started on Sunday 25th September. I'm even more excited to be racing my new bike and to show her what kind of life she is in for.

Here is a quick rundown of our 7 day adventure in a nutshell: 7 days, 26 timed stages, 320 km, 9500 metres vertical ascent, 15200 metres vertical descent... and most importantly: more sweet singletrack than you can shake a stick at!

I cannot think of a better way to end off the crazy season, and what better way to celebrate than to go on a 7 day adventure, with your bike & your babe (Sven) in a tent starting in the mountains of Provence and finishing up with a jump into the ocean, o yes, and sharing that with all your mates - priceless.

Thank you to everyone that made this possible. You all know who you are. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!

Peace out

Anka x.

You can follow us at the Trans Provence, and check out the daily updates here:

www.trans-provence.com

Check out all the tech specs and stuff boys are usually more interested in (I usually just like to look at all the colors) at: http://www.santacruzmtb.com/blurtr_carbon

A huge shout out to SRAM for getting this bike rolling :) www.SRAM.com

Also check out more about UNIK suspensions here:  http://www.unik-suspension.com

cheers to the new SRAM truck!

The beautiful new SRAM truck had a warm welcome to the world cup circus and what a great event to choose as it's virgin pilgrimage - the World Championships in Champery, Switzerland. May you have a wonderful truck life filled with loads & loads of miles, races, nespresso, beer & Boxxer world championships.

Cheers!

Anka x.

good times. summer. finally.

So the summer finally decided to show it's face this year, I mean it's only September and due to start snowing again in some places in October! It was time to hit the road again in our trusty van for the last leg of the season. We had the final world cup to go to in Val di Sole, Italy (thank God), then a week of well deserved  holiday time & riding with friends in Lake Garda, Italy (where the sun always seems to shine) & then off to the World Champs in Champery, Switzerland (where it will most likely rain on us for the entire event).

We decided to go to Val di Sole via Provence and the French Riviera - not out of the way at all, but summer was finally here and we wanted to go for a swim in the sea. August is crazy vacation month in France, so driving around and trying to find a spot in the ocean wasn't that easy, but we squeezed our way (white bodies and all) through the beaches, restaurants and shops all along the beautiful beaches & coves of Cannes, Nice & Monaco. After a few days of maddening crowds and shiny, vessels, it was time to head back to the hills to visit our friend Fabien Barel, and to push on to the mountains and stunning vertile apple valleys of Val di Sole.

It was the first world cup of the year where it didn't rain, and it was wonderful. It was hot and we couldn't complain. Great for living in the van, because we could go and swim (shower) in the river everyday, and the sunshine just brought a great feel to the event. I had a great week of exploring the little villages and the beautiful Dolomite mountains (and helping Sven with a bit of his work). I just wanted this race to be over, because I knew we had a full week of chill time ahead of us in beautiful Lake Garda - our favorite place to go, with absolutely insane trail riding and camping on the lake - it really is the highlight of our European summers. There are a few of us who have made this a yearly tradition, we have the most ghetto campsite, filled with bikes & lilo's, but we spend our days riding bikes, swimming and eating copious amounts of pizza, pasta, wine, beer and of course gelato. This year the crew consisted of Victor Lucas, Chris Ball, Oliver Munnik & Jon Cancellier - all of us either sleeping in our van's or in Chris's case, on the mighty Challenger - his inflatable row boat that he bought.

The summer was here in full swing, with a heat wave that hit the lake, we were having temperatures in the 40's every single day, so we opted for more shuttling than climbing. The place has the best trail riding, and we still haven't even scratched the surface. It is Nomad heaven, but it beats up your bikes and bodies like none other (that is where the lake & all the lemoncillo comes in handy).

We rode, we swam, we drank, we Via Ferrata'd up a canyon (I got really scared & started crying), we hired scooters and rode around very old villages, ate some more, swam some more, shopped a little, lost an i-phone, worked a little, rode some more, ate gelato a lot and actually rested & had a summer holiday for the first time this year. It was bliss, and none of us wanted to pack up our lilo's to head back into the gloomy mountains of Switzerland...It was time to leave, and it was the end of August, which meant all the holiday makers also had to leave, summer was officially over, and i felt really sad that that was that. That was my summer. Over. Back to real life and Sven working all day long, every day, till the wee hours of the morning. I was just getting used to this. LOL!

Champery was spectacular. The mountains are absolutely spectacularly fucking beautiful. They are so dramatic, massive and overwhelming. You feel so small, looking up all around you, as far as you can see, they surround you. The colors, the textures, dimensions and depth of these mountains really do touch you. The riding out here on the other hand, is not the most exciting, they love their very steep fire road climbs & fire road descents, but they are very scenic, and well worth the slog. I didn't mind the slog up & down fire roads after having a week of insane trail riding in Garda anyways, and I was just trying to get some miles under my belt for the upcoming 7 day stage race, the Trans Provence that we are racing at the end of this month, so it was perfect.

The rain held off all week, of course waiting for the main racing days to come down, and I mean come down. The DH track was insane on Sunday, it was absolute survival out there. Danny Hart's run - unbelievable. No other words to describe what he did on a bike in those conditions. Hat's off to all the other racers, that was one hell of a hard day at the office - including the press. Sven's camera's all packed up and died as soon as the racing finished - a perfect end to another amazing, crazy season on the road. We did have one more thing to take care of though, the shaving of Gary's beard that he had started to grow at the first World cup of the year and now it was time to get that thing off his face!

2011 World cup season done. Thank goodness. Another hectic few months done, another set of waterproofs that aren't waterproof anymore, thousands of dollars of camera equipment that is either broken or needs some serious attention, a very tired, overworked, but relieved husband. Now the hard work really starts for Sven, to get everything edited and out to his clients. Hats of to you babes - you are amazing!

We do have one more very exciting adventure ahead of us, the Trans Provence 7 day stage race, where we start in Gap and race over 7 days to finish on the beach in Monaco. The best part of it all is, that they only time all the downhills and they have between 4/5 timed downhills per stage! Time to get Sven on the bike and riding, he only has Nicolas Vouilloz, Fabien Barel & Jerome Clementz to beat! I on the other hand cannot wait to have another great adventure with my good friend Tracy Moseley who will also be racing this event.

Check it out here & follow us on our adventure http://www.trans-provence.com/

That's it for now. Time to chill with the family in Vernassal & to enjoy the slower pace of this tiny village.

Peace out.

Anka

x

Whistler adventures with SRAM & ZEP Techniques

It was time to head back to the states for a little while, it has been 6 months since I've been in the US and at our house in Bend, OR. I was heading home to pack it all up - it had finally sold after almost 2 years on the market. Only problem, we had 4 days to pack up our entire house filled with crap accumulated over the past 6 years of living in a house with way too much space to accumulate all this stuff in that we didn't need. We were also heading up to Whistler for the annual Crankworks festival, hard to believe that this would be my 8th Crankworks festival! I was excited, because this year it would be a bit different, I had a full program and many commitments which I was looking forward to, but also sad that I wouldn't be able to do any racing at all - a first for me.

First up was a 3 day SRAM media product launch, where I would be riding & testing the new XO components with invited media in and around the Whistler area, but also away from the maddening crowds out in Pemberton. The plan was to do an epic XC day on some of the Lost Lake trails & also parts of the famous Comfortably Numb trail (which was amazing), then a full DH day in the park and then the grand finale - an enduro day out in Pemberton which I was most excited about. I have heard so many amazing things about the Pemberton trails, and I couldn't wait to go and check them out. Well, the trails were absolute perfection, they were rough and raw and rocky - the complete opposite to the perfection of park, it was natural terrain, and I loved it. It was great to meet, ride and hang with a whole new group of SRAMies that I had never met before. Those guys know how to ride bikes. Hard. Up & down. So much fun!

Even with all the rain, the trails were in perfect hero dirt conditions out in Pemberton. O, I forgot to mention that it rained for 8 days straight, but I guess that is pretty normal for my summers these days. Somehow my summers have switched from swimming in lakes and sunbathing after rides to riding in full rain suits and donning the latest Patagonia fleeces, scarves and jackets apres rides. What is going on with this weather? I digress. Back to Whistler.

With all the rainy weather, comes dirty laundry, and lots of it, but it also gave me a great excuse to leave my bike behind and go to some really great yoga classes in the Village. Something that I would never usually do while up in Whistler, but it was such a great way to get away from the crowds and to just find some peace & quiet before the next big evening out.

The highlight of the whole event for me, was the SRAM World Bicycle Relief concept store that they set up in the old Burton shop for the duration of the event. It was pure class. A whole shop, with tons of goods for sale and all the money would go towards the WBR charity (www.worldbicyclerelief.org). Adrian Marcoux had a beautiful collection of his photographs printed on canvas, that was on silent auction, also to benefit the World Bicycle Relief charity (Sven & I are the happy owners of two of his artworks - yah!). I just loved this idea. It just makes so much sense, and SRAM is such an amazing company that is able to think outside the box.

My last commitment this week was a professional mountain biking coaching course that I was signed up to do. This was a 3 day course, that I was taking with ZEP Techniques to get my coaching qualification, something that I have been wanting to do for a while now, but just never been able to fit into our schedule. Time to be a student. I was super excited, but also nervous, because even though I know how to ride my bike, I didn't know how to teach people how to ride a bike. Thanks to Paul Howard, I now have a much better understanding of how this works, and what I need to do to teach people the valuable skills of riding a bike better. I just need to shut up more, say less, and avoid the phrase "let's play with it". I can't wait to start coaching, and learning how to become a better coach, and hopefully I'll be able to take his Level 2 course sometime in the near future. Check out his website for all the amazing camps & clinics that he has to offer (www.professionalmountainbikeinstructor.com).

So stoked for our good SAFFA friend Andrew for killing it at the races! Loved all the baby bear cubs - too cute for words. Thanks to SRAM for a wonderful product launch, sick riding & delightfully decadent dinners - YUM! All in all a great 10 days up in Canada. A crazy, busy, cold 10 days, but o so much fun!

Next up: Packing up our entire house in 4 days, getting all the paperwork done for the sale of the house, tax appointments, packing for the next 3 months in Europe and doctor's visits galore to get all our medical paperwork & X rays done for our New Zealand work visas. It's going to be hectic. Bring it on!

Peace out

Anka x

my megavalanche (mis)adventure

So I am finally setting myself down in front of my trusty old computer to write a little something something about my megavalanche experience this year. It is pouring with rain outside, all my riding kit is filthy muddy, so I'm manning the laundromat. I have not had the urge to think back about the Mega that much since it finished a week or two ago, nor have I really had much time to gather my thoughts and to actually put some words down as we have been flying, packing up house, signing paperwork to hopefully sell our house, dealing with NZ immigration paperwork, chest  X rays & blood tests (we're from Africa you know), Whistlering it up and getting to ride & hang out with the SRAMies here in Canada. I made a solo mission out to Alpe d'Huez this year for the Megavalance, as my usual riding posse was stuck in Wyndham for the 5th round of the World Cup series. I wasn't going to miss this for anything, so I jam packed my mom's little Cleo and headed out on a road trip, knowing that there would be tons of people I knew out there to ride with.

The weather was perfect and the two tracks were super fun as usual. It is just such an amazing event and between the qualifying track and race track, it covers every possible sort of terrain that you may be looking for. It has a bit of everything, and it puts your skills to test like no other. You feel relieved every time you reach the bottom, it is sketchy, fast, scary and super fun & flowy all at the same time - a great combination for the perfect enduro race and a massive perma-grin that remains on your face all week. It takes a good 2 full days of riding to cover the entire qualifying and race track at least once before the racing starts.

For the qualifying race this year it was the same track as before at the top, but we did some urban slalom, jump, stairs & tunnel type riding before we hit a bermed four cross style track all the way down to the village of Huez where the race ended. The start of this race is always such a complete cluster - it is chaotic with people and bikes everywhere and you just try to remain focused and to look ahead to find your lines. Qualifying went really well for me after a good battle between a few of us girls - of course Anne Caroline Chausson was so far ahead I couldn't even see her, but I had a great ride and ended up in 2nd place - 2min behind her in just under 30min. I was extremely pleased to say the least.

Of course this made me feel a little bit more anxious for race day, just the pressure that you tend to put on yourself to have to try and repeat that. Not an easy feat at an event like the megavalanche where there are so many variables and things that could possibly go wrong. I was well prepared and ready to race though, and it was an all or nothing race for me and I wanted to get back on that box big time!

After a very restless evening of sleep, we all made our way up to the top of the glacier at 6am in the morning - freezing cold and very nervous, but so ready to get this race going. The Euro techno music started blaring, the glacier ice/snow was glistening in the morning sun, the men were all up there to see what they should not be doing during their race the next day and we were lined up and ready to race. I chose to do a running start this year, to get up onto the rocks as soon as possible and off the glacier, and it worked out just like I had hoped for. We were racing. My heart was racing, my breathing was erratic and I was on a mission to get to the bottom. A few of us battled it out on the snow, over the massive off camber ice block and up and down some climbs, but eventually I made the right passes to get out in front of the rest (of course Anne Caroline was ahead and again, not anywhere in sight). I got into a great rhythm and I just rode like I knew how to ride my bike. The gaps started to get bigger and eventually I was riding alone. I had to just keep this going. Breathe, focus, ride. Simple right. Well, not exactly. After being in the 2nd place position for a long time, I felt something that every racer dreads. That feeling of complete disbelief when the back of your bike starts to drift out a bit and you know that you have a flat, but you're in complete denial and you just keep pinning it until the bike kicks you off and smashes you onto the ground. Only then you realize that you actually did have a flat and that that was that. Race over. After you have worked so hard over two days of racing, you feel completely cheated and just pissed off. But, that is racing, and it happens to everyone. As I walked my way down the track, teary eyed, and super disappointed, I managed to cheer on the rest of the girls that were racing past me. This was not easy to do, but what can you do. I still had an amazing qualifier and an amazing week of riding in the French Alps.

I had four hours to deal with my emotions on my drive back to my mom's house and they were pretty angry & emotional, but after the drive, it was time to move on. I had a flight to catch the next morning - back to Bend, OR for the first time in 6 months, I had a house to pack up, I had a husband to see (YAH), Whistler was waiting and we had paperwork to get ready for our new adventure in New Zealand. It was time to let go, and to move on.

I'll be back next year Megavalanche and I can't wait!

Huge big thanks to Dani & SRAM for all your support and help out there - it made the world of difference. You guys ROCK!

Another day has come and gone by here in Whistler, no riding for me today, I need to find some peace & quiet, away from the maddening village of mountain bikers - perfect opportunity for a yoga class. Bliss.

Peace out

Anka

x

thank you SRAM!

We had such an amazing week of riding, testing, shooting & eating cheesy food washing it down with loads of red wine, genepi and flaming shots from a flaming bar counter during the past week in Les Gets, France at the SRAM XO 10 speed DH product launch & media camp. It was great to meet and ride with some of the crew from the Munich & German SRAM headquarters, and of course all the media. It made for some great, very entertaining days out on the bikes. The trails out in Les Gets and the surrounding area are just amazing, it has something to offer to every style of riding and even though the little town was getting ready for their biggest weekend of the year, the Portes de Soleil ride (where 6000 people show up to ride their enduro bikes for 82km all along the Portes route), the trails were still not crowded and we got pretty lucky with the weather.

We had a great day of downhill riding, with trains of up to 25 people at times and Sven trying to shoot all of us. It was a mass photoshoot, with us having a great time ripping down the trails, and Sven stressing out trying to capture everyone. In true SRAM form, we were treated to lunch on top of the mountain in a beautiful restaurant, and they even had a sherbert orange plastic throne chair for HB or Peaty - they had to fight over it, but HB ended up in the throne with the only two girls: Rad & Shred, on either side feeding him grapes (in his dreams).

Every evening was filled with a special delicacy of the region, which always included cheese of some sort. We had fondue, raclette, tartiflette, and some more cheese to end it off. It kept us going strong though on our enduro xc ride the next day. Once again we had a party of 21 people plus our guide Vincent to make sure no one goes missing or gets seriously hurt. It was such a fun day of riding, well, I wouldn't call it riding, we raced everywhere and everyone. It sort of just happens naturally when you ride with a big group of people like that, and of course you have to prove yourself to all the guys when you are only one of two girls out there. It felt like we were having our own private SRAM enduro race with sick lines, passing on the insides, crashing, blocking, but most importantly grinning from ear to ear. Can you believe that no one got lost, no one got seriously injured and we only got 3 flats out of the whole group. Pretty unreal. Great mega training for me too!

We also managed some great photoshoots with Sven, Victor Lucas and the Parkin brothers who were out there doing the filming. I have to say that it was quite unnerving to be on a private shoot with Brendan Fairclough. He just makes everyone else look so awkward on a bike, and you feel like a bit of an idiot trying to hit the same lines (impossible, as he hits all the lines that no one else even thinks about hitting) as him and to try and look as stylish as him. Mmmm, o well, I tried my best.

All in all a great week of riding and testing all the new products with a great crew of people and new friends (Great meeting the crazy Italians - good luck in your quest to marry a Canadian girl and moving to Whistler  Tony Ollywood).

Thanks to Phillip & Dani for all your help to keep my bikes rolling perfectly - they were slaving away all week while we were able to get out and play. Thanks to Altino for organizing everything and I mean EVERYTHING - nothing was ever a problem, not even getting us a last minute private shuttle to the top of the mountain for a quick photo shoot. Thanks to Vincent, our guide for showing us all the sick trails out there. Ricky Bobby - it was so great to have another girl out there to hang with and to ride with - we need more women in this industry to keep the boys in check, and you had the coolest riding outfits EVER! Sven, thanks for making me push my bike up impossibly steep, rooty trails over and over and getting the bangers. Elmar for wanting me to represent and SRAM for giving all the riders and media a new custom SRAM Leatt DBX Pro brace. How freaking cool is that.

Next up Mega Avalancheeeeeeeeee!!!  Then off to another SRAM camp in Whistler for some more bike riding adventures.

Peace out

Anka

x

the (not-so-hot) van chronicles Part 2: Tribesport Enduro race Les Gets, France

Next up was the first French enduro race of the season organized by Fred from Tribe Sports, at Les Gets and yes, of course it was pouring with rain. So much so, that when the afternoon came around and it was still pouring, we went to the LBS and bought 4 mud spikes at full retail! Now that HURT. This was a first (to pay full pop for tires, but also to run full mud spikes front & rear on our Nomad trail bikes). After the first day of racing though we realized that it was the best 200 euro's ever spent. It was like attending a mini world cup of enduro racing, with the legendary Anne Caroline, Sabrina Jonnier, Florian Pugin & Pauline Dieffenthaler all there to play & race in the mud. The enduro races here in France work a bit differently to back home in the US. You show up on Friday, then on Saturday you get to race 2 completely different tracks 3 times on each track -  completely blind. So no practice, just show up and race your first run blind, hopefully know it a bit better by run 2 and then by the 3rd run you should be pinning it. Then just as you start to feel comfortable, you move onto the next track and repeat. So add to this exciting format ZERO visibility, great when you have no idea where to go, torrential downpours and copious amounts of mud which makes using goggles or sunglasses impossible, so you don't use anything and just hope you don't get too much mud caking up your eyes. It was the most fun I've ever had on my trail bike, sliding around with my full spikes hooking up brilliantly everywhere except for the wooden bridge near the finish which kept spitting me out like a pinball machine after every run. Spikes & wood = carnage! I ended up 4th after Saturday's mess of not being able to see and having too many crashes to count.

During all the mayhem, they have great feed stations with all kinds of lovely French treats and drinks and the entry even includes a free dinner & drinks that evening at the restaurant at the top of the mountain. Pretty amazing what you get for a 50 Euro entry fee. The tracks on the Saturday is usually more downhill oriented and around 10 minutes long, while the tracks on the Sunday is a bit more physical lasting up to around 20 minutes a run.

Sunday rolled around with even more rain. Saturday was fun, playing in the mud, but putting on a completely wet, muddy & cold full face helmet and soggy shoes first thing on a Sunday morning takes some of the fun factor out of it. We got ourselves up on the open chair lift ( in the rain of course) for another day of "blind" racing. This time on the other side of the mountain.Today we had one track that we had to race 4 times. When we got off the chairlift at the top of the mountain, we still had another 30 minute or so hike a bike to get to the very top where the race started. Once we got to the start - we were welcomed by falling snow. I aptly renamed the Portes de Soleil to the Porte de Neige (Port of sunshine to Port of snow). It was freezing, and we had to do this 4 more times today.

With frozen hands and feet I set off on my first, blind race run of the day and managed to have a huge over the bars right off the back. The track was covered in gnarly, slippery roots from top to bottom. Cold and sore, you don't get much time to recover as you have to head right back up there to repeat. repeat. repeat. I got stronger after every run, but couldn't make up the time I lost  during my crash and I had to be happy with a 6th place overall for the weekend. Sven rode like a rock star, racing with all the  Dirt crew boys - their main goal was beating ( or trying to beat)  Anne Caroline every run.

All in all though, it was an amazing event. This is what I call the real deal enduro racing. It was hard, challenging physically & mentally, but super fun. Such great value for money - 10 timed runs over 2 days. It is hard to take this too seriously, as so much can happen and go wrong during 10 race runs :)

Thanks to Fred for an amazing event, and for the muddy photo's. I can't wait until the next one.

http://www.tribesportgroup.com/

Peace out

Anka

x

our (sort-of-working) van chronicles part: 1

I have been meaning to do some updates, but I just have not had the time to sit down and actually write them. So here goes: Part One. We just got back from a 3 week trip in the VAN - which we almost thought wouldn't happen at all, because the van is not doing so great lately. Luckily for us she decided to get us to Austria for the world cup, then on to Italy with the Atherton clan, despite a lot of black, bubbling smoke and finally the van made it to Les Gets, France for the Tribesport enduro race and the SRAM product launch & media week.

If I had to describe the trip in one word, it would be RAINYMUDDY & lots of it. In Austria I rode with my full rain suit everyday. Sauze d'Oulx, Italy on the other hand, was a little slice of hidden bike trail heaven and we had 3 days of sunshine where it actually felt like summer. Then it was back to winter in Les Gets where we had 2 days of the toughest conditions of enduro racing that I have ever experienced. Let me back up and start in Italy.

Sauze d'Oulx, Italy is a tiny village in Northern Italy, located about 80km from Turin. Really famous for it's winter fun, it is fast becoming very popular in the summer for their bike parks & amazing trail network consisting of 3 valleys, 8 towns (Sestriere, Bardonecchia, Cesana, Pragelato, Prali, Claviere, Chiomonte & Sauze d'Oulx), 8 chair lifts & 2 gondola's that provides you with over 50 free ride routes and hundreds of kilometers of xc trails.

We went out there for a photo shoot that Sven had to do with the Atherton's as they are one of their sponsors and they wanted to get some shots of them riding and enjoying what the area has to offer. You know you are in a cool village when your van can't fit through the narrow little streets and you have to park far away from where you are staying and get guided to the chalet by the little old local ladies. A town with so much history, the church dates back to 1300. Hard to comprehend coming from a "new" country.

Enrico was the perfect guide along with everyone else that really made this trip very special. The chair lifts were not open yet, but that was not a problem as we got shuttled up to the top of various mountains by locals from the village in 4x4 vans, trucks, home made trailers and big Red. Gondola lifts were opened especially for us in Bardonecchia, which was unreal. We had the entire mountain to play on with no -one else around. A definite first for me. Nothing was a problem. I love that about the Italians. There is a solution for everything, they feed you until your stomach is about to burst and then some more, and their infectious passionate attitude is something we can all learn from. These people are passionate about their bike parks and I can see why. It is almost too good to tell people about it, out of fear of spoiling the un spoilt. I can't wait to get back there though at the beginning of August for the Enduro des Nations race that they will be hosting at Sauze d' Oulx.

Thanks to Enrico for your passion & amazing organization, the Atherton's for letting me ride bikes with them, the Faure Chalet for giving us internet & a bed to sleep in & the L' Asiette restaurant for adding those extra few pounds. You guys are amazing and your beautiful trails make me giddy just thinking about them.

Peace out

Anka x

Check out this link if you want to come do some seriously fun riding & racing:

www.superenduromtb.com

www.alpibikeresort.com

a different view.

We have been in Leogang, Austria for the past few days now for the 3rd round of the DH World Cup series. The rain has been relentless, but we expected it, so no surprise there. Sven has to shoot in the rain and the riders have to ride & race in the rain, so I had no excuses not to join them. The rain has been nonstop for the past four days, and as soon as the  final race was done, it all cleared up as the sun came out to remind us that it was actually June and actually summer time here in Europe. A world cup race is quiet a frantic affair. Pits get put up, bikes get prepped, riders are rushing around, riding, warming up, shooting the shit. It is like a circus village that moves from one place to the next, arriving in these little sleepy mountain towns and stirring up quite a presence for the next few days. Everyone is busy with something or other related to this bike race. So when you attend one of these events, and you don't have anything to do with it, like racing or working it, it can become quite an overwhelming experience.

For me, the best part of coming along to these races is the fact that I am able to grab a map and escape the hustle and bustle of the racing village to go explore the surrounding mountains on my bike. The scenery here is beyond spectacular. The mountains don't look real, they are so picturesque. Everything is electric green, with waterfalls cascading from every crevasse, perfect Austrian cows with bells around their necks on every hilltop surrounded by the perfect wooden Austrian houses that are scattered across the mountains - some in such crazy locations, it looks like someone just threw a bunch of houses from the sky and they just dropped randomly across the land. Everything is steep. I mean really, really steep like you have to ride pretend switchbacks to get to the top steep. This is most definitely chocolate bar wrapper country with Heidi & Peter frolicking around every corner.

To me there is something very special about going solo. Just me, my endless thoughts, some good music, and the pitter patter of the never ending rain falling on my noisy rain suit. My knees are tender as I write this, from mashing my bike up the steeper than usual mountains, but somehow this is such a satisfying feeling to me. Crazy? Maybe.

I saw a whole different world and had a completely different experience to the one that was going on in the very same place. I was there, but completely removed. They were racing, Sven was shooting and I was exploring and experiencing another side of Leogang.

I saw the oddest things over the past few days - completely different to the usual things I encounter on a bike ride. Check out some of my snaps - this was my view of the world cup weekend in Austria.

700 bikes to Zambia!

This is such exciting news to us. YAH! It makes all the hard work and hours we spent in saddle so worth while & it is the most rewarding feeling to know that you were able to make a small difference in the lives of 700 children by giving them the freedom, pride & joy of owning their own bicycle to improve the quality of their lives.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone that supported Tracy & I on our Epic mission!

peace out.

Anka x

See press release from Rebecca below:

The numbers are in and we are happy to announce that the Cape Epic Challenge rasied $94,177 for World Bicycle Relief's Bicycles for Educational Empowerment Program. With each WBR bike costing $134 to distribute, this tally will provide more than 700 bicycles to students in Zambia.

A big thank you goes out to everyone that helped to make this challenge possible:

The riders...

Tracy Moseley Anka Martin Andy Ording Todd Winget Bart Brentjens Jeroeon Boelen Jelmer Pietersma Jukka Vastaranta

The support... Rob Cunnington (Cycles Africa) Sven Martin (photography) Martijn Merkx (SRAM) Andy Paskins (Zipp) Morgan Meredith (SRAM) Bob de Wit (Trek) FK and Stan Day (SRAM) Kevin Vermaak and the rest of the wonderful Absa Cape Epic Staff

rural racing, red wine & madeleines.

I was quite gutted not being able to make it to the world cup in Scotland this past weekend, mainly because I wanted to see Clay Porter's new movie 3MG, o yes, and of course watch the racing and ride SICK Scottish hero dirt trails….but, I couldn't go, so I decided to have my own little world cup here in the small village in France where I've been staying. There was a 45km xc race happening, and I was going to give it my best shot and pretend that I was in Scotland. I had all the Scottish elements, a ton of mud, cloudy skies, rain storms and an odd, but fun group of really powerful French dudes from the deep countryside. Upon first glance, most of them looked like local farmers on really clapped out bikes, but man were they strong.

Of course I couldn't understand a word of anything that was going on, and I had no idea what they were telling all the riders in detail before the start, but it was a fun atmosphere with funny French music and before I knew it we were off. I didn't expect the amazing turnout of almost 250 entrants - it just goes to show that mountain biking is alive and kicking, even in small, rural towns out in the sticks. I wanted to try and push as hard as I could, and it was hard! The 45km route was really steep with loads of mud and it took me 3hours to finish - putting me in the top 10 with the men. I was pleased and I was knackered all at once and for the remainder of the day I had an annoying cough and wheezing lungs!

The feed stations were amazing filled with cakes, pastries and all sorts of yummy treats - not your average sort of feed station. The first feed station was in the town where my sister lives - right outside their gate in fact, so it was fun getting cheered on by them and all the Vernassal locals. At the finish, instead of having some thick recovery type drink, we had cups of red wine and Kir of course, and some scary looking sausage type meats and pates - not ideal being a vegetarian in this part of the world. Unreal what a cup of red wine does to you after three hours of exertion. Only in France.

I wish I could have chatted to more of the people to find out what they were all about, but we did manage to communicate somehow, and it was fun. It always amazes me at how wonderful mountain biking is and what a great tool it is to meet new people and how you can communicate with strangers who can't even speak the same language. Thanks to my bike and this event, I was embraced into a completely new cycling community without having to say a word.

Thanks to the person who e-mailed me these pics & to the lady that kept appearing everywhere cheering me on with bon courage!

peace out

Anka

x

bienvenue europa.

Bonjour to the hustle & bustle of the street cafe's and all the fashion & creative stimulation of Paris for a few days before we  headed down south to the Haute Loire countryside, to a tiny little village (small enough to not have street names just yet) where my sister has lived for the past 10 years and where my parents live for about 6 months of every year. Everything is electric green and in full bloom after the long winter and gardening & planting veggies is to them what cycling is to us. It is an obsession & a constant ongoing project of learning & trying new methods of perfecting your passion and doing what you love.

I could get used to this laid back lifestyle - for a little while anyways.  It definitely gets you to reconnect with the rhythms of the land & the seasons, which in turn gets you to somehow reconnect with yourself. Life is basic & very uncomplicated here - as a visitor that is. A typical day starts by lazing with my morning coffee, keeping all the crankbrothers customers happy (hopefully), ride & explore on my bike, followed by some yoga and then the obligatory red wine, mom's yummy food  & then bedtime. Repeat. Simple. Happy.

Check out some of my hipstamatic shots in and around Paris & life in the village of Vernassal pics will follow in next post ( Yes, I got sucked into the whole hipstamatic thing too, but I love it!).

Peace out.

Anka

Adieu Cape Town, it was a pleasure. Next stop - Europe.

Aaaahhhh, the summer in Cape Town has come to an abrupt end with frequent rain bouts and beautiful fall colors replacing the parched vineyards. Dry, dusty earth has become hero dirt overnight and the crisp, cool air is just perfect for a mid day bike ride. This sounds lovely, and I enjoy the change of season, for a little while, but then I've had enough and I'm ready for summer weather and blue skies once again. Of course there is always a tinge of sadness when we get ready to pack up and move on again, the good byes, the familiarity, the beautiful trails and nature you've got used to again, but I think it must be mostly the memories that makes it sad to leave a place.  All the fun summer memories and adventures that we experienced on our bikes, at the beach, in the mountains, with wild animals and the challenges that we yet again overcame - this time I completed my 4th Cape Epic with my good friend Tracy Moseley & became the DH National champ. Sven on the other hand had to overcome a massive spider bite he got in Botswana, that put him out of action for weeks.

Anyhow, there is no point in reminiscing in the past, it is time to leave, to say good bye for now and to move on to the next set of adventures, trails, scenery, sunsets, friends and family. It is time to move into our trusty or not- so- trusty  Renault van again for the next few months of traveling between events and squeezing in some fun in-betweeners as we plod along the Autobahn.

Sometimes this nomadic way of life can get a bit much, but then again, would I rather be sitting in some office cubicle? I don't think so. I wouldn't want to change my lifestyle for anything right now. Well, I would like to have a veggie garden, but I can wait a little longer for some homegrown tomatoes.

Peace out.

Anka

Cape Epic update: 8 days, 48 hours in the saddle, 707km, 14550m of climbing with copious amounts of bum cream & mini banana muffins later.

This past week has been quite a strange week. It is the week after the finish of the Cape Epic and with that comes some strange, sad, sort of empty, anti climatic feelings and emotions. After so many weeks and months of preparation, it is suddenly all over, with no more 3-4 hour training days and preparation of all sorts of stuff. It feels like I have way too much time on my hands now and I’m not really sure what to do with this new concept, already thinking about and planning the next challenge and adventure. Tracy and I had an amazing week at the Cape Epic. The weather was abnormally cool and overcast, even raining the one day which made the long, exposed days very bearable and pleasant. The route this year was extremely scenic and we rode through and up and over some beautiful nature reserves and Fynbos clad mountains. It felt like we literally covered the entire Western Cape and rode over every mountain that appeared.

We were perfectly matched in every aspect, and made a great team with our main goal to enjoy all the downhills and to smoke some xc bandits on all the descents (Only to be passed back by some of them come the first climb). We both hated the morning starts with all the frantic people sprinting out as if we had a 2 hour ride ahead of us, only to pass them hours later after they were spent. We both hated the flat fire road stages when the packs of roadie pelotons would come screaming past us, way too fast for us to try and stick with a group for even a little while. We both had no problem enjoying all the yummy treats at the various feed stations and it felt like we never stopped eating – ever. Tracy and I both loved and excelled during the tough stages with the rough, loose technical climbs and challenging sand sections and generally ended up getting better results during those stages.

All in all we had a perfect week of riding with a perfectly matched partnership. Our knee's held up, our bums held up and we still had a pretty good sense of humor by the end of every grueling day. Pretty amazing considering we did zero training together and our first xc ride together was a day or so before the race started. We ended up a respectable 306th out of the 603 teams that entered and 15th in the Women’s category. Not too shabby for some downhillers.

Thanks to Rob from Africa Cycles, we didn’t have to worry about the maintenance of our bikes, and they felt and looked brand new and shiny every morning. We didn’t have one flat tire or one mechanical between the two of us all week, which is pretty unbelievable considering the rough terrain and the massive devil thorns scattered across the route. A huge thank you also goes out to all our supporters along the way, the family, friends, the screaming school kids and cheering farm workers. Your smiling, happy faces really made the daily long slog a little bit easier and more enjoyable. Also a big shout out to my amazing sponsors who helped to make all of this possible: crankbrothers, FOX clothing, SRAM, Rockshox, Santa Cruz Bicycles - you guys ROCK!

The greatest motivation for me this year was to be riding for a cause such as World Bicycle Relief. So far we have managed to raise US$62 000, together with the other teams and are hoping to raise some more money to go to our cause of donating bikes to 10 different schools in Zambia. For more information on our fundraiser and to donate, please check out our blog/website at: http://capeepicchallenge.blogspot.com/

Now that it is all over, with my 4th Epic completed, it is time for Tracy to go and focus on what she does best – racing downhill very fast and for me to start plotting and planning the rest of my summer racing enduro events, undertaking some more crazy adventures with my beloved trail bike and submerging myself in lots and lots of yoga!

Peace out.

Anka

South African national DH champs

This past weekend we had our South African National DH Championships out here on a farm called Contermanskloof just outside of Cape Town. It was a hot, dusty & very dry weekend of riding as Cape Town has been experiencing a crazy heat wave over the last two weeks with temperatures reaching into the 40 degree Celsius mark. A perfect weekend for the beach, not that ideal for downhill gear and full-face helmets though. I saw this weekend as a great opportunity to take a break from my Cape Epic training and to step away from the little bike for a few days of fun on my downhill rig. Training for the Epic can get a little bit boring and tedious after a while, so I was ready to get back on my big bike for a weekend of shredding some downhill’s on my brand new Santa Cruz Carbon V10! I knew Tracy was out in Spain with her team for some downhill testing and riding, so I didn’t feel guilty either, we were both having a weekend off our training bikes to keep the stoke alive.

You start off thinking that you’re just going to have fun out there, because of the upcoming Cape Epic and the fact that you have a team mate to think about and all the time and effort that you have put into your training and so on, so you start off by taking it easy but then after a while you start getting confident and you get back into race mode. After all it was the National Champs, and it had a nice ring to it. Before you know it, you are hitting road gaps, big doubles and smashing through rock gardens. All the things I was worried and concerned about was tossed out the window, and all I could think about was how freaking fun that was, how I almost ate shit so many times and how alive I felt. The Adrenaline was pumping through my veins and I couldn’t get rid of the perma-grin on my face. The Cape Epic was a distant memory, I had a race to race and I wanted to give it my all. After a long, dusty and extremely hot weekend I stood on the top of the podium – I won the national champs. I was in one piece. I was stoked.

I definitely needed this three day break to remind me just how much I love riding my bike and to feel mentally refreshed and energized going into the last two weeks of training that has to be done before the start of the Cape Epic. Tracy also had a fun week of riding and returned back to the UK safe & sound. No more distractions for us now, our only focus is the Cape Epic that is 17 days away from the start. Our downhill bikes will have to wait a few more weeks till we can go out and play again.

Please help us make a difference and pledge some support to World Bicycle Relief bringing bikes to Africa and changing lives. http://capeepicchallenge.blogspot.com/

Time to reflect - Urge Cabo Verde

I am sitting outside on my parent’s porch, drying out in the sun from a quick dip in the pool, eating ice- cold watermelon and guzzling down water by the gallons.  We arrived in a very hot & dry Cape Town, South Africa this past weekend, so I am still trying to adapt to this intense summer heat. Finally I have some time to reflect upon the amazing adventure, race & overall life experience that we just returned from. The URGE Cabo Verde invitational was truly a very special humanitarian event that I will cherish forever and I feel very proud to have been a part of it.

Flipping through hundreds of Sven’s stunning photo’s, I cannot help but feel sad to be off the colorful islands with all its’ happy people. The people of the Cape Verde islands know how to live. They are some of the richest people (culturally) that I have ever met. Happily living with next to nothing. To us it seems like nothing, but they have what matters. They have their families, crops, wine, music, culture, exquisite nature, time, patience and that freedom of not revolving your life around materialistic bullshit. We can all learn from this content and peaceful nation. I love these kinds of adventures, because it really just puts everything into perspective.

If there ever had to be a huge disaster affecting the whole world, I really do think that this archipelago of Islands will remain untouched and unharmed and that the people will just carry on with their lives without ever realizing what happened in the outside world. That is how remote they felt to me, out in the middle of the big blue Atlantic Ocean.

The focus of the URGE event/race was more about the humanitarian impact that we could offer than the actual racing. We were all told to race at 85% of our ability, as we were very far away from any kind of hospital, and we had no access to a helicopter for emergency rescues and there were 1000foot drops offs backing the countless slippery switchbacks. The fact that we had no idea what the four different racetracks looked like didn’t help either. Try telling 10 time World DH Champion, Nicolas Vouilloz or current World DH champion Tracy Moseley to only race at 85% of their potential – not possible when you are dealing with racers and a timing device! I am not sure how, but somehow all 15 of us racers made it through all 4 races with no helicopter rescue needed. The tracks were insane, and some sections completely unrideable, but it was oh so much fun!

Besides the amazing races we did, we visited the school that we were raising funds for. It was the first time that I had been back in a school environment since I left it a long time ago. We spent the whole morning in various classrooms meeting the students and teachers, exchanging stories and learning about their culture while enjoying some traditional food that was made especially for our visit. Students were fluent in up to 4 different languages, some even more, putting all of us to shame.  It was a real eye opener, and this visit to the school was a great reassurance of the purpose of our trip in Cabo Verde. There were so many highlights on this trip, and I’d like to share a few with you:

The ferry ride to the Volcano Island of Fogo, was most definitively not one of them. It was four hours of torture, trying not to vomit when absolutely everyone around you was vomiting. The worst part of it was that we had to get back on the ferry 2 days later and repeat the above.

Having to hike to the top of a volcano with my bike was a first. One step up, three steps down. Then having to race down the volcano on my bike was another first. The fact that I was the (un)lucky one that got to race down first and had no tracks to follow was another first. I guess someone had to show those pro guys how to do it!

Meeting Cesaria Evora was really special. I have been a fan of her music for a long time. She invited all 25 of us into her humble home for grog or punch as she called it. A traditional rum and sugar cane concoction that was rather harsh on an empty, post sea- sick ferry stomach, but drink we did. It is not everyday that you get to raise a glass with an absolute legend.

Leaving all our bikes on the back of a small pick up truck in the street in front of our accommodation for the night, with no locks, gates, guards or garages in sight. A nervous 15 riders went to bed hoping to see their beloved bikes in the morning. (Of course mine was at the end – so first to go if someone decided to steal them). That doesn’t happen on these islands. My faith has been restored. Poverty does not have to lead to theft.

The small ferryboat ride to Santa Antao was such a great experience. We were lucky enough to sit out in the open, on the floor and witness a group of incredibly passionate and talented guys practicing Capoeira, singing  & dancing. The music was so infectious you couldn’t sit still, you had to move, clap and sing, and before we knew it we arrived in Santa Antao with no seasickness in sight, ready for the next adventure.

Our second race almost didn’t happen because of logistical problems with half the bikes not making it on the plane, but thanks to Fred & Manu, they rented a yacht and got the rest of the bikes to Santa Antao. It was a stressful day filled with planes, boats, taxi’s and building up bikes at breakneck speeds on the side of a road, throwing on some gear and starting our hike up into the wind and clouds late in the afternoon. The race was on. It was rather nerve racking at the top with zero visibility, howling winds, a day nearing its end, and us having to race down the other side completely blind. This was exciting. While waiting for my race run, I’ll never forget Nico’s face as he came running back up the track after walking down a ways to scope it out, he looked at me and said  (in a very French accent): “Zere iss ziss rock slab, iiit iiiiss veryyy sketchy, wet, and you can die, you must not ride it, you get off your bike, ok.”  When Nicolas Vouilloz tells you something, you better listen. It was a crazy track, and I just wanted to get down safe. Halfway down the track, the mist lifted and it was a sight that I will never forget. It was the most incredible view of the most amazing valley and I just had the biggest smile on my face. I loved every minute of this and giggled all the way down to the finish line. It wasn’t about the race, it was about the ride, the place, the camaraderie between friends and the people we were here to help.  I got two second place finishes, but ended up in third place overall behind Tracy & Sabrina with the combined time of the four races – only 1 minute back from Sabrina!

We all received these really special one of a kind volcano rock mask trophies, hand carved by a local Fogo artisan called Tarzan. A great gift to cherish this amazing adventure and to remind me of the amazing people, hospitality and the beautiful islands of Cabo Verde.

Mountain of hell mayhem

Well, the Mountain of Hell race lived up to it's name for me last weekend. We had another amazing week of riding in the French Alpes, at Les deux Alpes this time. Great weather, great friends and really good trails. After a slow start due to complete and utter fatigue after the Mega, I really got into these tracks and was super excited to get racing again. The qualifying track was incredibly technical, more so than the Mega track and would be way more suited on a DH bike, but my new Carbon Nomad was absolutely incredible. The best bike ever! After a crazy start on a wide fire road, the track went straight up the steepest two climbs. I got the whole shot at the start and then battled it out on the climbs with two other girls. It was insane how steep this was right after the start when you are completely frantic and your lactic levels are sky high. I got passed on the climb, but managed to overtake again on the next downhill section. From there on I got into a great rhythm  and managed to get quite a big lead on the girls, only to get a front flat. Bummer. This meant I got a bad start position for race day on the glacier. O boy, and bad it was. Line 20 for the start on the glacier for me.

I tried to make the best of a pretty bad situation and still had my eye on the podium. I knew it could be done and I was ready to dig deep. Very deep. The glacier was amazing, it was hard and fast and I managed to get by a lot of people and get back into the mix of the girls. I was back in business, until I realized I had a rear flat. That was that. No chance of the podium for me today. After that realization, I stayed calm, changed my flat and just rode down the track to enjoy the whole experience, to soak up the amazing views and to see how many guys I was able to pass. I managed to still end up in 7th place. Not too shabby considering this was a weekend of mechanical hell for me from the get go.

Sven, on the other hand, killed it. He finished in 9th place overall - putting him in 3rd place for the Masters category. He was second off the glacier and finally had a good run at a race. Awesome.

Thanks again to all for a great weekend of riding.

Cheers!

Anka