Up next in 10
A special World Champs preview show with Greg Williamson, Vali Höll & Dan Slack.
Oct 2, 2020
Joining George & Jack for a special World Champs preview show are 2 x GB Elite Men’s National Champion Greg Williamson, 2 x Junior Women’s World Champion & 2 x Junior Women’s World Cup Overall Winner Vali Höll & British Junior Downhill Champion Dan Slack.
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0:06
[Music]
0:18
welcome
0:19
to the making of the numbers podcast
0:22
[Music]
0:26
the making of the numbers podcast is
0:28
sponsored by hope technology
0:30
revolution bike park on the world's
0:32
finest independent mountain bike
0:35
magazine
0:36
single track
0:42
ladies and gentlemen we have a world
0:45
level race to get excited about i'm
0:46
george thompson
0:47
and it doesn't matter what the weather's
0:48
like when the second weekend in october
0:50
comes around i'm pretty sure we'll all
0:52
be indoors glued to red bull tv
0:54
watching the 2020 world championships
0:56
from leo gang and tonight
0:58
myself and jack reading and a few guests
0:59
will be talking through the runners and
1:01
riders
1:01
jack it's been a while how have you been
1:04
it has me
1:05
yeah i've not been too bad i managed to
1:07
fit in a trip away with the team in
1:08
july and the start of august and then we
1:11
would have been
1:12
going back to do more french cups but
1:14
with the two-week quarantine on getting
1:16
home we had to kind of sit
1:17
tight so yeah just being training and
1:19
riding and
1:20
hoping things were going to go ahead and
1:22
yeah as you say we've got some events so
1:24
we leave on wednesday and we've got a
1:25
five-week trip
1:26
planned and yeah could be more excited
1:28
excellent
1:29
well let's start with team gb then um
1:31
for the world's
1:32
for the world's championships and in the
1:34
men's we have the
1:35
2011 and 2016 world champion winner of
1:38
the last world cup in snowshoe danny
1:40
hart
1:41
the 2017 national series winner charlie
1:44
hatton the 2019 hardline winner bernard
1:47
kerr
1:47
lori greenland who's the was the 2015
1:50
junior world champion
1:51
matt walker the 2017 junior world
1:53
champion
1:54
greg williamson who's a two-time gb
1:57
national champion
1:58
and reese wilson who's of course had
1:59
that famous world cup podium before
2:01
william
2:02
and in the women's well it's stacked
2:04
isn't it he's got rachel atherton
2:06
five-time world champion
2:07
mayor atkinson stacey fisher michaela
2:10
parton and
2:11
tony segreth seven-time world cup winner
2:14
shout out to becky skelton who the
2:16
current gb
2:17
national champ i think is that right
2:20
yeah she didn't realize you had to apply
2:22
so
2:23
you think someone perhaps would would
2:25
have given her a nudge at
2:26
british cycling do you reckon yeah it's
2:29
a bit 50 50.
2:30
i mean if she wanted to race then she
2:32
should have um
2:33
spoke up and vice versa if she's the
2:36
national champ you would have thought
2:38
people selecting the team would have
2:39
sent her a quick email and just said are
2:41
you interested so
2:42
yeah it seems a little bit strange to me
2:43
though and then on the juniors
2:46
no junior women but just junior men
2:48
we've got ethan crack
2:49
james elliott dennis luffman luke
2:52
mumford
2:52
your boy dan slack connor smith and luke
2:56
williamson
2:56
it's a strong squad isn't it yeah
2:59
definitely there's a lot of talent there
3:00
um obviously i know how fast dan is
3:04
so really excited to see what he can do
3:06
luke mumford had that podium at fort
3:08
william
3:09
yeah and then luke williamson's
3:10
absolutely pinned
3:12
didn't quite have the year everyone was
3:13
expecting last year but he's got that
3:15
year under under his belt so
3:16
so yeah we've got some real real talent
3:18
there and hopefully we can bring home at
3:20
least one medal
3:21
cool and in the elite men some really
3:23
big guns missed out
3:24
brendan faircloth he was i think he's
3:26
the only emission from the squad from
3:29
last year
3:30
um g didn't make it last year but he's
3:32
two-time world champions he's self
3:34
there's breton
3:34
joe breeden kate edwards your 2018
3:38
junior world champion and mike jones
3:40
and i think i think i saw it on wide
3:42
open that g and joe both met the
3:44
criteria but i got edged out an overall
3:46
position
3:47
but do you know do you know if they're
3:48
the reserves so i've
3:50
yeah since we spoke about this i've had
3:53
a little look on the rankings and i've
3:54
spoke to joe
3:55
and joe has confirmed he is a reserve um
3:59
and then yeah i mean in the results
4:01
you've got
4:02
um charlie's obviously in for brendan i
4:06
don't know whether brendan said he
4:07
didn't want to race who knows what's
4:08
going on there i know he doesn't like
4:09
leo gang
4:10
um he's having an 11th or 12th and then
4:13
g had had a 16th
4:15
i'd had a 21st this is last year's
4:18
results and then joe had had
4:20
that 25th at valdosta but obviously had
4:22
that amazing first
4:23
qualifier so that points weekend is
4:27
rightly so put him in there as a reserve
4:29
so all you can assume is
4:31
uh g with his 16th is the second reserve
4:33
i can tell you i'm not
4:34
so um yeah i would think it's joe and g
4:37
will be there and ready to stand in if
4:38
someone has a nightmare in practice
4:41
well there's a whole second team there
4:43
outside of france
4:45
usa and australia you'd probably be
4:47
stronger than every other nation you
4:48
reckon
4:49
yeah i mean it's the same every year
4:50
isn't it i mean yeah
4:52
and you've just listed six riders there
4:54
all regularly compete for top 20s at
4:56
world cup so
4:57
yeah it's the same every year and yeah
4:59
it's frustrating for a lot of people but
5:01
at the same time it's world champs and
5:03
uh it is what it is only seven get to go
5:06
and i know you're not a fan of leo guy i
5:08
think you told me once you've never
5:09
raced there again
5:11
i think my words were a drop a nuke on
5:12
the place
5:14
but are you gutted not to be racing
5:18
um that's not really the way i'd phrase
5:20
it because i never expected to race
5:22
world champs i started racing world cups
5:23
when i was like 21
5:24
22 and like we've just said the the
5:27
strength and depth and talent of our
5:28
nation at downhill is just ridiculous so
5:31
i never ever thought i'd race world
5:33
championships and in 2017 when i got to
5:35
go to cairns and compete
5:37
it was just absolutely amazing so
5:40
obviously like i'd love to go again but
5:43
it's not something i ever
5:44
you know expected um so yeah i don't
5:47
if you know if world cup criteria
5:49
changed and we could only take
5:51
a limited number riders and i was
5:52
missing out then obviously i'd be gutted
5:54
because
5:54
you know i finished last year 41st in
5:56
the world and i deserve to be at these
5:58
races but world champs is is different
6:00
so
6:01
so yeah it's um it's one of them i'm
6:03
excited to be going anyway and
6:05
help help people where i can cool well
6:08
here's a question for you
6:09
something i was thinking about the other
6:11
day do you think that former world
6:12
champions should be given a a bye
6:14
like they've won the thing we'd be
6:17
honored to have you come back and race
6:19
even if you don't make your national
6:20
team
6:21
yeah 100 like it's uh
6:24
yeah it would make good spectating it
6:26
would
6:28
respect to to those riders yeah
6:31
absolutely as you said to see lads like
6:34
steve um okay
6:38
okay absolutely yeah
6:41
yeah it'd be good and and and i also
6:44
like think that
6:46
i mean if you finished in the world cup
6:48
overall
6:49
top 60 which is what it is now
6:52
i i personally believe you should have
6:54
an automatic entry to world
6:55
championships because those riders they
6:56
never qualify for world cups yeah
6:58
because they're from a nation with a
7:00
weaker
7:01
standard of riders they're there and
7:03
yeah so but that's never going to happen
7:05
so i complete about that all day
7:08
obviously dan's your junior
7:10
you're heading out with him yeah so we
7:13
leave on wednesday we've got crank works
7:14
in innsbruck which is exciting
7:16
um and we're both racing that and then
7:18
obviously i'll then
7:20
head on to worlds with dan i'm actually
7:21
racing the e-bike
7:23
world championships because i'm nice
7:25
yeah because i'm there and i've got the
7:26
common cell
7:27
metapower i thought why not i'd
7:29
experience that yeah and then
7:31
the rest of the time me and my mechanic
7:33
elliot our time will be purely devoted
7:36
to damn to making sure
7:37
he's got everything he needs um i'll be
7:40
track side early it'll be in the pits
7:41
and
7:42
we'll see see what he can do tell me a
7:44
bit about the e-bike world champion do
7:46
you have to is it purely downhill or is
7:47
there some uphill
7:48
do you know i think it's purely
7:50
cross-country by the sounds of it the
7:52
wording is
7:52
modified xc track so i think it's just
7:55
going to be an absolute
7:56
lung buster and if i get there and that
7:59
is the case then
8:00
uh yeah i'm just gonna just go enjoy it
8:02
i think my plan will be go out as
8:04
hard as i can first lap try and get some
8:07
tv time in the front group
8:08
um and then maybe yeah have a beer off
8:11
down every lap and just try and finish
8:13
do you have any idea how they regulate
8:15
it or anything i'm told they do like a
8:17
rolling road test to make sure your
8:19
motor cuts out at 15 mile an hour
8:21
right but the thing is the american
8:24
criteria is different theirs is 20 i
8:26
think
8:27
so somebody could turn up from america
8:30
on their bike that's regulated and it's
8:32
different than mine and then i think
8:33
china you don't have to have it
8:34
regulated
8:35
at all so yeah i'm really not taking it
8:37
seriously i'm just glad to
8:39
you know have an opportunity to get on
8:40
the bike that week and you know film a
8:43
film a video of it and
8:44
yeah it'll just be interesting to take
8:46
part really cool well
8:48
you've probably got a bit more
8:49
information than the rest of us then
8:50
let's start with
8:51
covid tests do you know if you need one
8:53
to get into austria
8:55
yeah so at first we i looked online and
8:57
things seemed to be saying we did need a
8:59
test to actually enter austria
9:01
um and then since then all the
9:02
information everything people send to me
9:04
saying we don't need one to get in the
9:05
country so that's good
9:06
so we can go to crank works and asking
9:08
us for that either they're just getting
9:10
us to
9:11
fill out these kind of health surveys
9:13
and things like that so
9:15
um crank works we can just kind of turn
9:17
up and we have to stay and stay in our
9:18
group
9:19
but then for getting to world
9:21
championships um we have to have a test
9:23
on the monday
9:24
right uci because obviously technically
9:27
you'd have one here but when we're
9:28
already over there what do you do so
9:29
yeah
9:30
uci is setting up a system where people
9:31
can turn up on the monday and
9:33
have a test and then i assume
9:36
you wouldn't be allowed on the site
9:38
until you've got the result but
9:40
who knows i think i get a feeling it's
9:41
going to be a nightmare i think a lot of
9:43
people are going to turn up on that
9:44
monday having been
9:45
other races or being somewhere else they
9:47
haven't got a test and
9:49
there's gonna be queues for hours to get
9:51
it sorted and it's yeah i anticipate
9:54
big problems with that do you know who
9:56
can be at the event
9:57
only people who are credited so um
10:01
for us there's me myself me my mechanic
10:05
and dan um and we've all had to apply
10:07
for accreditation british cycling have
10:08
helped elliot get his
10:10
to being the mechanic and then i've
10:12
luckily competed on the e-bike side of
10:14
things
10:15
but there's no crowd i think you know
10:18
for junior riders they could maybe take
10:20
a parent but it's going to be very
10:22
strange without any kind of crowd
10:23
um at the finish um so
10:27
so yeah it's going to be all public
10:29
publicized on red bull obviously
10:31
um but yeah there'll be nobody else at
10:33
the event other than staff riders
10:35
and what's the support been from bc been
10:37
like
10:39
yeah so it it seems like bc have got
10:42
their back against the wall for the
10:43
downhill really
10:44
um it sounds like the xc are all getting
10:46
kind of traveled out there and they're
10:48
all staying together and that's all
10:49
funded
10:50
but i think the lads on teams so you
10:53
know
10:53
danny mart laurie those boys they'll
10:55
just do their own thing with their teams
10:57
yeah michael vickers from british
10:59
cycling he's going out to support
11:01
everyone but normally he'd have staff
11:03
with him
11:03
line spotlight and cairns we had line
11:05
spotters physios
11:07
you know vickers had other people to
11:09
help him and
11:11
it was great i couldn't fault him they
11:13
did an amazing job we couldn't have
11:14
asked for more was obviously paul mike
11:16
now he's had his funding cut he's there
11:17
on his own
11:18
these juniors that aren't on teams i can
11:21
tell you from experience at these races
11:23
they'll probably struggle to park their
11:24
car so
11:26
because of these bubbles we're not
11:28
allowed to socialize with other people
11:30
they probably can't even go and ask
11:32
another pit
11:33
you know if you know i've got space in
11:35
my pit for maybe another rider but i
11:37
won't be allowed to do it
11:38
yeah because of kobe's regulation so
11:40
yeah um it sounds like it's just going
11:42
to be quite
11:43
kind of you know roll with
11:46
as it comes and be quite reactive and
11:49
i'm sure vickers will do everything he
11:50
can to help people but
11:52
yeah it's not great at all really but i
11:54
don't know if it's a direct result of
11:55
the losing the hsbc sponsorship
11:58
i'm sure it must have had an impact
11:59
somewhere along the way yeah maybe it's
12:01
that
12:02
i think the main thing is just covered
12:04
bc makes a lot of its money from
12:06
uh events and they haven't held any so
12:09
i think any budget they do have will of
12:12
course go off to the cross country like
12:13
it always does
12:15
um and then you know the downhillers are
12:18
just left to get on
12:19
so which is mad because we're the only
12:21
ones really with a chance to bring
12:23
a medal yeah um maybe in the women cross
12:25
country is a little
12:26
different but yeah it seems a little
12:29
strange to me
12:30
but hey it is what it is well thanks for
12:33
the info we'll be back after these
12:34
messages with one of the riders who'll
12:36
be fighting for a medal for team gb
12:38
common sell 100 greg williamson
12:45
okay so our first guest tonight is a man
12:47
for the big occasion two-time gb
12:49
national champion
12:50
common sale 100 greg williamson aka g
12:53
willie
12:54
welcome to the show greg how's it going
12:56
cheers yeah
12:57
no happy to be on and uh yeah all good
13:00
just there currently sitting in
13:01
schladming just getting a bit of
13:03
practice ahead of leo gang get used to
13:05
the austrian dirt and they're
13:07
not looking forward to it how long you
13:09
been out there uh just about
13:11
only four days uh no three days
13:15
three days so just here there's quite a
13:18
few
13:18
few people out there in there at the
13:20
moment yeah yeah quite a few teams today
13:22
on track there was
13:23
mondraker guys there was the trek team
13:28
uh there was the uh
13:31
some of the yt guys there was some
13:33
propane guys
13:35
there was yeah there's there's a lot of
13:36
them here so it's quite fun actually
13:38
because the tracks getting real rough so
13:40
nicely if everything goes ahead
13:44
you plan on staying out until losing no
13:46
trips back home in between
13:48
yeah now i'm out here for good i
13:50
actually decided to drive out just to
13:53
avoid flying and
13:54
also a bit easier just to take
13:55
everything isn't it so
13:57
now i just um did that
14:00
and now yeah i'm here for the long haul
14:03
i thought i saw the caledonia camp
14:05
caledonian campers is that you
14:08
yeah hell no it's not me all right i saw
14:11
a van in your
14:12
insta over there and i thought that was
14:14
you yeah yeah no it's uh some friends of
14:16
mine
14:17
uh caledonia escapes and they've got a
14:19
bunch of like
14:21
around me uh like charlie's and cottages
14:24
just holiday escapes really and uh now
14:26
they're really nice so
14:28
they're helping us out a bit which is uh
14:30
greatly appreciated
14:31
excellent well you must be delighted to
14:33
make team gb again
14:34
tell us a bit about your preparations
14:36
yeah absolutely
14:37
stoked yeah just um the same prep as
14:41
normal for world cups but yeah obviously
14:43
a bit extra for you know the leo gang
14:46
track
14:47
but i hear there could be a few changes
14:48
to the track which is interesting
14:50
uh some guys are saying they're going to
14:52
cut into the field a bit and it could be
14:54
quite bulgy in sections so
14:56
that's going to be real cool to see
14:58
something different and
14:59
not your typical bike park uh leo gang
15:01
maybe
15:02
we'll see yeah that'd be really cool did
15:06
have have you dealt with the covered
15:08
thing
15:09
uh it's been tough yeah like i
15:12
did my best to avoid it as much as i
15:14
could and
15:16
i was there in france uh doing a lot of
15:19
the races and
15:19
yeah there was quite there was a point
15:21
where quite a few people
15:24
were catching it and especially in
15:26
moorsy and
15:27
we were really just getting worried like
15:30
go we're really gonna have to like
15:31
tighten the
15:32
hatches and uh just you know avoid as
15:35
much as we can so we actually decided
15:37
uh after i was out doing french uh
15:41
national champs i managed to get an
15:42
entry for that yeah i was gonna do meta
15:44
ba the next weekend and we're in moors
15:46
in the week
15:47
between rented a house and we're like
15:50
right
15:51
right sorry uh with the common cell 100
15:54
percent
15:55
with the team i didn't yeah i didn't
15:56
know if you were with the team yeah yeah
15:58
carry on
15:58
yeah so with like thomas and bricks and
16:01
everyone
16:02
and we're just like oh [ __ ] like yeah
16:04
hearing loads of rumors like
16:06
people catching it and they're like a
16:08
cluster so
16:10
we were like [ __ ] right let's just
16:12
isolate and marzian and not do anything
16:13
until it's not right
16:15
and uh we got tested on friday
16:19
ahead of me and we're all good but then
16:22
just as we
16:22
traveled to meta va we were like um
16:26
not feeling too good and a few of the
16:28
boys were like
16:29
not sure like i'm keen for this so
16:32
they actually made the decision not to
16:34
go because again a lot of people that
16:36
were
16:37
in more zine were going to the race and
16:39
it was like
16:41
it's not really worth it so we all
16:43
decided to go home
16:44
for me it was a flight home and the rest
16:46
just drove home
16:47
but got home did the
16:51
did the normal thing where i just well
16:54
protocol for a covered
16:55
was like get off the plane go get tested
16:59
uh stayed by myself got tested at home
17:02
and i was positive
17:03
i know well so when that happened i was
17:06
just like
17:07
oh my god and then as it kind of went on
17:12
the symptoms started to come on and
17:14
honestly it wasn't even that bad it was
17:16
just like the common
17:17
cold even like not like not really that
17:20
fluid
17:20
but more just like a kind of sniffly
17:22
nose and
17:23
actually quite a sore head but so i
17:26
spent my time
17:28
did my two weeks isolation by myself in
17:30
the house
17:31
uh had the people call me quite a lot
17:33
and i was just like oh geez like so many
17:35
questions
17:36
who you're in contact with so i had to
17:38
give them all that information
17:40
but then after that i just slowly
17:43
had to kind of rebuild and just go back
17:46
into training quite slowly
17:47
just because it was a lot of time off
17:50
and
17:51
i guess it does and it did affect me and
17:54
the
17:55
kind of like getting back up to speed
17:59
process i guess i'm sat here shivering
18:02
and
18:02
and with a sweating at the same time and
18:06
hoping i haven't got it i've
18:08
i went out on a big ride yesterday and
18:10
overdid the caffeine and woke up this
18:12
morning thinking oh that's what it'll be
18:14
but
18:14
now we're like 12 hours on and uh it's
18:17
still not feeling great so
18:19
i hope it's not a bug wait hope it's a
18:21
bugger not not covered
18:22
yeah i hope it's not either geez
18:26
well you can't catch it through a laptop
18:27
so hopefully
18:31
then again it's covered maybe you can
18:32
there's all kinds of stuff in the news
18:34
about it oh
18:35
how fun how funny is all the people like
18:37
thinking they
18:38
know like oh you've got it now you'll
18:40
never catch it again and then
18:42
the other next person is like oh no no
18:44
you can catch it twice
18:45
there's different strains and
18:48
did you do any racing because i had seen
18:50
on your instagram you you were
18:52
were you limineer is that how you
18:54
pronounce it yeah
18:55
i was there uh i did get to do like a
18:58
time drawn at like eight o'clock in the
19:00
morning
19:00
ahead of the race day and uh i think
19:03
yeah i was top ten
19:04
i'm not sure exactly where but it was
19:07
good it was good just to ride the
19:08
track with like all the frenchies
19:10
they're obviously so fast just now so
19:13
good to be out there and get some bike
19:14
time i did do the race
19:16
uh the weekend ahead and let's stay out
19:18
but i crashed so
19:20
that was a bit of a bummer but yeah what
19:23
can i do
19:23
these things happen so you've um
19:26
obviously you've been on big teams
19:27
starting with trek world racing then
19:29
cube um
19:31
and then was it three years with cube is
19:33
that right
19:34
yep uh not two years sorry cube and then
19:37
you moved on to uno
19:38
and if i'm right in thinking you
19:40
basically you ran that program yourself
19:42
similarly to how i do is that correct
19:44
yeah yeah no i definitely well
19:47
myself i wouldn't take all the credit
19:49
there was a lot of people that you know
19:50
as well still
19:51
kind of help and obviously uh with a lot
19:53
of it because well at the end of the day
19:55
it was their
19:56
kind of team uh but no i i managed to
20:00
team and
20:00
organize everything with the kind of
20:03
what products we're gonna use and
20:05
you know obviously the race schedule and
20:08
handling all the parts
20:09
a bit like yourself with your team yeah
20:11
what prompted the shift from being on
20:13
those teams to go and hang on a minute i
20:14
want to do this in a different way and
20:16
do it that way
20:18
yeah it was a it was a tricky one really
20:20
because
20:21
obviously i did have a lot of success
20:23
with cube and i really enjoyed it
20:25
but there was a few things that were
20:27
happening
20:28
nothing really major it was just more
20:31
kind of
20:33
i had i looking in hindsight i would
20:37
have maybe want to stay there a bit
20:39
longer
20:40
but there was a few things that were
20:41
kind of not really getting fixed that i
20:44
kind of wanted to change
20:46
so that kind of pushed going to that and
20:48
then i was like
20:49
oh there is an opportunity there but you
20:51
know and it is kind of like a
20:53
you know boutique bike that a lot of
20:55
people have heard about but not really
20:56
seen so
20:57
it was quite exciting to kind of bring
21:00
that to world cups and be like
21:02
uh we'll be a part of it so uh what was
21:05
it like to ride the union
21:07
oh insane like i still say to anyone
21:09
it's a
21:10
it's an incredible bike just the way uh
21:12
cesar has just kind of
21:14
created a really like rider friendly
21:18
kind of um like
21:21
the way it kind of flexed the carbon uh
21:24
was quite unique it was uh
21:26
all the layouts were in the right spots
21:28
basically and it just gave you a better
21:30
riding experience
21:31
uh again going back to
21:34
like the cube days it was kind of like i
21:37
actually wanted a bigger bike
21:38
and they couldn't really make one
21:40
because they only make one size
21:42
and you can imagine having one mold uh
21:45
and being handmade it's a lot of costs
21:48
so
21:48
they weren't quite prepared to do that
21:50
at the time but i'm sure they will in
21:51
the future but
21:52
i wasn't really willing to wait
21:54
absolutely did you enjoy those two years
21:56
with uni in terms of
21:57
being able to kind of plan your own
21:59
stuff a bit more and not be kind of tied
22:01
down to a team manager and a schedule
22:03
did you enjoy being more in charge of
22:05
your own business yeah
22:06
yeah i did absolutely it taught me a lot
22:09
and
22:09
obviously it comes with stresses but i
22:12
was kind of willing to
22:14
accept them and just create a learning
22:16
experience you know it's
22:18
the closest thing you'll do to running a
22:20
business
22:22
whilst you know yeah raising bikes yeah
22:25
so
22:25
it was uh it was really cool yeah i
22:28
wouldn't
22:28
want to change it for the world really
22:31
and obviously now you've joined the
22:32
common cell 100 guys
22:34
um which is you know a middle ground i
22:37
guess between
22:38
trek board racing and then yeah running
22:40
your ass
22:41
up um how's it going obviously there
22:44
won't be many races but have you settled
22:46
in nicely yeah
22:47
yeah no it's kind of strange i got the
22:49
the memory there the other day
22:50
for a snowshoe and i was like [ __ ]
22:53
that's been
22:54
a year already like how did that happen
22:57
like
22:57
and uh feels like we've done a lot but i
23:00
guess we haven't race-wise
23:01
um yeah so really looking forward to
23:04
worlds
23:05
the team as well has been uh well
23:09
you know yourself being in common cell
23:10
it's uh it's just uh
23:13
it's amazing to be with a brand that's
23:15
so uh forward-thinking and
23:17
really progressive like always changing
23:20
to adapt to the courses we're racing so
23:25
yeah no carbon fiber is all going back
23:26
to alloy it was uh
23:28
not as not as big a difference as you
23:30
think but it was a
23:32
a change and uh again with a higher
23:34
pivot and stuff like that it was uh it
23:37
was really nice
23:37
and uh the bike fits me really well i
23:40
think i
23:40
look quite good on it so um yeah i'm
23:43
loving it yeah have you got xl or are
23:44
you large
23:45
i'm large yeah i did try the xl but it
23:48
was just a little bit
23:49
more of a reach than i'd like yeah i'm
23:51
on the large as well so that makes sense
23:53
i'm on the xl you've got one georgia of
23:56
course
23:56
yeah but you're about nine foot tall so
23:58
with the extended chain stays in as well
24:00
i've got the first generation one so
24:02
as big as it can possibly be how tall
24:06
are you george
24:06
yeah six six so one nine eight
24:10
oh the weather up there hey yeah yeah
24:13
it's um
24:14
it's been a challenge getting bikes to
24:15
fit obviously over the years and i spent
24:17
the first
24:18
two years of racing downhill just going
24:19
over the bars on every run
24:21
because the bikes were just too small
24:22
and i had no upper body strength so
24:25
now at least i've got a fighting chance
24:27
if you know what i mean
24:28
yeah so greg are you on me because i
24:31
know thomas is on the mullet are you on
24:32
the mullet or are you on 29 29
24:34
i tested the mullet and still sitting
24:37
there
24:38
but um no i'm actually really happy with
24:40
the 29
24:42
i guess yeah a lot of riders shorter
24:44
legs it would be like
24:46
a mullet's great for them especially i
24:48
know that's what it's like for a fricks
24:50
so
24:51
yeah exact but nah i'm just really
24:53
liking the
24:54
29 just now yeah um
24:57
i dare say maybe with a bit more testing
24:59
in the winter i'll uh
25:01
try it some more yeah definitely that's
25:03
kind of my thinking obviously i'm six
25:04
foot and ride the 29 and have no
25:06
issues with it at all yeah but with all
25:10
of the uh common sound mukhoff guys been
25:12
on
25:13
the 650b it makes me think well i'm
25:15
gonna have to try it and put it on the
25:16
clock and see
25:17
for sure but yeah it's definitely one
25:19
that for the shorter riders i think it's
25:20
a no-brainer
25:21
getting on the bullet and getting the
25:23
smaller wheel do you think a maori is
25:25
going to be
25:26
tempted to go back to full 29 last
25:28
season because he's not had the most
25:29
auspicious um few runs on the
25:33
mullet i don't think he's that kind of
25:34
person i think he'll just be like i had
25:36
some crushes let's go again
25:40
let's talk about your teammates for a
25:41
little bit then thomas stack and hugo
25:43
frickstall
25:44
hugo's done um well in the french cups
25:47
this season you're like a team of
25:49
super talented outsiders aren't you
25:52
it won't be a surprise if any of you
25:54
ended up on the podium at world
25:56
yeah no for sure like we're all kind of
25:58
uh
25:59
we kind of have i'd like to be obviously
26:01
more consistent at the top but yeah we
26:03
all kind of
26:04
have our good results here and there so
26:06
and now for sure we're
26:08
definitely a bunch of wild cards and uh
26:10
hopefully we can
26:11
find that consistency a bit more cool so
26:13
your last proper race was
26:15
um was that running snowshoe 2019 and
26:18
last world cup of 2019
26:19
and he finished seventh you must have
26:21
been buzzing with that great way to end
26:23
the season
26:24
absolutely yeah no i was happy with that
26:26
uh
26:27
i was kicking myself for a lot of the
26:29
off-season with uh
26:30
i actually you'll probably see on the
26:32
replay i came out of the woods
26:34
and there's a flat straight and i was in
26:36
like last year and i had to like
26:38
go back up the box and i was like geez
26:41
like how did i mess that up but
26:43
yeah i uh so i lost a bit of time at the
26:45
finish which cost me quite a lot and
26:47
uh yeah so definitely give me a bit of
26:50
motivation for uh this season
26:53
so when you finish on a decent result
26:55
like that
26:56
how does that affect your offseason does
26:58
it motivate you more that
26:59
you can you know you can do it or it
27:02
doesn't you find it a bit harder because
27:03
you know
27:04
you're at that level there's so many
27:07
i've thought this a lot uh throughout my
27:10
career like because
27:11
obviously sometimes you'll come out of a
27:13
really good season
27:14
and you'll sit back because you'll be
27:15
like i'm the man like blah blah blah
27:17
like
27:18
you know you're feeling real good and uh
27:20
vice versa you can come off a really bad
27:22
year
27:23
uh and then you're like super hungry to
27:26
to get back up there you know so um
27:29
it comes and goes but you just need to
27:30
try and be like
27:32
uh you know as kind of label as you can
27:35
through it all so um yeah it's it's a
27:37
tough one
27:38
um don't really know what the magic
27:41
secret is
27:42
uh still trying to find it well in the
27:45
intro i said that you're the man for the
27:47
big occasion because in
27:48
2016 and 2017 you won back-to-back
27:51
national titles
27:52
the sleeves much coveted all the big
27:55
dogs were at those races tell us a bit a
27:57
little bit about those victories
27:59
yeah no i don't know it actually all
28:02
started back
28:03
from uh 2013.
28:08
i got third at national champs at
28:12
bala and i don't know what it is like
28:16
that kind of little welsh valley there
28:18
like i always seem to have
28:19
some good results there so i wasn't too
28:21
phased about
28:22
i'd actually never written revolution
28:24
before i won my first one
28:26
really so yeah like and obviously a lot
28:29
of the uk guys trained there so i was
28:30
like yeah
28:31
i wasn't actually that faced by not
28:33
being there before so
28:34
it was kind of fresh eyes i guess and
28:37
once i got that first one and obviously
28:39
danny was having a really good year
28:43
and i managed to uh qualify first
28:46
i was just like oh i could i can do this
28:48
you know and then it was like
28:50
got the ball rolling a bit more and then
28:52
when i won it i was just like
28:53
whoa like a massive kinda like steve
28:57
pete's like congratulating you
28:59
they're all there and it's like holy
29:00
[ __ ] like
29:03
it's actually happening so it kind of
29:05
just like
29:06
once you've done that to win a second
29:09
time the next year
29:10
almost felt you know it was almost
29:13
harder
29:14
but it was in my mind feasible by no
29:18
by no means necessary so yeah like it
29:20
was really good
29:21
and did did you ask was it glencoe in
29:24
2018
29:25
yeah that was that was a that was a
29:27
tough one as well because
29:28
again i was i was feeling real good like
29:31
i was like no problem like
29:33
i had a really good practice almost one
29:35
of those races and jack i'm sure
29:37
we'll know this where everything's
29:39
almost going too well
29:41
and then it kind of came around in the
29:44
race
29:44
and i like blew my feet on the fire
29:47
roads
29:48
i was just having a super messy run
29:51
and i think i was i was third uh
29:54
but yeah i was kicking myself a bit for
29:56
that because it would have been cool to
29:58
go
29:58
three feet but now matt walker would
30:02
really well that one and
30:03
yeah he obviously deserved on the day so
30:06
those two wins that you had did you
30:07
approach
30:08
national champs differently at all like
30:10
there's no points it's a one-off race
30:12
a bit like kind of world champs this
30:14
season really yeah
30:16
uh yeah true um no i i was
30:20
i'm sure i did in a way but um
30:23
just uh just kind of doing my regular
30:26
training and kind of
30:28
yeah get as i can mentally physically
30:32
and
30:32
yeah that was it really
30:36
sorry you were pretty pretty close to a
30:37
medal in one of those weren't you jeff
30:40
yeah i've had i think i might have had
30:42
i've had two fourths and i think
30:44
the first one may have been 2013 when
30:47
greg came
30:48
third no maybe not but yeah
30:51
i've had a fourth at langolin and then a
30:54
fourth at balo and greg won his was his
30:56
second one balor
30:57
yeah yeah yeah so i was sat in third i'd
30:59
had a stormer actually surprised myself
31:01
it was
31:02
danny charlie me i think or whatever and
31:05
then yeah you come down and
31:07
took medal off me again
31:10
so yeah two fourths never had a national
31:12
medal but this time
31:15
yeah that's part that's part of the fun
31:16
just that's racing yeah
31:18
exactly keep on in it yeah
31:21
keeps you hungry doesn't it exactly
31:24
nothing better
31:26
so let's move on to this big one that's
31:28
coming around then leo gang
31:30
you've done well there in the past
31:32
obviously you came sick there in 2016
31:35
that you're on cube when you were having
31:36
a real storm and
31:38
two sixth in the seventh that season is
31:40
that correct so yeah i think
31:42
um and then 2018 you were 19th at leo
31:44
gang
31:45
2019 you were 14. so
31:48
pretty strong history there how are you
31:50
feeling going into the event
31:52
yeah really good yeah i love austria i
31:54
was actually
31:55
there for new year i was skiing there at
31:57
leogang which was quite cool so
32:00
i got a little practice if it's going to
32:01
snow again
32:04
but um no so yeah absolutely love it and
32:07
uh always have a good time it's always
32:09
uh my birthday weekend
32:11
as well around well normally yeah yeah
32:13
yeah started doing them with you yeah
32:15
it's a good time you know and uh the
32:17
track seems to
32:19
actually had a terrible start to
32:22
racing leo gang and yeah it just somehow
32:25
came round
32:26
i guess it was something you're always
32:27
trying to improve because it was a
32:29
weakness
32:29
yeah i can relate to that with monster
32:32
hand for sure i
32:33
struggle with it for the first few years
32:34
and then once it clicks you just kind of
32:36
know
32:37
you can reproduce on that on that track
32:40
um so what do you think is it the key to
32:43
a good running leo gang you can educate
32:45
me here a little bit as well because
32:46
i've had like a a love-hate relationship
32:49
with leo gang like i had
32:51
a couple of bad years at the start
32:53
knocked myself out on the second time
32:55
first time i just didn't qualify with a
32:56
crash
32:57
and then i started getting into it
32:58
getting results in the 30s
33:00
and then i had a 19th there in 2017
33:04
the euro came to ken
33:08
but then yeah go on what's your
33:11
because it's a tricky track man it's so
33:14
fast
33:15
that's what viewers don't can't quite
33:17
grasp when viewers sit there and go leo
33:18
gang why do they make them race like
33:20
like in my opinion one of the hardest
33:22
ones because it is so
33:24
fast it is really too bad much more
33:27
feelings on the track and also well yeah
33:30
well it's also it can be very different
33:33
strategy
33:34
every year like for especially
33:37
well before even the weather comes into
33:40
play
33:40
you've got last year where they really i
33:43
thought taped the track quite strange
33:46
loads of like kind of janky turns and
33:49
just like bads kind of apexes and
33:52
trying like really trying to catch you
33:54
out yeah
33:56
before you had nice sweepers and really
33:59
nice turns and it was
34:00
super enjoyable just to ride yeah
34:04
and obviously the roots and stuff come
34:06
out in the stump sections and
34:09
stuff like that so it all depends how
34:11
they're going to tape it
34:12
uh and especially like i said start with
34:15
the um
34:17
if they're going to go into like the
34:18
field at all with uh
34:20
that could be boggy especially this time
34:22
of year and
34:23
that's just going to put a whole
34:24
different kind of like rutted mess into
34:27
it
34:27
so but for sure you know the motorway's
34:31
going to be the same
34:31
you've got to stay low on that you've
34:33
got attack you've got a
34:35
pedal as soon as you can and then
34:38
maintain that speed right the way across
34:40
the hill uh
34:42
and then you've seen it time and time
34:44
again
34:45
when you get to that steep bit at the
34:47
end a lot of people riders making
34:48
mistakes
34:50
lucas kind of thrown away i think loris
34:52
as well
34:53
um so you really just gotta
34:58
ride hard and then maintain yeah
35:01
yeah and it's tricky as well because
35:03
when the weather
35:04
isn't great it's that hard packed bike
35:08
park
35:09
ground that gets greasy and it's just so
35:12
easy to make a small mistake
35:14
and then on a high speed track when you
35:16
do that you end up losing
35:17
a load of places for one mistake so you
35:20
have to just be consistent all the way
35:22
down which is
35:23
very very tricky um yeah
35:26
given that you're racing i'm not going
35:28
to ask you to predict the men's result
35:30
but
35:31
give us your prediction for the women's
35:32
race any ideas on on whom i win
35:36
um you get to see tony back
35:40
and well fighting fit um i've seen her
35:44
today she's super focused so um
35:49
also marine cavalry i think is kind of a
35:52
bit of a dark horse
35:54
um i think she had covered as well
35:56
didn't she
35:57
yeah there was yeah there was a lot
36:00
of people who have actually had it and
36:03
a lot of top names i'm not going to name
36:05
any but yeah
36:06
there was a there's quite a few of us
36:08
that unfortunately
36:11
ran into it yeah well look best of luck
36:15
out there and for the rest of the season
36:16
it'd be amazing to see you on a podium
36:19
absolutely and i hope you can do it yeah
36:21
yeah no
36:22
cheers boys appreciate it thank you and
36:24
i'll be out there on the track so if
36:25
you've got any
36:26
questions any time of what i'm seeing
36:27
just give me a shout happy to help
36:29
anyone
36:30
awesome appreciate it cheers greg thank
36:32
you nice one dude good luck
36:35
jack before we move on to the women's
36:37
and juniors let's just run through the
36:38
main contenders in the men's race
36:41
obviously number one is uh like rooney
36:43
four-time world champion
36:45
will he make it five you can never rule
36:48
him out can you i mean i was only saying
36:49
to someone the other day
36:51
off the back of his french cup results i
36:54
was thinking oh
36:55
what's going on here something's up and
36:58
then
36:59
two days later or whichever race it was
37:01
he won it um
37:03
and then he was what third at the last
37:05
french cup so yeah he's definitely on on
37:07
form
37:08
um and you can never rule him out so
37:10
yeah if he wins
37:11
you'd have to say we're in a period of
37:13
domination wouldn't you 100
37:15
i mean yeah that would just be
37:17
ridiculous but it doesn't feel like
37:19
it not to me anyway i don't know what
37:20
you think but you know when gwyn was
37:22
winning
37:23
it seemed like every race was his to
37:26
lose
37:27
but with like it doesn't kind of feel
37:29
like that you wouldn't be surprised if
37:30
um if loris won for example
37:34
is it because do you think it's because
37:35
the competition's gotten stronger
37:37
100 in my opinion gwynne raised the bar
37:40
yeah
37:41
back in 2011-12 um raised the bar
37:44
massively
37:45
and then like when when we had danny on
37:47
the party he said that
37:48
maybe in 2016 him and a couple of others
37:51
raised it again
37:52
yeah um but now it's not just like who's
37:56
unbelievable there's there's a chance
37:59
that on the day
38:00
there's two or three four of them that
38:02
could do that unbelievable run i
38:03
remember sitting at the bottom of
38:04
andorra last year
38:05
and vergiere came down with that no um
38:08
yeah vergiere came around with that time
38:10
five seconds into the lead or whatever
38:13
and i sat there watching
38:14
and i said to whoever i was with i think
38:16
it was simmons i said well that's that
38:18
then nobody's beating that today and
38:19
then lauric's top split came up 2.9
38:22
seconds
38:23
up and he went and won and it was just
38:25
like
38:26
what and yeah we're now getting to a
38:28
stage where there's more than one guy
38:31
that is going to do something
38:32
unbelievable on the day parents
38:34
obviously
38:35
are injured he'll quit maori um
38:38
troy he was number three at the end of
38:41
last season
38:42
looking at his results he looks quite a
38:44
bit off the pace but
38:45
holding something back maybe yeah i
38:47
think he'd just be having a warm-up
38:48
bunny
38:49
brosnan's always there or thereabouts
38:51
yeah and danny
38:52
i heard he was i'm friends with one of
38:55
his friends and i heard he was on purse
38:56
at the french cup when he crashed
38:58
he was ahead of urge yeah i heard right
39:00
yeah it's well it's not surprises
39:02
he's when we had him on he was hungry on
39:04
me and uh
39:05
leo gang's not his favorite venue is it
39:07
but again it's worlds so
39:09
it's a it's a downhill track and he's
39:11
he's gonna he's gonna throw everything
39:13
at it so
39:14
next we've got loris who has been the
39:16
man of the summer in the french cups i
39:18
think
39:20
he wants a huge margin at one of them
39:22
yeah the wet one
39:23
yeah six seven seconds which is
39:25
ridiculous isn't it
39:26
yeah minar greenland mark wallace david
39:30
trummer dean lucas that was the
39:32
top 10 last season yeah any of those you
39:34
think
39:35
potential podium you know well
39:39
i mean they all are but i mean laurie
39:42
um was he second there last year which
39:45
was a bit of us or the year before
39:47
so he's had a podium there um
39:51
and then i mean mark wallace is
39:54
absolutely unbelievable the tech stuff
39:57
i don't think i'd be putting him on the
39:58
podium there um
40:01
third in 2018 was that it right sorry
40:04
um david trummer austrian had an amazing
40:08
season last year could be a dark
40:10
horse um i mean
40:13
he's for the big occasion he's going to
40:14
go well jack
40:16
there's no pressure outside the top 10
40:18
overall last season let's look at some
40:20
potential winners there's a few charlie
40:22
harrison
40:24
yep yes showing incredible strength last
40:27
year so
40:28
definitely broke through and shows he
40:29
can get on the podium matt walker
40:32
rare man like think about the starts of
40:35
the season matt walker's had in the uk
40:37
the last two years
40:38
yeah both first races of the season the
40:40
last two years he's
40:41
turned up and beat danny he won that ixs
40:44
cup at
40:44
mario ball last year he is one hungry
40:47
little
40:48
fella on big fella i was talking to his
40:50
dad a couple of weeks ago and his dad
40:52
says he's not lost
40:53
any enthusiasm for his training and his
40:55
prep really
40:56
yet so matt is definitely going to be
40:59
one to watch for sure
41:00
um we need to get matt back on the
41:02
podcast i think i'm not
41:03
hopefully after after a good run at
41:05
worlds we can get him on eh
41:06
yeah because he's not a big social guy
41:08
is he you don't see a lot
41:09
just does his business yeah yeah just
41:11
get someone gone then the big one
41:13
aaron gwen he won without a chaining lee
41:16
again
41:18
he's got the world champ curse on there
41:19
i mean you can
41:21
yeah you can never rule him out but he's
41:24
also never won worlds
41:25
um so it depends which quinn turns up
41:30
if it's aaron gwynne from the seasons
41:34
when he was unbeatable
41:35
then he's in with a shot but the level's
41:37
so high now
41:38
if another gwin turns up then then uh
41:42
finales somebody said to me the other
41:45
day they thought it was gonna be finale
41:46
season
41:47
really yeah i can't remember who it was
41:49
but yeah and he
41:50
been rubbing shoulders with uh with like
41:53
hasn't he saw
41:54
um at the french cups so yeah
41:57
could be it could be one for him and
41:59
last last but not least
42:01
a real outsider a real curveball bernard
42:03
coolantes
42:05
yeah shout out to coolang tried to get
42:06
him on the podcast with us today but
42:08
he says he's just got to work on his
42:10
english a little bit longer before he
42:11
comes on he's had some amazing results
42:13
in france this summer he's french
42:15
national champ now he won a french cup
42:17
beating
42:18
loris and like and omri obviously omri
42:21
had a crash but
42:23
yeah i mean he's had an amazing year
42:25
whether leo gang's his favorite kind of
42:27
track
42:27
i think i think he'd say it wasn't but
42:30
he's got the momentum behind him
42:31
so how do you do that do you reckon how
42:33
do you come from
42:34
he finished last year at the end of the
42:36
world cup 72nd
42:38
yeah but he had i think he'd had some
42:40
injuries i think he's
42:41
kulanja's has some you know plenty of
42:44
top 15 results
42:46
in his time um i know him quite well
42:48
because we've both ridden for o'neill
42:49
we've both written for nikolai so yeah
42:51
um you know i've been aware of benoit
42:53
for years and uh
42:55
yeah but as you said like he's you know
42:57
being someone who i'd kind of want to
42:59
beat and would feel like
43:00
you know i can race against
43:01
competitively whereas this year that
43:04
i mean at the french cup i did when i
43:06
came 14th he came forth
43:09
and we were 9th and 10th at the first
43:10
split
43:12
point two apart and then he took five
43:14
seconds out of me in the bottom sector
43:15
i thought it was a time and error
43:18
said to my dad i said i'm not happy with
43:20
the time this doesn't make sense i've
43:21
ridden well
43:23
but the following week at les
43:26
he went and won and i was like no there
43:28
was no time in there right
43:30
i just ran too slow
43:31
[Laughter]
43:33
so yeah who knows benoit might might
43:35
surprise everyone and uh keep going with
43:37
what he's been doing
43:38
do you know if martin mars is racing no
43:40
i have no idea
43:41
no um well
43:44
how big is that first time training
43:47
session psychologically do you reckon
43:49
i think it depends on who you are um
43:52
you know as we know danny likes to go up
43:54
there and you know
43:56
bang his runs out and make sure he's
43:58
feeling good by the end of the day and
44:00
doing some timed runs and
44:02
there's other riders who are never on
44:04
you know
44:05
usually anywhere on the on the time so i
44:07
think it very much depends on how you
44:08
approach practice for me it was a
44:10
it would be a big thing when i went to
44:11
cairns i'd
44:13
not done well there the year before i'd
44:15
come i think 56th i didn't like the
44:17
track at all
44:18
so that first time session was massive
44:20
for me because obviously i was
44:21
representing gb i was at worlds i
44:23
wanted to do well and i think i was 20th
44:26
um so i was like right we're doing well
44:29
here
44:30
yeah and that that helped me then
44:32
progress
44:33
and then in the finals i was i was 12th
44:35
at that first split and
44:37
just made a mistake and came 25th but if
44:39
i'd had a bad first time in session i
44:41
think i would have struggled to progress
44:43
to get that finals result because it
44:44
just
44:45
it's all a stepping stone towards a
44:46
finish so it depends on how you approach
44:49
your race i think on how important that
44:51
session is
44:51
there's some same with those french cup
44:53
results
44:55
do you think they're big psychologically
44:59
yeah so for someone like troy who i
45:01
think did he come
45:02
eighth or ninth at the last one no it's
45:04
not big psychologically because he'll
45:06
have just been using it as a warm-up
45:07
get on the clock ride the track yeah
45:09
fetch his legs
45:11
someone like benoit it's massive yeah
45:14
he's going around beating like
45:15
and beating lorries it's huge it rolls
45:18
him into world champs with
45:20
great confidence so so yeah it very much
45:23
depends on your level and who you are
45:25
and what you respond to some of those
45:26
guys are going to be burnt out i was
45:28
thinking this today
45:28
there's a lot of guys who've been in
45:30
europe now all summer racing
45:32
almost every weekend yeah whereas you've
45:34
got guys like
45:35
um has you done one race
45:39
you've got laurie who's done one i think
45:41
danny went to one
45:42
matt walker's not with any charlie's
45:45
done one so
45:46
you've got a lot of guys are going to be
45:47
super fresh and some guys may be a
45:49
little burnt out so
45:50
it's going to be interesting let's do
45:52
some predictions for the men's race then
45:54
who are you going for one two three i
45:57
think you're gonna have to come back to
45:58
me at the end of the podcast i can't
46:01
there's just like we said there's just
46:02
too much choice um
46:04
it's hard in it it's like a scatter gun
46:06
i can i can tell you now
46:08
likes in my top three i don't know where
46:10
i want to put him but come back to me at
46:11
the end of the pod and ask me again
46:14
all right and i'll have it ready because
46:15
i just can't do it there's just too much
46:16
choice
46:17
i did this on two separate occasions
46:20
like i did it about two weeks ago and
46:22
then i did it again this week when i was
46:23
drafting the broadcast out and i ended
46:25
up with this without i wrote it down and
46:27
forgot about it
46:28
and then when i came back to it i'd
46:29
written the same three so i'd gone for
46:31
loris to win
46:33
danny second and aaron third right yeah
46:36
so who knows well it's three of the big
46:39
ones so it's one of them as uh every
46:41
chance it'll
46:42
you know it's it's a solid bet for sure
46:46
we'll be back to talk about the women's
46:47
race after these messages
46:55
next up we have the 2018 and 2019 junior
46:59
world champion
47:00
and world cup overall winner valley hall
47:03
welcome back to the show volley
47:04
it's only been a few months but have the
47:06
preparations been going
47:08
hey nice to have me well it was it was
47:12
pretty cool actually for me and i had so
47:14
much time you know without school and
47:17
you know the bike parks were back open
47:19
the lips were open so it was
47:21
actually a pretty sick summer yeah you i
47:23
think when we last spoke you were just
47:25
finishing school is that right did that
47:26
all go okay
47:27
yeah all good actually pretty good for
47:29
that that i
47:30
didn't really study for it so yeah i was
47:33
pretty stoked
47:34
oh you've bought your own place is that
47:37
right i've got your own place
47:38
yeah i got my own apartment uh you know
47:41
a few bits are still missing but it's
47:44
getting all together
47:46
cool that's a big step at your age
47:48
congratulations
47:49
thank you where is that uh it's actually
47:52
like in the middle of sabah
47:54
and leogang so it's only 15 minutes
47:56
delivering 15 minutes to cyborg so
47:59
perfect ideal location nice living the
48:02
dream
48:03
so how have you managed your training
48:05
and have you managed
48:06
to kind of stay motivated so basically
48:09
like straight after i graduated from
48:11
school i went one week to the rebel
48:14
training facility in salzburg and then
48:16
we tested everything
48:18
and then from that week on we put a new
48:21
training plan on
48:22
which was a bit more intense just like
48:24
more days in a week of of
48:26
training and yeah that was pretty
48:28
exciting it was definitely
48:31
the first two or three weeks pretty
48:33
exhausting because i never did like
48:35
two sessions a day but you kind of get
48:38
into it and
48:38
to be honest like it's the only thing i
48:41
have to do at the moment so uh
48:43
yeah i mean time for it
48:46
so how many days a week are you doing
48:48
two sessions
48:50
uh four days a week wow yeah
48:53
is that pretty consistent with you jack
48:54
are you the same
48:56
i had a stint in the summer when we did
48:58
two sessions a day yeah
49:00
um and then i kind of came off that
49:03
i can't even remember how many weeks ago
49:05
and more time on the bike and
49:08
yeah some gym sessions but yeah
49:10
certainly had that phase in the middle
49:11
of
49:12
middle of the summer where it was like
49:13
right well let's just do loads of gym
49:16
work and
49:17
yeah and push for more but it's actually
49:19
tough to
49:20
you know nobody thinks that if you do
49:23
like a riding session in the morning
49:25
it's actually pretty exhausting even
49:27
though you just did like five runs
49:29
but i don't know 100 yeah people take
49:32
for granted how hard it actually is to
49:34
do a downhill session
49:36
you've you've had a couple of videos out
49:38
over the summer there was the
49:39
it's a vibe one for yt and the sound of
49:42
speed for red bull
49:44
you've got some style going on there's
49:45
there's scandy flicks everywhere in the
49:47
uh
49:48
in the uh red bull one anything it was
49:51
just a camera angle
49:53
but you seemed off quite a bit of input
49:55
into that video is is that something you
49:57
enjoyed doing
49:58
well you know it's it's cool if you if
50:00
you get to film
50:02
at home so you know where the spots are
50:04
and uh you know every time you're riding
50:06
a trail you think like oh that would be
50:07
that would be a cool angle to shoot and
50:10
yeah i think it turned out pretty cool
50:11
actually and the intro a bit with the
50:14
wasp or the b that was all done in post
50:16
wasn't it there wasn't really
50:18
no it was it was right there yeah really
50:20
yeah
50:21
that's very cool it was like the i think
50:24
the fifth shot we did
50:26
so yeah was funny excellent
50:29
i don't think you you've raced this
50:31
season unless i'm mistaken we were you
50:33
tempted by the french cup so
50:35
no i did some races i did the czech
50:37
national champs the slovenian national
50:39
champs
50:41
but yeah i didn't really know about the
50:45
french champs they looked pretty cool
50:48
yeah the french cups were kind of kept
50:50
quiet i was already in france when i
50:52
found out about those races
50:54
they told me about it and yeah i hadn't
50:56
seen any advertisement anywhere
50:58
yeah so yeah if i hadn't been in france
51:01
and spoke to
51:01
someone french i don't think i would
51:03
have found out either so yeah
51:04
how how did you get on those races that
51:07
you did do
51:09
not me yeah yeah uh well
51:12
just like through david truma actually
51:15
like he sent me oh are you going to
51:17
marble i think oh
51:18
when is it well next week oh i'll see
51:21
inside information as well
51:23
yeah it's not like people i think
51:26
they weren't allowed to you know to make
51:28
it public that way that
51:29
lots of people are coming because of
51:31
covert actually but
51:33
yeah and how where did you finish
51:36
uh first at all races
51:39
yeah some things never change
51:43
were there many girls there or were you
51:45
kind of well not that many there was
51:47
monika rasnig in maribor
51:51
yeah i think i was pretty feeling good
51:53
in maribor
51:54
and yeah it was tough to beat her but i
51:57
did so it was cool
51:58
that's nice yeah so
52:01
i'm heading out wednesday like i just
52:03
said to you what can you tell me about
52:04
austria at the moment we've seen a lot
52:05
of snow on the uh
52:07
oh yeah you know on the mountains is it
52:09
still yeah it's crazy
52:10
well yeah on saturday sunday snow it's
52:13
so heavy
52:14
like and it's so cold at the moment so
52:17
uh yeah
52:18
lots of tracks were closed i think
52:19
slamming was the only place uh which was
52:21
actually open
52:22
like from the middle station down to to
52:25
right but
52:26
liagong was closed i mean they're closed
52:28
this week anyway but
52:29
you know it would have been cool to ride
52:31
during the weekend but
52:32
yeah yeah i hope it's not gonna snow for
52:35
world chance
52:36
i mean it would be sick i think it would
52:38
be something new but
52:40
it's actually pretty cool yeah
52:42
definitely is the weather forecast down
52:43
there looking like things are gonna calm
52:45
down or is it looking wintery
52:47
well it's not getting any better i think
52:49
it's gonna you know rain all the time
52:51
but
52:52
you know rain can rain can turn into
52:54
snow pretty quick here now
52:55
so absolutely yeah so it could go either
52:58
way
52:59
so is there any kind of inside
53:00
information you've got what can you tell
53:02
us about the race that we might not know
53:04
well there's a new part okay yeah which
53:07
is pretty
53:08
pretty it's going to be pretty exciting
53:10
so all the people who complain
53:12
about liogang being to bike parky yeah
53:16
they will complain because it's going to
53:17
be too hard nice
53:19
so so whereabouts is the new section is
53:21
it in the upper section before the
53:23
motorway or is it no it's like straight
53:25
after the motorway
53:26
you take the first wall right but you
53:28
don't take the second one and then you
53:30
go
53:30
to the left side into the woods no it's
53:33
all
53:33
fresh loam like nothing build oh well
53:36
it's going straight down
53:38
amazing that sounds good and is the is
53:40
the top section more or less the same
53:43
yeah apparently they can't change it i
53:45
mean
53:46
it's kind of the same but they can't
53:48
really change yeah
53:50
something have you had chance to ride
53:51
this new bottom section or is it well we
53:53
did it like a few times just
53:56
to let them know like what is going to
53:58
work or what not and then they build a
53:59
new champ
54:00
so a new river gap which looks pretty
54:03
pretty big
54:04
and then yeah we jumped it to tell them
54:06
if if it's safe
54:08
absolutely that's important because if
54:10
they don't speak to the riders and
54:12
put in a new section of trail sometimes
54:14
it just doesn't work so yeah
54:16
they've done that oh no so david truma
54:18
and andreas cope they were writing
54:20
and testing it more and i think it was
54:23
good that they
54:24
they did yeah definitely i'm
54:26
disappointed i don't get to ride now now
54:28
there's a new station
54:29
um okay so have you spent a lot of time
54:31
riding the bike park this summer in leo
54:33
gang or have you been going elsewhere
54:35
well i was trying to go like lots to leo
54:38
gang but
54:39
you know there's at some point you just
54:41
get tired of it because
54:43
yeah you know at some point you can't
54:44
really get any faster on that stupid
54:46
motorway because it's not gonna work
54:48
anymore
54:49
yeah yeah yeah that's fair yeah
54:52
okay good but look at looking at the
54:54
women's field it's great to see everyone
54:56
fit and racing because
54:58
it's kind of been a while since all the
55:00
um female
55:01
riders been have been fit um to me it's
55:04
kind of anyone from six to win there's
55:06
marine there's tracy
55:08
miriam yourself tony and rachel and then
55:12
possibly kevin nina and veronica as
55:14
podium threats
55:16
who concerns you most out of that list
55:20
well it's so hard to say i mean it's so
55:23
funny because like tony and rachel they
55:25
didn't do any races and then you see
55:26
marina
55:27
and pom pom and pom poo just beating
55:30
beating him all
55:31
by quite a lot so uh you know i think
55:34
pom-pom is is on fire and i would
55:37
be stoked for it to win but i mean
55:38
nobody knows about rachel
55:40
she's riding all the time in their bike
55:42
park and and tony the same so
55:44
it's oh it's going to be so exciting
55:46
well it's funny because i mean i have to
55:48
race too but i'm not thinking about
55:50
myself to be honest
55:52
i'm sure they'll all be worried about
55:54
you valley
55:56
i think i saw you riding with miriam the
55:58
other week was that in leo going
55:59
yeah yeah so she's been getting some
56:02
track time as well
56:03
yeah they did yeah cool
56:06
you weren't qualifying by 18 seconds
56:09
last year
56:09
there's not going to be any of that
56:11
anymore do you think that will push you
56:13
to go
56:13
faster oh for sure i mean it's like like
56:17
we said anna and miller the last year
56:19
that
56:19
you know even if we had a really bad day
56:22
we still end up on the podium and we all
56:24
know that this is not gonna happen
56:26
at all like but i think it's pretty cool
56:29
to have like a new
56:30
new goal and you know it shouldn't be a
56:33
race where you can write and say oh it
56:35
doesn't matter if i [ __ ] up
56:37
you always have to give your very best
56:39
and you shouldn't end up on the podium
56:40
if
56:41
if you're right like that i think yeah
56:44
absolutely couldn't agree
56:45
more so obviously this is your first
56:48
senior
56:48
world championships and it's on your
56:51
home track
56:52
are you feeling extra pressure because
56:55
it's on the home track
56:56
or not uh for sure like i tried to
57:00
to deny it and be like oh it's you know
57:02
it's in october it's so far away but
57:04
now it's like it's next week and it's
57:07
getting closer and closer and you see
57:09
all
57:09
all the riders coming to austria and
57:11
it's pretty exciting and uh
57:13
yeah i mean now i feel like it doesn't
57:16
matter if i go to the gym tomorrow or
57:18
not it's not going to change anything
57:19
so yeah
57:22
have you had a lot more commitments to
57:24
do away from riding the bike with it
57:26
being in your hometown
57:29
well not really no
57:32
not many interviews and things like that
57:35
like i i got my pr manager
57:39
and i think she's she's blocking them
57:42
away a lot because
57:43
she knows that i want to focus on racing
57:45
now and not like do
57:46
i mean we did a lot especially like
57:48
filming over the summer and
57:50
as yeah i mean i get lots of text
57:53
messages
57:54
like this week and they want to do
57:56
something for next week but it's not
57:58
going to work out
57:58
no absolutely yeah you've got to focus
58:00
on the event and deal with the
58:02
the media things afterwards so to you
58:04
know moving on from the feeling of
58:06
pressure
58:07
are you feeling confident going into the
58:09
event are you prepared are you ready
58:11
well it's hard to say because we didn't
58:12
race against each other i think a world
58:14
cup is pretty cool because you can
58:16
kind of set your expectations
58:19
yeah absolutely and now like everybody's
58:21
in the field even with
58:23
pom-pom and rachel and tony being out
58:25
last year
58:26
like yeah i did quite good at the world
58:28
cups but they weren't there so
58:31
it's hard to say and i think i i did my
58:34
best what i could do as a as a rookie
58:36
and uh yeah let's see what you know what
58:39
happens
58:40
yep so you're you're ready to fight
58:41
that's good
58:45
um you merely as you said before you
58:49
and anna you were kind of one two and
58:50
three throughout last season
58:53
and the season before really it
58:56
i don't know anybody who any of the
58:58
other junior women riders who could take
59:00
it
59:01
have you got any kind of insight on the
59:03
next generation coming through
59:06
well i feel actually quite bad because i
59:08
don't do either
59:09
i just know that the frenchies have lots
59:12
of junior
59:13
girls which is pretty cool and i think
59:15
you know
59:16
some other federation should really
59:19
think about it that
59:20
why the frenchies have such a good like
59:22
junior film
59:23
all the time yeah and and others you
59:26
know
59:26
they don't even bring some so that's
59:29
actually pretty sad to see but
59:30
i know that we in austria we have some
59:32
really fast 12 year
59:33
13 year olds which is pretty exciting
59:36
and i feel like
59:37
you know i went riding with them a few
59:39
times and you know i would like to to be
59:42
kind of role model and you know
59:44
like yeah get more girls into racing for
59:47
australia it would be pretty cool
59:48
yeah right and it's it's really sad that
59:51
the the great britain aren't bringing
59:53
any junior females either
59:55
um and yeah it's
59:58
french racing we've all because every
1:00:00
nobody else has raced this summer
1:00:02
we've seen how healthy the french racing
1:00:04
scene is
1:00:06
there's so many riders everyone's so
1:00:08
into it i was there for one of them this
1:00:10
year couldn't believe
1:00:11
how nice and friendly the atmosphere was
1:00:14
and yeah i think it's just been a lesson
1:00:16
to everybody else that that's what they
1:00:17
should strive towards because
1:00:20
they're killing it and in terms of how
1:00:22
many people are racing and
1:00:24
it just shows that they've got so many
1:00:25
young guys and girls coming through so
1:00:28
yeah you're dead right it needs people
1:00:29
like yourself to encourage the younger
1:00:31
ones into it
1:00:32
yeah but what do you think like is the
1:00:34
key to to get more tuners in i mean
1:00:36
it's not like you need you need like
1:00:38
rooney to do like a technique camp with
1:00:40
them but
1:00:41
like is it because they have more
1:00:43
mentors like nico bullios and fabio
1:00:45
barrel or
1:00:47
what is it what do you think yeah i mean
1:00:50
i think i think
1:00:52
we'd probably need to look at what they
1:00:54
are doing but
1:00:55
certainly i i believe pro riders getting
1:00:59
more involved
1:01:01
with younger riders maybe away from the
1:01:03
races in the winter like it's something
1:01:05
i'm going to do this year
1:01:06
we've seen that the youth and junior
1:01:08
riders in the uk i haven't been able to
1:01:10
race
1:01:11
so when i get back from this trip we're
1:01:12
going to do a bit of a day with the team
1:01:16
it's going to be tricky with covid but i
1:01:17
kind of want to do it as like an open
1:01:19
invite thing
1:01:20
where any youth and junior rider can
1:01:23
come along
1:01:24
and ride with me with dan ask questions
1:01:27
because they've all missed 12 months of
1:01:29
their
1:01:30
early careers and at that age it's such
1:01:34
a vital time so
1:01:35
i think more of that needs to happen for
1:01:37
sure um
1:01:38
and then the federations just have to
1:01:40
spend some money in my opinion
1:01:42
affiliations should be putting on these
1:01:45
things
1:01:46
um for downhill that's a big big one
1:01:49
getting getting these these events and
1:01:52
these these camps going
1:01:54
bringing them out getting them excited
1:01:55
about race and bringing riders along
1:01:58
you know g athens is going to be here
1:02:00
and rich often is going to be with him
1:02:02
come along and ride and all of a sudden
1:02:03
kids will get excited about it
1:02:05
but that doesn't happen at the moment so
1:02:07
yeah
1:02:08
obviously you're racing in the elite
1:02:10
women's category so i'm not going to ask
1:02:12
you to
1:02:12
to predict that but do you fancy having
1:02:14
a stab at the men's race
1:02:17
well it's going to be interesting if if
1:02:19
like is gonna get his sixth title i mean
1:02:22
that would be
1:02:22
that would be crazy and i think it's the
1:02:25
same like what's going on with the
1:02:26
french like always winning world champs
1:02:28
yeah it's crazy but they put so much
1:02:31
into it don't they the french they put
1:02:33
more into it than anybody else
1:02:36
i don't think you could say that because
1:02:38
i mean everybody wants to win
1:02:39
but sorry i meant like the federation
1:02:43
put more into it they said line spot as
1:02:45
they have full support
1:02:47
well that's crazy yeah i i witnessed
1:02:49
that because uh the first year i was
1:02:51
doing world champs in lansa height i was
1:02:52
riding with cecile
1:02:54
ravenel and she was you know you know
1:02:57
showing me so much and teaching me how
1:02:59
how to write world cups and stuff and
1:03:01
and then the guy came and said uh you're
1:03:03
not allowed to ride with you know with
1:03:05
me because i'm from australia
1:03:06
she should ride with the french girls
1:03:08
and they was like whoa
1:03:09
i mean huge but yeah i think like
1:03:14
it has to be that way to what it doesn't
1:03:17
have to be but
1:03:18
you know it helps a lot if if you have
1:03:21
you know such a big
1:03:23
you know amount of of help inside
1:03:26
did the austrian federation send anyone
1:03:28
to help you and
1:03:29
david and the other riders do you get
1:03:31
line spotters do you get physios or
1:03:33
anything from the federation
1:03:34
no nothing really no
1:03:38
yeah you see they do more for cross
1:03:41
country but not really for
1:03:42
dh so it's kind of sad but
1:03:46
no i got the chance to to be it was with
1:03:48
with my team so
1:03:49
i brought like two three people who
1:03:52
helped me
1:03:53
but it said i mean yeah it's the same in
1:03:56
the uk
1:03:56
that this year in previous years they've
1:03:59
they've had a good crew of
1:04:01
you know someone in charge line spotters
1:04:03
physios mechanics
1:04:04
whereas this year there's nothing for
1:04:06
the downhill but yeah
1:04:08
i can imagine the french downhill set up
1:04:10
they'll still have everything they need
1:04:12
to give those riders the best chance so
1:04:16
i think they're leading from the front
1:04:17
in terms of setting an example aren't
1:04:18
they
1:04:19
yeah for sure okay so final question and
1:04:22
it's a hypothetical one your time last
1:04:25
year
1:04:26
would have been good enough for third in
1:04:27
elite but the field is stronger this
1:04:30
time around
1:04:31
if someone offered you a bronze medal
1:04:32
now would you take it or would you risk
1:04:34
it all for gold
1:04:36
i would risk it all
1:04:39
nice sure like what happens if i whip it
1:04:41
faster and then i still have to beat it
1:04:43
with you know
1:04:44
the bronze one for sure risk it all and
1:04:47
then
1:04:48
let's see you're racer
1:04:51
well look i hope it doesn't turn out to
1:04:53
be a curse but i'm going for you to win
1:04:55
it
1:04:55
i uh it might be a year or so too soon
1:04:59
but i think with everything that's gone
1:05:00
on home turf
1:05:02
i think it could be the start of a new
1:05:03
age so best of luck out there
1:05:06
in the race and for the rest of the
1:05:07
season thanks very much valley thank you
1:05:10
good luck ciao jack we mentioned six
1:05:13
riders earlier
1:05:14
who do you think will be picking up gold
1:05:16
who are you going for
1:05:19
i'm gonna go for tony yeah yeah
1:05:22
and then i'm gonna put valley in second
1:05:26
and miriam in third
1:05:29
i've gone for the exact same three
1:05:31
riders but i've gone with
1:05:33
valee tony and then miriam
1:05:36
you've gone rachel i did have rachel
1:05:38
well i've changed it yeah
1:05:43
i saw miriam doing some training on
1:05:45
instagram and i thought
1:05:46
it's influenced my decision yeah i i
1:05:50
i saw that same thing and then sarah was
1:05:52
doing the uh
1:05:53
could you get up off your knees onto
1:05:55
your feet yeah that was it yeah yeah
1:05:56
yeah
1:05:57
did you try it no i didn't try it i
1:05:59
can't do that
1:06:00
i looked at sarah and he went i don't
1:06:03
know if i can do that
1:06:05
move the coffee table out the way we i
1:06:07
don't even we've just been watching
1:06:09
telly
1:06:09
and i'm on my legs like i don't know if
1:06:11
i can do this and i managed it but the
1:06:12
first time i like
1:06:14
missed the timing that bad i landed that
1:06:16
heavy on my feet i almost went through
1:06:17
the floor
1:06:19
well miriam sent out a message to them
1:06:21
all we'll be back after these messages
1:06:23
to talk through the junior men with team
1:06:25
gb and sr center one visions dan slack
1:06:34
welcome to the podcast how are we doing
1:06:37
yeah good to you
1:06:38
yeah not so bad thank you not so bad at
1:06:40
all let me get this right you've only
1:06:42
raced one season of downhill
1:06:44
and you won the uk national downhill
1:06:46
series as a first year junior is that
1:06:48
right
1:06:49
yeah somehow all in a pair of ankle
1:06:51
socks
1:06:51
[Laughter]
1:06:55
so this is like fairy tale stuff isn't
1:06:58
it one season of racing downhill and now
1:07:00
on team gb at worlds
1:07:02
yeah first time for everything i bet
1:07:03
they're into it yeah i said that's like
1:07:06
yeah that is fairy tale stuff really
1:07:08
tell us a little bit about you your
1:07:10
background though because
1:07:11
you were new to downhill but you were in
1:07:13
motorbike trails is that right
1:07:15
yeah so i was competing in that since i
1:07:17
was eight
1:07:18
and i'd done every british championship
1:07:20
for about eight years
1:07:22
and like for the first six or seven
1:07:24
years i got second place at every single
1:07:27
one
1:07:27
wow and then i finally grew up and
1:07:31
actually won one
1:07:32
like the full championship wicked but
1:07:35
what made you switch from that then
1:07:37
what yeah the sport was changing
1:07:40
like it was really professional when i
1:07:42
first died but then it kind of got a bit
1:07:44
down in and scores were getting changed
1:07:46
and i've been doing it for that long i
1:07:48
just wanted like a change
1:07:50
like i'd always rid a mountain bike so i
1:07:52
was like why not have a go at a race
1:07:55
and you joined jack on sr sun tour one
1:07:58
vision this season
1:07:59
what's the most important thing that
1:08:01
jack's taught you so far
1:08:03
careful whoa it taught me a lot but
1:08:07
we can only explain some of them because
1:08:09
of the listeners
1:08:10
[Laughter]
1:08:13
mostly about um social media as well i
1:08:16
was a big thing
1:08:17
because before i'd never really like
1:08:18
done anything about it it was like
1:08:20
post a video once a month if i felt like
1:08:23
it yeah and
1:08:24
more to prove yourself on social media
1:08:26
with sponsors
1:08:28
but also like attention to detail
1:08:30
because it's changed from just being a
1:08:32
kid who's racing british
1:08:34
and like little races to actually
1:08:36
stepping up into a big league
1:08:39
yeah i mean i remember last season i did
1:08:41
a track walk with you and
1:08:43
was it you and your dad yeah it would
1:08:45
have been yeah
1:08:46
and like the the level of
1:08:49
detail that jack does on a track walk
1:08:51
was way beyond what we were doing that
1:08:53
day if i remember rightly
1:08:55
yeah walking dead try not to fall over
1:08:57
and just talking
1:08:59
but talk to me a little bit loves that
1:09:02
no i think was it a
1:09:03
bala yeah yeah it would have been
1:09:07
yeah yeah talk to me a bit about fitness
1:09:10
because i believe he's uh
1:09:11
whipped you into shape yeah
1:09:14
quite a lot so last year i never trained
1:09:18
it was just
1:09:18
racing was just like a thing and it was
1:09:21
kind of a hobby
1:09:22
and then this year signing with jack
1:09:24
i've got on the fit for racing program
1:09:27
and it's absolutely savage like four
1:09:29
days a week
1:09:30
is enough it's a lot of like crossfit
1:09:34
stuff which i've never done before
1:09:36
we've got the muscle i've put on is like
1:09:38
massive compared to what i was
1:09:40
and i've lost like a stone just in
1:09:43
fact yeah you turned up at my house last
1:09:46
november and you like a bowl of rice
1:09:47
pudding
1:09:50
now you've actually got some muscle
1:09:52
which is good so you can hang on to your
1:09:53
bite
1:09:54
just about yeah so you just said to
1:09:57
george there obviously that
1:09:59
um attention to detail has been
1:10:02
something that we've looked at and
1:10:04
obviously we've been going away and you
1:10:06
know we've had we had trips through the
1:10:07
winter and
1:10:09
um looking at all kinds of stuff timing
1:10:11
and setting up our bikes and things like
1:10:13
that
1:10:13
how much of a difference do you think
1:10:15
it's made having a professionally set up
1:10:17
bike
1:10:18
to help you go faster like night and day
1:10:21
difference between
1:10:22
actually becoming like to unlock your
1:10:25
speed
1:10:26
last year i just got on a bike set it up
1:10:28
and never changed it all year
1:10:30
like this year i've actually been
1:10:32
playing with settings testing different
1:10:34
suspensions to get they like get the
1:10:35
bike feeling right for me
1:10:37
on a certain track i'd say like
1:10:41
to get to that high level you couldn't
1:10:43
do it without the professionals
1:10:45
like the professional approaching with
1:10:47
the bike fully set up
1:10:49
absolutely yeah 100 um
1:10:52
can i just ask something that goes on
1:10:55
you look back now and wonder how you
1:10:57
won on that old bike yeah well when i
1:11:00
had the first common self
1:11:02
i still had my da vinci and like when i
1:11:05
got the comments i was set up
1:11:06
feeling amazing i got back on the da
1:11:08
vinci just for a little ride just on the
1:11:10
road
1:11:10
and it's like oh my god how did i race
1:11:12
it yeah what is this yeah
1:11:14
yeah it just felt small just everything
1:11:17
was wrong
1:11:20
yeah definitely no you've made great
1:11:22
progress with all more with
1:11:23
also with actually being aware of stuff
1:11:25
because yeah at the start
1:11:26
you know i'd be changing suspension
1:11:28
settings and messing around with
1:11:29
progression on the fork and things like
1:11:31
that and
1:11:32
you'd kind of be like oh what are you
1:11:33
doing what's that and then you just kind
1:11:36
of go and ride whereas
1:11:37
now you're almost coming to me and
1:11:39
saying oh the fort feels like it's doing
1:11:40
this i'm going to try that which
1:11:42
which is really good because that kind
1:11:43
of awareness is what you need because
1:11:45
we'll go to leo gang next week and
1:11:46
you'll get four or five practice runs
1:11:48
on the first day yeah and if you've
1:11:51
already got an idea of how the bike
1:11:52
should feel it makes it much easier
1:11:54
for us to to get you going well on the
1:11:56
track so
1:11:57
with a good base setting absolutely that
1:12:00
attention to detail is
1:12:01
um is it is super important and then
1:12:04
you know with that all the guys you're
1:12:06
going to be racing against this year are
1:12:08
going to be doing exactly the same thing
1:12:10
so um you know we've had no world cups
1:12:13
we've got
1:12:13
juniors like yourself who haven't raced
1:12:15
the world cup before we've got
1:12:16
some second year juniors that raced last
1:12:19
year and then the first year juniors
1:12:21
um looking at the top teams there's
1:12:24
ethan chandra from trek
1:12:26
austin o'callaghan at yt christopher
1:12:29
grice it's specialized
1:12:30
did seth sherlock win one last year
1:12:32
george is that right i
1:12:34
think he did yeah was that before he
1:12:35
joined intense yeah he wasn't with the
1:12:37
master so seth may have
1:12:38
i think he i think he rode the bike
1:12:40
already because i thought i'm sure
1:12:43
there's seth sherlock at intense simon
1:12:46
uh
1:12:46
chappelle he's been having a good season
1:12:48
winning some french cups and then
1:12:50
um gonzalo from portugal um
1:12:53
so dan who's uh who are you seeing on
1:12:56
that list who you think is going to be
1:12:58
your main contender
1:12:59
or are you not really paying much much
1:13:01
attention because i know what you like
1:13:04
no i'd go with the simon chapelle
1:13:07
like last year he had full factory sport
1:13:09
with like the ur
1:13:10
team so he knows like how we need to
1:13:13
perform and
1:13:14
the level the other boys are at and as
1:13:16
well this year he's actually done some
1:13:18
racing with like what's been going on
1:13:20
with the french cups and he's been able
1:13:22
to like place himself against the best
1:13:24
because versions being at them just to
1:13:27
see where he needs to be
1:13:28
to be at that level yeah i saw his his
1:13:32
time in one of them
1:13:33
he beat breed and i think in one of the
1:13:35
races so
1:13:36
he must have been moving yeah he's
1:13:39
stepped up as well because last year on
1:13:41
the polygon setup he really
1:13:43
didn't perform obviously with us both
1:13:45
riding for esta sun tour i was
1:13:47
you know aware of his performances and
1:13:50
we were mixing in the same circles and
1:13:52
yeah he was not qualifying at quite a
1:13:54
lot of them last year as a first year
1:13:55
junior
1:13:56
and not really showing pace and yeah
1:13:59
there seems to have been a change there
1:14:00
whether it's the
1:14:02
you know the reduction in pressure now
1:14:04
not being on a big team helping him
1:14:05
relax
1:14:06
and helping him get into it these french
1:14:07
cups who knows but
1:14:09
but yeah i mean there's certainly a list
1:14:11
there of good riders and
1:14:13
you know it's going to work one way or
1:14:14
the other either like i said this
1:14:16
earlier in the pod but some guys will
1:14:17
have done too much racing and might be a
1:14:19
little bit burnt out
1:14:20
yeah there's guys like yourself who had
1:14:22
the last eight weeks just training and
1:14:24
kind of uh revving up for this so who's
1:14:27
who's the man to be on team gb
1:14:29
dan is it lou williamson
1:14:32
yeah there's also dennis luffman he's
1:14:36
one that sometimes you see he has a like
1:14:39
really good result always up there
1:14:41
or sometimes you don't see until like
1:14:43
back half of the result
1:14:44
so i think if he has a good result and
1:14:46
with it being wet he's
1:14:48
good in the work yeah so it's
1:14:51
yeah probably luke williamson like
1:14:53
because he had the experience from last
1:14:54
year
1:14:55
absolutely and with the team support
1:14:57
this year still
1:14:58
yeah have you been talking like dan you
1:15:00
probably didn't
1:15:02
we sent you this some of this script
1:15:04
didn't we to have a look at before we
1:15:05
ask you the questions and you i bet you
1:15:06
haven't even heard of after them
1:15:11
yeah you just get done dan just for the
1:15:13
listeners dan just
1:15:14
he's the perfect racer he's getting on
1:15:15
with his own thing focused on his own
1:15:17
training his own riding
1:15:19
his own bike you couldn't give him
1:15:20
monkeys about them could you make just
1:15:22
gonna get on that track and do your
1:15:23
thing
1:15:24
yeah i looked at the crankworx entry
1:15:25
list i recognized about four names on
1:15:27
him like that
1:15:28
exactly have you been to leah gang
1:15:31
before
1:15:32
what's jack told you to expect no i've
1:15:35
never been i've
1:15:36
seen load the course previews and stuff
1:15:38
so i
1:15:39
and jack what jack said as well like
1:15:41
there's a bit bike parking at the top
1:15:44
so fast and it's kind of carrying me
1:15:46
speed while still being smooth
1:15:48
yeah this year i've seen a few instagram
1:15:50
stories from people with like the new
1:15:52
bottom section
1:15:54
and it's looking like an almost like a
1:15:56
natural british track
1:15:59
valley and valley's just confirmed that
1:16:01
that it is
1:16:02
a completely new cut in bottom section
1:16:05
before the second
1:16:06
wall ride so from what she said it'll
1:16:08
suit you down to the ground
1:16:10
um steep and low me so that'll be
1:16:13
nice sounds good for the english boys
1:16:16
yeah exactly so we um we leave tomorrow
1:16:19
down
1:16:20
obviously you're coming up here in the
1:16:21
morning what obviously we've got five
1:16:23
five weeks crank works world champs and
1:16:25
then two back-to-back world cups
1:16:27
what are you most excited about and
1:16:31
definitely world champs yeah of course
1:16:34
and the time in the van for five weeks
1:16:36
with the lads
1:16:39
well look best of luck out there um and
1:16:42
to all the other
1:16:43
team gb riders stay with us for a minute
1:16:45
though um because we're gonna do
1:16:47
jack was supposed to do his predictions
1:16:49
for the men's race but
1:16:50
when we recorded that section yesterday
1:16:52
he uh
1:16:53
he he took a bit of a rain check on it
1:16:56
so and we'll get yours on that jack
1:16:59
you're out there
1:17:00
coverage playing havoc someone has to
1:17:02
pull out late in the day and
1:17:04
it's too tight for a reserved team gb
1:17:06
rider to make it
1:17:07
are you taking the downhill bike as well
1:17:09
as the e-bike
1:17:11
well i mean obviously i love my donal
1:17:12
bikes i'm racing crank works and racing
1:17:14
some more cups but um
1:17:16
i also know that g athena and joe bredon
1:17:19
will be there
1:17:20
so i've actually yeah i've actually
1:17:23
found out today it's not just the second
1:17:25
reserve
1:17:26
so who is it then it's mike jones i was
1:17:28
going to say the only other person i
1:17:29
think yeah
1:17:30
it would be mike mike must have had a
1:17:31
top 20 last year then i've forgotten
1:17:33
about
1:17:34
yeah so correction to that earlier in
1:17:36
the podcast we've recorded this
1:17:38
episode over a couple of nights and that
1:17:40
information has just come out today
1:17:43
caller i mean g finished last year
1:17:46
one place in front of charlie hatton in
1:17:48
the overall
1:17:50
yeah it's g atherton
1:17:53
liugang would suit him whereas if it was
1:17:54
down andorra obviously you'd send mike
1:17:56
jones because he's so good on the steep
1:17:59
tech
1:17:59
so yeah i mean interesting call that one
1:18:02
i mean technically neither i'm going to
1:18:03
be racing anyway so it doesn't make any
1:18:04
difference but
1:18:06
but yeah um joe breeden and mike are
1:18:08
both out there so they'll both be ready
1:18:10
to go if needed um
1:18:12
and uh yeah i'm sure if either of the
1:18:14
master is a good job
1:18:16
have you heard anything about the races
1:18:17
in maribor and portugal
1:18:19
are they still going ahead as far as you
1:18:20
know yes i mean all we know is we've got
1:18:22
double header world cups
1:18:24
the schedule will be wednesday practice
1:18:26
thursday quality race friday practice
1:18:28
uh quality saturday or sunday um we've
1:18:31
got a week in between them both
1:18:32
i as far as i understand it we have to
1:18:34
get covered tested in between each event
1:18:36
and so the organizer organization no we
1:18:39
haven't got it
1:18:40
um it will be the same as world champs i
1:18:42
imagine you know only accredited people
1:18:44
will be allowed at the event
1:18:46
um and as far as we know things are
1:18:49
going ahead i mean
1:18:50
i'm speaking to some people and they're
1:18:52
saying they don't want it to go ahead
1:18:53
and they want to do worlds and come home
1:18:55
we're not in that boat at all um for
1:18:58
multiple reasons
1:19:00
primarily we're races or athletes we
1:19:02
want to go out and compete so if there's
1:19:03
any chance of
1:19:04
doing that then obviously we want to do
1:19:05
it and then secondly we've got sponsors
1:19:08
who've provided us with support
1:19:10
for calendar year and for us to go
1:19:12
racing and we've been to one event this
1:19:14
year
1:19:15
um obviously we've done other things
1:19:16
like dan says with the social media but
1:19:19
yeah if we can go racing and you know
1:19:21
show off our sponsors support then
1:19:23
that's what we want and also
1:19:24
also for you guys you know you've
1:19:26
trained for however many months
1:19:28
exactly all right 30 months to just do
1:19:31
crank works like
1:19:32
obviously like i want to go to crank
1:19:34
works and race but
1:19:36
ultimately we we put all this effort in
1:19:39
and we kill ourselves in the gym for for
1:19:42
racing world cups and racing against the
1:19:44
best and all of us getting together
1:19:45
and competing so so yeah 100 want to go
1:19:49
racing
1:19:50
well best of luck out there take the mic
1:19:52
with you we'll try and do it maybe try
1:19:53
and do an episode while you're on the
1:19:55
road
1:19:55
absolutely and before you go then give
1:19:58
us your predictions for the men's race
1:20:01
world
1:20:01
and you can jump in on this dan as well
1:20:04
so i'm gonna go
1:20:05
for it's like stressful because like
1:20:07
there's so many you could choose
1:20:09
um i'm gonna go for troy taking a gold
1:20:12
mainly because i just want to see him
1:20:14
see him win it um
1:20:16
and then i'm going to put mana
1:20:19
in second because it's um
1:20:23
and it's a track that just suits him and
1:20:25
he'll always step
1:20:26
up for the big occasion and then like in
1:20:29
third
1:20:30
um but i mean i could have chose three
1:20:31
completely different people i could have
1:20:33
chose vergier gwyn and laurie and it
1:20:35
would have i would have had just as much
1:20:36
chance of getting it right so
1:20:38
do you want to have a stab down yeah i'm
1:20:41
thinking
1:20:42
versie for gold yes
1:20:52
and then i i'd put lori in for third
1:20:55
nice
1:20:56
cool this is so made to pick yeah
1:20:59
indeed well i think that's about it for
1:21:01
tonight thanks to jack and all our
1:21:02
guests for finding the time to come on
1:21:05
it's great just to have a race for us
1:21:07
all to look forward to
1:21:08
best of luck to all the riders racing
1:21:10
worlds he's going to be interesting for
1:21:12
sure
1:21:12
thanks again to our sponsors hope
1:21:14
technology revolution bike park
1:21:16
schwalbe singletrackworld.com if you're
1:21:18
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