MX
summing up the last couple of days...
Had a pretty wicked weekend with sunshine, motocross & a full day of downhill.
Saturday i went for a mx-session wich was pretty fun but i got pretty tired since i havent been riding much moto lately. Then i went for a pretty tough run after that so my bedtime was 10 ó clock!
Sunday i rode downhill prettymuch all day. Did some timed runs at flottsbro & had a great time riding at Haga wich is a small hill close to stcokholm city.
Spent the rest of my sunday cleaning up the mess from saturdays mx-riding & prettymuch again went to bed earlie.
Today i had a day off from training so i have been working a bit at W-racing & figuring out some other stuff. Also had a spin on the bmx at our local pumptrack at the afternoon. Thats prettymuch it i feel like i´m just sitting around waiting to get to go to Maribor and kick off the "real" season.
//R
Va händer för skit då?
Life back home…
I know i don´t realy write anything here when i´m back home but it´s just not as fun to tell people what i´m doing in the cold part of the world i guess..
Well been home for a week & a half wich has been pretty packed with stuff. Last week didn´t start out very good.
We had to take away our dog wich felt like taking away a part of the family. He had it coming for a while so it wasn´t such a big surprise but he´s been around for 14 years so it feels pretty empty.
Other then that i have been training quite a bit with Niklas. Been riding road & xc-mostly but had 2 mx-sessions, a bit of bmx & rode downhill one afternoon.
Everytime i get on the downhillbike now i tend to smile it´s pretty awesome.
Been painting & renovating my new home for a couple of days aswell wich is not to great together with training but it works!
Today it´s sunshine & blue skies so i´m off for a roadride!
Might have some video-material after the weekend!
Stay tuned!
Team
Update
Havent updated for a bit on what iḿ up to so here is some news...
Went back home for a week & a half rode: the new bike a bit, one mx-session, road & a bit of xc in the snow.
Family is moving out of stockholm so there is a bit to do on that part also...more news on that soon...
Well on friday i flew out to Lyon-France to have a couple of days with the team for shooting photos/film & tuning in the new bikes!
Arrived on schedule on friday, Stephané picked me up & we went to the camping where we were staying for the weekend.
Stephané had a lot of new gear for us from POC so that was good & a bit like x-mas-time!
Saturday we went to a racecourse real close took a bunch of good shoots & got some good video-clips in & good riding.
Pretty sick to be riding in 20 degrees & sunshine!! I appreciated it a lot after a bit of time back home!
Sunday we went to a different place to ride, more freeride-stuff with jumps & a big quarry to play around in. Good fun.
On sunday Fred, Thomas & Alex showed up to prepare our bikes & for testing.'
They spent the whole day together with Simon trying different stuff for the suspension while we were taking photos.
After 2 days of riding, shooting/walking both me & Mitch were pretty tired when we rocked up monday morning for our testing session with them.
Well i can only say it was also a long day (think we did atlest 10 runs) but we got what we came for. I feel pretty confídent on the bike now & since everything about rockshox is new to me it was super-good to be able to have a test like this.
Infact everything about my bike is different to last year. I even have different geometry on the frame wich is about the only part that would be the same...but it suits me a lot better!
The track we rode on monday was pretty cool aswell. The end of it was pretty steep & fast with good turns. I liked it!
This morning we went to a place with jumps & some small tracks and played around there for a bit before we headed to the airport.
So now iḿ on route back to Sweden, haven had a shower so i feel sorry for the one who is sitting next to me on the plane.
I will be back home until Maribor now doing a bit of training and hopefully a bit of downhill aswell. All i know is i think we will be pretty well prepared for the season.
Feeling tired after a few hectic days so i will sleep well on the flight back!
Pictures & videos will be up soon!
//R
Film
Back home again from Niklas on Vimeo.
Film from Gouveia
The new ride.
No.3
bloggfilm nr3 from Niklas on Vimeo.
2 pics from Gouveia
Video will be up soon!
Race-1 - done!
Had a wet & muddy weekend thats for sure!
First day of practice was pretty good it was easy to spot a good rythm at the track & i guess having been here a few times before makes it easier.
We all had a great time riding & it felt real good to be riding on a taped-course!
Day 2 we woke up to rain. We knew it was suppose to be raining but not like this. It pissed down REAL hard all day long changing the first flat section on the course into a enduro-survival-section where people actually got stuck!
"FML"-was what i was thinking. I travel 40 hours south of sweden to ride in this crap!?!
Anyway the rest of the course was alright but the top just made it all to depresive so i called it a day with a few less runs then i was planning on.
It continued to rain a bit last night but this morning it was back to blue sky & sunshine but the track was just as bad as yesterday.
Only did one run in the morning practice since i took to long time to check to try to find a different line here & there so i wouldn't have to pedal like a german everywhere like most people.
Found a couple but it seemed like you just had to put your head down & pedal through the mud at most places on the top.
First run went allright managed to not get stock in the first mud-section (it was f-kin 60 metres flat pedalling in half a metre of mud filled with holes) rode the rest of the top like i planned just trying to carry speed & not focus on pedalling to hard. about half way i turned it on a bit more and rode good from there down.
Got in with the best time but got beaten by Gee Atherton by 6 seconds in the end.
Felt got to be in 2nd for the final but at the same time 6 seconds felt like a lot of time.
Had some lunch, water & got the bike fixed for my run & when i got to the top it looked like it could start to rain anytime prettymuch.
My brother got real unlucky in the qualifier when he catched the guy in front of him and ended up crashing so i got to see him on the top & did my best to make him pedal through the mud. Looked like he was a man on a mission so i just hoped he made it down & the tried to focus on my run.
Wanted to do it a bit similair to my qualifyer but pedal a bit more in the flat sections & try to push it a bit on the lower parts.
Felt relaxed & it was a big relief that it didn't start raining before my run! Just got to the first big mudhole until i got stuck. Both feet came of the pedals & i went to a small stop in the mud. It fel so WANK.
Got going again & rode the top half pretty shiet since i just came into the wrong rythm prettymuch from start. The 2nd half felt real good but i got in as 2nd in the finnish.
Ended up 3rd beaten by Emanuel Pombo in 2nd & Gee Atherton in first. But the best thing was that Niklas was in 4th and i was real happy to see him with some confidence in his eyes!
Just finnished a late dinner with the boys & tomorrow we head over to Lousa for some more riding & then racing there next weekend.
Was talking to my dad on the phone after the race & it was snowing back home so i'm going to miss the south of europe!
//R
Bye bye Nerja
Film-2
wazzup
Well riding some xc/today and had some good days of downhill here on the coast!
Went to the rocky/track in Benalmadena the other day to do some longer runs. Managed to get 4 times in without puncturing haha.
Been super happy just to be able to ride everyday down here when I know its blistering cold back home and a meter of snow.
Went for dinner at a pretty good asian/restaurant yesterday and had some frog legs haha.
Tomorrow will be day-off for me the legs are feeling todays xc/ride.
Hopefully I will have a good day on the beach…
Update
So whats cracking in the sun…
Been doing a new track here in Nerja Vich is pretty cool. Some pretty steep sections & some trciky corners here & there.
Did timed runs on: 2.41, 2.38, 2.34, 2.34, & 2.31 pretty fun to see how it got better & better until i got to tired haha.
Weather is not realy what we have been hoping for but it Works. Weather report says sun will be out from tomorrow so look forward to that!!
We’re wyning when it’s 14 degrees & raining but i have been talking to my mum back home where it’s -20 & half a metre of snow so we have it pretty f-kin great here!
Tomorrow is full on with dh & xc and hopefully doing it all in the sun!
//R
Filmos
Nerja & Peille from Niklas on Vimeo.
Riding costa del sol!
Well we have had some pretty good riding, sun & dusty trails pretty dam well deserved if you ask me after last week.
Niklas have edited a video from the last couple of days but the lack on Internet has put it on hold. MAYBE tonight.
Yesterday we were doing runs in Mijas but the pissing rain put an early stop to it and Niklas, Tim & Herman all got a flat on the same run so we called it a day earlie.
Went by the bikeshop aswell and got directions for a new track here in Torrox Vich we checked out on the xc-bikes this morning. Looks pretty sick. Some steep corners, a bit of high-speed & a few drops in the classic spannish-way (no landings).
At the moment i’m trying to dry my clothes from yesterday so i can get out & ride.
Hopefully better weather for tomorrow!
//R
Vegas baby...
So no update for a week…
Where to Start…?!
It’s pretty hard to sum up the last week in a few sentences but i can start with saying it’s been a f-king mess!
To Start with i was worried to leave the van with the “kids” in the french mountains when i left for the team-camp.
But when Niklas called me on Thursday atelling me “we are on the road to the dh in Peille & just lost the backwheel” it got a lot worse!
It was actually the whole axle for the Wheel that broke down wich made it pretty complicated.
Well first of all it took the franch tow-truck company more then 24hours just to get the van to a wv-garage….
A million phonecalls, a 15km walk, and a trashed rental-car later we finally on Thursday got told that we Would have the van back on Friday (yesterday) but not untill 4 p.m.
Problem no. 257. We got kicked out of the apartment in Peille at 10 o clock and had to leave the rental-car before 2 o clock.
What to do?
We loaded up the van with the 15 bikes & all the gear, Left Peille, had lunch & then rocked up at the Wolksvagen-garage in Nice. Dropped ALL of our gear outside the garage and then me & Simon went to return what was left of the rental on the other side of Nice.
A ride on the tramway later we were back at the garage, car fixed and i just had to take care of the massive bill. We left from there prettymuch the same second the receipt was printed and keys wree hended back
I drove 11hours straight last night so here we are in a nice 6 sunny spain and i just had a spin on the bike.
Well this was the ULTRA-short story of the week but the content of each day has prettymuch just been FML untill we actually got the car back and got going again a week delayed.
Ofcourse we got some riding in. Videos on Monday!
Going to hang around in Malaga for a while now so i’ll keep you posted.
/R
When the hard times are coming...
Yesterday was a long one for all of us.
First 2 hours of xc-skiing wich was pretty painfull on the high altitude weŕe at.
Then skiing in the afternoon. I switched to snowboard but it was pretty windy & snowing so we quit earlie.
And then we topped it up with a one hour hike in the mountain up to a resturant.
Pretty cool hike, god food but i felt like i could roll down the mountain on the way back after all the food.
The only one that didnt seem to suffer o much was Stephané...
Got a sms from Niklas that it was raining 24/7 in Peille where the rest of the scandos are staying now so i feel lucky being here in the snow.
Over & out
Mt.Genevre!
So here i am in the alps just finnished the first day on this weeks team-camp.
To get here i took a train from Nice to Grenoble. Might sound like piece of cake but being a swede with not a single phrase of french in the bag it felt sketchy!
Nearly got lost already at Nice station but i survived and made it to Grenoble where Remi picked me up.
Today we have just been alpine-skiing the full day enjoying the good weather & snow.
All good except that my skiis sucked!
Sounds like a easy day but it has been pretty intense skiing so iḿ actually feeling it a bit.
Well tomorrow will be harder for sure. XC-skiing in the moning & then we are going for a long hike in the afternoon.
I actually look forward to suffer a bit tomorrow.
See ya!
