Another awesome week has already gone by. The Champery world cup may have been the craziest race I’ve ever done. And mostly do to the toughness of the course and nasty condition it was in. Near the back we seriously ran close to ½ of the entire 1st lap. After that I got in 2 solid laps, and had moved up some to finish in the 130s out of 170 or so starters…

The few days since then have been spent with some amazing travels and great dinners. We spent 2 nights near Nice in a very cool town on the steep hills above the Sea. The beaches were nice, roads were crazy, and the neighborhood / town we were in was all cobbled walkways (no room for cars) between the houses and restaurants. After that we literally spent the night in a castle (all by ourselves) in the Piacenza region of Italy. It’s was crazy – too long of a story to go into now. 

Val di Sole (here in the Dolomites) is beautiful and weather perfect after a torrential downpour Thursday. It’s like a beautiful mountain valley in Colorado, only a much lower elevation. I only went over the bars twice while pre-riding yesterday since the course is a little less technical than last week! It’s still probably more technical than anything else I’ve raced this year. A bigger factor will be the steepness of the climbs. They’re all short, but there are about 10 per lap (for 6 laps…) and almost all of them will have me in my smallest gear! I’m hoping for good enough legs to improve on last week, but it will be tough since the field somehow increased to 205 riders for this afternoon!

Paying for internet by the hour here so I’ll have to wait to get home for some photos. Time to suit up…

Bonjour!

Switzerland is amazing! We have spent the entire week checking out cool little villages and driving to some incredible mountains.

All you can eat chocolate at the Collier Chocolate Factory.  Rode to Lauterbrunnen (foot of the Eiger in the Alps) and met Beth, Holly and Noah for the gondola and train to Murrin.  Climbed (on bike of course) to Col De Jamen, 2hrs and 4,500ft  above our apartment in Montreux on some killer mountain roads.  Various adventures involving our rented VW Caddy Life.  Lunch in Chaminox at the foot of Mont Blanc.  Dinner at the restaurant / home du Pont in one of the coolest historic streets here in Montreux.

And we're just getting started with the World Cup in Champery tomorrow.  175 men ready for chaos on 4km of impossibly muddy, technical trails at the base of some more crazy alps.  Pre-riding was tough with lots of walking and tri-poding in the mud while only smoothly railing a few sections of the course.  It all ended with my derailleur and hanger ripped from the frame and snapped in half.  Standing in the woods on the other side of the world with no support I really thought I got myself in too deep going for the world cups.

But with a little prayer (and help from Shimano) things came back together and tomorrow I'll give it a go.  I've had a good balance of enjoying the experience on this trip while staying fresh enough to give the races my best shot.  I've realized that this may not be the time and place for me to reach new levels in my performance though.  Finding my full potential is ultimately what I'm after in racing - even more so than results or being able to say I've raced a world cup.  This is more about the experience of lining up along the best in the world and seeing what is possible so I can continue going after breakthroughs of my own...

World Bicycle Relief Fundraiser

Please help me support a great cause and donate here! 

http://profundraiser.blogspot.com/

Thank you!

All Mountain World Championships

The self proclaimed Downieville all mountain race lived up to it's reputation this year with killer trails, tough racing, and great times hanging out by the river.

The footbridge was the only way to the cabin

Sean ripping one of the sweet sections of trail

Paul after the xc...

I should have been fighting for the top 5 but was slightly off my game... on Sunday I flatted twice in the downhill

Great email before stepping off the grid in Downieville this weekend

We confirm you that the following rider has been registered for the 2010 UCI MTB World Cup - Champéry:

UCI Code : USA19810418
Family Name : WEBER
Given Name : Dana
Race Type : XCO
National Outfit : no

More Training

Wow, another week has flown by. A lot has been happening since my 7 sisters ride last weekend. 5 days of work obviously, but also a lot of training and some trip / race prep...

Tuesday night I made it out to the Over the Hump training race at Irvine Lake for the first time this summer. It's an awesome event with close to 300 racers per week! The course is open and easy, but makes for good training, and the best part is that probably 75% of the racers are complete beginners to sport level riders. There are a ton of mountain bikers in Orange County, most don't race, and this event has some of them giving it a try (and coming back for more). Oh, I was feeling good and was able to ride away with it for a little confidence boost.

Thursday evening I did the training crit at the Irvine "Great Park" which is not great and not a park yet - still just on old air base. Flat, wide open and windy, it was even better training for me, and I certainly wasn't close to winning anything with some guys like Bahati there. Friday I took a long lunch and got a massage - something I almost never do - and the results were pretty good with fresh legs again Saturday. Rode to Old Camp with Noah and just went tempo up the climb, with a respectable time under 44min. Then Sunday I did the fastest version of the Como ride I've seen all summer. I guess there were no road races over the weekend because there were a lot of strong racers there pushing the pace. I didn't get to pull as much as normal, but still got a couple all out efforts in.

Now rest and back to work for a few days before Dville! Staying busy but life is good!