Durbach

We are now in Germany where we will be based for the next 3 weeks. The Offenburg World Cup will be held here in 3 weeks time and it is a great place to be based to get some quality training in.

Durbach is a small quaint village that is surrounded by vineyards, and apple orchards.

The quaint main street of Durbach

We are staying in a small apartment at the bottom of a big German house, this seems to be a very common set up. As it is quite a touristy area, most of the families in the area have a guest house on their property.

This is the families home and farm, quite the set up!

The family we are staying with has 3 generations living on the same property, they have been making wine and schnapps here since 1782! The owner gave us a tour of his distillery, where they make the wine and schnapps, we also had a tasting, the schnapps sure does take your breath away!

About 2km up the road there is Durbach’s ver y own castle, now days they have functions and wine tastings here. It is quite a spectacular view down into Durbach.

Houffalize World Cup # 2

Wouldn’t you know it, for the entire week we had beautiful warm sunny weather and come race day it had dropped to about 8 degrees was pouring with rain, not the most appealing race weather! I find racing in cold wet weather itself not so bad it’s just the time you need to take warming up getting saturated then sitting around and getting cold waiting for the race to start. It also makes for a huge clea up job after the race, soaking clothing, getting all the grit and mud out of the bikes drive train etc.

As predicted the start loop was absolute mayhem, the 19% street climb was real hard, I pretty much died about half way up and fell back through the field, then the decent down to the course was incredible, at some points I was at a complete stand still as the entire field tried to fit single file into the narrow single track, meanwhile the riders at the front of the race were half way round the course, such is world cup racing!

This is the view from the start loop over to the main climbing sections of the course. The track went up this slope on two different tracks and also down on two different tracks, The organisers like to have it all in a compact area as it is good for the spectators!

Due to the amount of steep climbing the course (290m each lap x 4) it was always going to be tough in the dry but the rain just took it to another level. The steady rain that we had overnight and prior to the race had really changed the way I raced the course, cornering was tricky and quite hard to stay on the bike without loosing traction, the gears I were using were totally different as there was so much more drag due to the mud.

So I ended up being pulled off the course 1 lap down, due to my lap times falling below 80% of the leaders lap time. This is always a frustrating result, not having the opportunity to finish the race can be quite disheartening, but out of 125 starters only 70 odd managed to get through to finish the race.

Having finished my race I always look forward to watching the men’s race, perhaps it’s because I know how much it hurts!! The men have an even tougher fight on their hands, they had 250 on the start line, it was pretty impressive to watch them come up the start climb!

On the Road to Belgium

After the race at Dalby we had to head home and start the task of packing as we were heading off at 6 in the morning to start the long trip to Belgium. Our long trip turned into a very very long trip indeed! On the drive down to London we had some van troubles. Ian our driver decided it was best to call into his place at Nottingham where he knew a mechanic who could look at it for us, this wasn’t too far out of our way but the van was blowing thick blue smoke and moving at about 50k an hour!

As it turns out it was a quick fix but with the time taken for this diversion we were no longer going to make our original ferry booking. The next ferry from Dover left at 7pm that night so we had a bit of time to kill…. By the time we got over and into France it was a 4.5 hr drive to Houffalize where our accommodation was, so this trip to Belgium was almost as long as the time it took to get from Australia to the UK!

We finally arrived at 4.30 I the morning absolutely ragged, needless to say we had a huge sleep in in the morning!!

Dalby Forest World Cup # 1

It all came about pretty quickly, having had a pretty disjointed start to the trip. Having only been in the UK for 2 days I found myself lining up on the start grid for the first World Cup, it was quite a surreal feeling. On one hand I was worried with the lack of quality preparation and on the other hand the adrenalin was still pumping having actually made it and it seemed a real novelty to be lining up for this race at all!

Race day threatened with some early rain, but it didn’t eventuate into anything, it was really only a sprinkle, enough to just slightly wet down the course. The women’s race had about 120 entries we are all seeded on our international ranking, being pretty low I was in the last few lines on the grid. I was quite surprised to be lining up right next to many times over World Champion and also Olympic Champion, Gunn-Rita Dahl! She has since taken a break from the sport to start a family and have some time away from professional mountain biking. She was great, we had a bit of a chat, and discussed the predicament of starting this far back from the front, definitely not a position she would have been accustomed to!

Apart from a bit of a pile up due to a crash on the start line, my race went very smoothly, I felt really good and was pleasantly surprised with the fact that I was in pretty good nick considering the lead up! I felt like I was getting quicker on each lap, once I managed to work my way forward and pass a few of the slower girls I was able to gain some momentum and settle into the race. I just managed to finish on the lead lap (You get pulled of the course if your lap times fall below 80% of the leaders lap time.) and crossed the line in 71st position, it is a long way off where I need to be for World Championship selection, but I was happy with how I felt and the form that I’m in, things can only get better from here surely!!

Life in Bourcy

The place where we are staying is beautiful, it is not flash but it has a lot of character and is very practical! As a group of cyclists we are pretty happy when we find a place with a well decked out kitchen, a washing machine and at least a couple of toilets!! This place has it all, our group has grown now to about 10, and it is nice to be in a place that can cater for all of us!!

Our farm house!

This is the bike shed, heaps of room!

The team photo before our fist ride in Belgium



I am always still blown away by how old everything is here. We are in an old farm house in a very small village called Bourcy, it pretty much consists of a handful of similar farm houses that service the surrounding properties. The stone work is beautiful and this is very typical of this area, there are pretty much no modern buildings or residences to be seen. The country side is beautiful, the paddocks are amazingly green and lush and the cows are the most well feed and good looking cows I have ever seen!





I had been preparing myself for some horridly cold and wet weather, as in previous years the race here has been in pretty testing conditions. Amazingly Belgium has turned it on for us, each day has been blue skies and sunshine, not hot by any means but very pleasant none the less. I think this is all about to change though, the forecast is for very cold wet weather, should makes things very interesting! We are situated a little distance from Houffalize (which is the village where the race is held) but from our back yard there is a bike path that takes us all the way into the town, it is great, I’m sure it is a rail trail as the gradient is quite gradual and flat all the, a perfect way to warm up before hitting the race course!



The Houffalize course is one of the oldest on the World Cup circuit, apparently they have consistently hosted a World Cup race here every year for the last 20 years. It has always been renowned to be the hardest of the courses in terms of it’s climbing. The race starts right in the heart of the village in the main street. The legendary start loop goes straight up a very steep street with a 19% gradient for about 400m, this opens big gaps in the field as the better climbers burn everyone else off and sprint for the start of the single track at the top.




Me looking very relaxed on the 19% start loop, i'm sure it will be a different matter on Sunday!


This particular climb is used in the Leige-Bastonga which is one of the bigger of the spring classics on the professional road racing scene. You can see the names of Frank and Andy Schleck written on the road, this is pretty much a hometown race for them as they don’t live far from here, and the support would be pretty strong for here for these boys!
It is great having the course through the middle of the village, during training sessions it is a bit of a treat to re-group and finish with a coffee at one of the many cafés.

Finally in the UK!!!

Well it has been an amazing build up to the first World Cup, and at one stage I was certain that I was not going to make it.

I was scheduled to fly out on Sunday night but due to the volcanic ash from the Icelandic volcano all European and Uk flights were cancelled. A couple of us were trying to get into some of the southern European airports that were still open and then contemplating the massive overland journey to the UK. I’m so glad this option did not eventuate as carting a bike box and heavy luggage around train stations is HARD work and it would have been hugely expensive as the cost of land transport had tripled and was jam packed with all the drama of the volcano!
So eventually, after multiple bookings and changes and also a practice trip to the Melbourne airport on Monday night, (only to be told that Venice airport had since closed after we made the booking), I got onto a flight that left on Wednesday night arriving in Gatwick (London) which was extremely exciting and a huge relief.

All 5 of us in the TORQ team were originally scheduled to travel together but with all the flight upsets we were separated, all coming in at different times and into different airports, I landed in Gatwick, Kath and Ray came into Manchester, and Dan and Bec flew into Heathrow!

I have never been to the UK, let alone London, so the train trip to London and up to York was quite an experience! As it happened I was headed to the middle of London to Kings Cross Station in peak hour, this was full on and I didn’t make myself many friends by taking up 4 seats with my bike box and luggage while the rest of the train was packed like sardines! From Kings Cross I got on a train that took me 2 hrs north to Yorkshire, the trains go really fast over here, the 400+ km journey was over in no time!

The English countryside is beautiful, although it is cold and quite bleak, there is still something very pretty about it. Spring has just started, there are lots of baby lambs in the paddocks, daffodils growing on the side of the roads and trees starting to become green and leafy. The villages have heaps of character, they are very quaint and the buildings very old and generally made out of stone.

This is the the view from our cabin, and one of the many phesants that seem to roam around here, strange birds!!

This is the TORQ UK set up, quite impressive really, and it is is great to have a place to hang out and have some support while at the race!

These little contraptions are called 'Nomads'. They are portable bike wash systems that can be plugged into the cigarette lighter in your car so you can give your bike a wash when you have finished riding some muddy trails!!

A few of us enjoying a cool down in the English country side!

Since arriving we have spent a couple of days out on the course practicing and preparing for the race. It is a really fun course with a few tricky bits that keep you on your toes but it is by no means a technical track that requires a lot of skill, It has been beautiful dry sunny weather and it is forecast to be the same for tomorrows’ race day!

We are getting very efficient at packing and unpacking the van each day, it is quite a procedure!

Not Long Now!

Well the count down is finally on, 5 more days until I fly off to the UK to embark on another overseas World Cup racing experience.

It is a slightly shorter trip this year of about 5 weeks which will include 3 World Cup Races and a German National race.

The WC races are; #1 Dalby Forest in the UK, #2 Houffalize in Belgium, and #3 Offenburg In Germany.

These are the selection races that need to be completed in order to hopefully gain selection to the 2010 World Championships which will be held at Mont Sainte Anne, Canada, during the first week of September.

Our group is quite diverse, consisting pretty much of all the Aussies who will be racing WC's. We have banded together for our travel and accommodation arrangements, quite different to previous years where there has been a 'National Team' which no longer exists due to funding cuts.

So hopefully we will be leaving the cooler weather behind and hitting Europe at the onset of Spring and decent weather, although I hear it can still get pretty cold!!!

Stay tuned for more updates!!!