Alan Milway is – amongst many other things – Danny Hart, Stanny and Ben Reid’s personal fitness coach. For 2011 he’s travelling the world with Danny and keeping him in tip top shape. He’ll be keeping us up to date all season with live updates!
The 2011 World Cup season has arrived. Although there have been races happening across Europe and in USA, here is where everyone comes together and says hello again after the long winter lay off.
The trip this far south was quite an adventure in itself- I arrived at the hotel almost exactly 24hrs after leaving my house, and the Giant team manager, who flew from USA with the riders, apparently saw 3 sunrises without sleep in between. Ouch. Lots of different routes here – London direct, Paris direct, via Dubai…We flew on one of the A380 double decker planes. Where pretty much everyone got on the plane and turned right, I hear Gee got on and turned left, first class for the Commencal rider…
Today was sign on and track walk. The weather is very hot and sunny and there isn’t really any evidence of the rain deluge of last week. It was quite an easy day today, time available to spin off stale legs and see a bit of the area. Pietermaritzburg is quite an industrial town, but we are all staying on the outskirts, with the race venue just behind a shopping centre. It sounds odd, but with countryside surrounding us, it doesn’t feel as though you are riding ‘in town’ at all. The uplifts are provided by small pick ups and trailers, and it is a long way around to get to the top.
We waited for a long time for our uplift and were piled into the back of a pickup. Not very comfortable and Fabien Barel was saying it was miserable last week as it rained and they just sat in puddles for hours to get to the top.
South Africa is certainly very culturally different to Europe and it was eye opening to see young black children walking down the motorway, begging at traffic lights and groups of young men in the back of pick ups, as if the flat bed was extra seating. It is a place of ‘Have or Have not’ and there are some very smart cars with very custom plates on them. We drove past some shanty houses on a hill just outside of Durban but near to the venue are large ‘fenced in’ housing areas with security on the gates. I enquired as to whether this was to keep people safe from animals or safe from other humans. I was, alas, not surprised with the answer.
The track itself is really not as bad as I think is portrayed. It is split into 3 distinct sections – the top is through trees, with rocks and some very technical sections (including a VERY steep rock chute and a BIG rock drop/ jump). This seems to flow well and there are some different lines to choose. From here it works onto a couple of huge table tops and then goes almost completely flat. This is a very physical and dare I say ‘boring’ motorway before it sweeps across a valley and into the 4x track to weave in and out of that to the finish. Watching riders blow up on this physical section won’t be fun and I dare say this will sort the men from the boys. If the camera crew is creative they should be able to make it look good. I hope so.
4x practice has happened and Graves set out his stall early – nailed the tricky rock drop/ gap on his first go, smoooooooth as you like. The track looks good, and I will be interested to see if it makes for some good racing.
Back at the hotel and the darkness has fallen quickly – and Thunder is roaring around us. No rain yet…but it is coming.
Tomorrow is practice so check back for further updates from the track.
Mil
Don’t miss Peaty’s helmetcam vid of the track from last week:
Who’s your money on for the 2011 World Cup? Show us you know your stuff and enter the Downhill Fantasy league!
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Awesome work Milway – really nicely written!