Claudio is back, this time with Brook Macdonald, doing a track preview of Vallnord in advance of this weekends UCI Downhill World Cup race. If you want to see it closer up and in more detail, check out Cédric Gracia’s entertaining track walk).
The course is steep and technical, and follows a new section at the bottom, due to heavy rain making the lower part of last year’s track unrideable. Despite the wide angle effect of GoPro footage often flattening things and making them look much easier to ride than they really are, there’s a section near the end so steep that it looks like they’re just falling through the woods. As well as that, you’ll get to see Brook slip around a bit more than he planned to, and Claudio take a tumble:
(If you can’t see the embedded video, try this link instead).
Red Bull say: “Following the fun of downhill races at the Crankworx events in Les Gets and Innsbruck these past few weeks we’re back to the serious business of World Cup racing here in La Massana in the Pyrenean mountains.
As ever Claudio Caluori is our trusty guide and is joined in this course preview by Brook ‘The Bulldog’ Macdonald. Brook isn’t one to throw caution to the wind at the best of times, and despite the track being muddy in places, he leads Claudio a merry dance down the 2.1km course. So much so Claudio resorts to a ‘French’ line to catch up with the New Zealander.
Bad weather in Vallnord in the past few weeks have deemed a section of the track unrideable lower down the course and so a new section featuring a couple of berms have been introduced just before the approach to the final jump and finish line. Don’t worry though, the course continues to be steep as ever.
Watch the course preview in the player above to see how the boys got on.”
The boys. The boys! They’re back. Spread the word around.