We arrived on Saturday. The weatherforecast  wasn’t that good, but it was even worse than I expected: snow! I’m not such a fan of riding in the cold. Plus: I hate riding on a muddy track.
In the freezing cold I did 3 practice runs.
My race run didn’t went really well.  On the first drop I landed pretty uncomfortable, so I had to do my best to clear the gap that was behind the next corner…. I slipped away in the corner, so cased the gap… aaarg, I hate mud! But I had to ride on…. Unfortunately I found out my gears didn’t work….
I didn’t clean my bike before the racerun, cuz I thought it wouldn’t make a difference…
I finished in a 4^th time with 2.07. Not really happy with my run, but I couldn’t do better at the moment, so this is the way it is.

The next morning I woke up and looked out of the window and my worst nightmare seems to be true: snow again! But the nightmare turned into sweet dreams when the sun started shining.
When we arrived at the bikepark, the track looked pretty dry. Ohyeah, this is the way I like it!
I did 2 practice runs, it felt pretty much the same like last weekends training. So I was pretty confident about the upcoming racerun.
All the other girls seemed to be really serious. To quote Ernestine: ‘You’re the only one who’s still smiling’. I was, because I was really looking forward to the run! I wasn’t nervous at all.
Once I started the racerun it felt good. But the drop I failed yesterday went wrong again! People told me I took the most stupid line there is. Most of the time others are right, so in my racerun I tried a different line, but it didn’t work out well. I stayed on my bike, but I had to do my best to get my bike back under control, but the dry track made it much easier to clear the small gap.  Then I just thought: pedal pedal pedal, faster, faster, faster.  It went okay , but made me tired at the same time. So I took my time to sit back on the saddle to ‘reload’.  The rest of the run went okay, it felt pretty fast.
Result: 2^nd time, 1.54. It was even faster than I thought.

I’m pretty satisfied with the first race-weekend of the year:  I had lots of fun with my friends and other people I already knew or have met this weekend. Besides the good times with friends I did some pretty decent riding. What else do we need in life?

Let’s ride!

Afgelopen weekend ben ik samen met Eelke naar Malmedy gegaan om ons voor te bereiden op de wedstrijd aanstaand weekend. Niet dat we nu zo heel serieus aan het ‘trainen’ zijn geslagen, maar een paar keer de track afrijden kan geen kwaad.
Zelf liet ik de track eigenlijk altijd een beetje links liggen. De dropjes en gapjes zagen mij er niet heel aantrekkelijk uit, dus ik had ze nog nooit gereden. Hoe raar zou het zijn om in een wedstrijd erlangs te rijden… dus toch maar even proberen. Ik had altijd het idee dat het rotdingen waren, maar het bleek behoorlijk mee te vallen. Sterker nog: het is eigenlijk best leuk.

Daar waar ik vorige keer dat ik in Malmedy was (paar maanden terug) de eerste tafel nog niet eens haalde, moest ik nu mijn best doen om niet te ver er overheen te vliegen. Ging lekker dus!
Ook Eelke had de smaak goed te pakken. Vooral in het bos merkte ik dat ik echt full gas moest geven om Eelke bij te houden! Maar er is niets mooiers dan rijden met iemand die je kan uitdagen, dus zeker een goede oefening om net wat harder te rijden dan ik in mijn eentje zou doen.

Nu maar hopen dat ik het tijdens de wedstrijd wel voor elkaar krijg om in m’n eentje een beetje door te rijden, want daar ligt volgens mij nog mijn grootste probleem: de race-spirit ontbreekt er nog wat aan.

Tijd om de spullen in te gaan pakken en de bike aan een laatste grondige check te ondervinden. Morgenochtend in alle vroegte rijden we naar Malmedy. Ik heb er in ieder geval heel veel zin in!

However, this wasn’t supposed to be on the environmental aspect of this sport. I just wanna share my enthousiasm about upcoming season! A few weeks ago bikepark Winterberg announced to kickoff early April, that’s only 2 weeks from now on!
The first downhillraces will be held within a month. I’m excited about that. But a little nervous as well: I haven’t been on my bike for more than a month. Not even my crosscountry bike!
I still spent most of my time in the gym, about 5 times a week these. I improved my strenght, that’s for sure, but how will this effect my downhill riding? We’ll see….

Don’t forget to sign up for this seasons first downhill race on April 9th: Nissan downhill cup, Malmedy, Belgium!
I’m not sure who else will join me at this race… probably the girls at Team Fietsshop Uitgeest. I can’t wait for our friendy girl-competition

See you on the trails!

Voor wie: alle vrouwelijke mtb-ers, zowel beginners als gevorderden
Waarom: ook wel eens leuk, een clinic zonder haantjesgedrag
Wat: die net even vervelende dingetjes kunnen oefenen zoals: bochtjes, klimmen zonder afstappen, moeilijk afdalen, dropjes.
Tijdstip: 18 maart 09.00 uur (± 3,5 uur)
Startlocatie: Harderwijk, Watertorenweg, parkeren bij het inrijden van de weg (zijweg van de leuvenumseweg) Harderwijk-zuid

Grotere kaart weergeven

Kosten: € 5,=

Het is prettig dat je, als je komt je via Facebook of het formulier hier op: http://bikeblog.nl/trainingsdag-max-de-vries/ aanmeld.

Meenemen: MTB, Helm, eten en drinken, regenjasje etc

Meer info:

http://maxdevries.eu
http://www.bikeblog.nl/trainingsdag-max-de-vries
http://www.teamfietsshopuitgeest.nl

Vragen of aanmelden

http://bikeblog.nl/trainingsdag-max-de-vries/

I’ve been riding a lot last season, did some German races and a lot of riding with friends.
Highlight: 3 weeks of riding in Switzerland and Portes du Soleil. I did Trek Bike Attack and had a great 2 weeks in Morgins with Dutch organization MTBM (www.mtbm.nl, check it out!)
I’d never been in Switzerland before, so I was overwhelmed by the awesomeness of riding my bike in ‘the real mountains’. But…. those serious trails made me think again about my bike. I love my Transition Bottlerocket, but the more I ride, the more I face the limits of this 140mm bike. My Transition always felt like the right bike for me, because I like all kinds of riding. But I couldn’t improve my downhill skills no more with this bike. So I got myself a brand new 2011 Trek Session!

I had a first ride with my new bike in Willingen, early November. I was pretty amazed how smooth a downhillbike rides. I never liked the Willingen downhill, but with this bike I love the track! It felt like I’d never been riding this fast. In only one day it felt like my downhillskills improved with 150%. I even hit the roadgap, I never did before. I was pretty happy about that!
At the end of the day I realized it would be the last day of the ‘summer’ season and my bike has to wait a long time before it will be ridden again.

Meanwhile I’m just hanging around in the gym for some strength training and spinning lessons. And some mountainbiking in the weekends. Mostly xc-riding (although I still hate riding my bike while it’s raining and mud’s all over the place). Every now and then I get my downhillbike for some riding in Malmedy.

That’s it for now. I’ll keep you updated about what’s going on this cold winterdays to prepare for 2012′s season!

That’s right, that’s the starting list of the Trek Bike Attack 2012: and apart from the two dutch teams (we’ve got a friendly competition going on between the riders from Teamfietsshopuitgeest.nl and Freeride4girls.nl, even though we’re all Freeride4girls.nl in our hearts). 7 + 1 women from the lowlands, how amazing is that?! This face-off is going to be a gruesome one with all these talented women at the start.

So, as you can see, our riding is still going strong, now our writing…

So, what’s going on?
I’ve been riding a lot this season! I did a lot of awesome freeriding with friends, did some downhill races and I just got back from the best biketrip so far: Trek Bike Attack.