GRAVITY SCHOOL RACING - FINDING SPEED EPISODE 8

European Championships is a big event on the downhill race calendar, and with a lot of talented riders coming out of European countries at the moment, it was going to be a very competitive race across all categories. The venue for the 2024 competition was going to be the infamous Champery in Switzerland, which last hosted a race in 2011 for the World Championships, and before that the 2010 and 2007 World Cup rounds. The venue has only been used for a “world” level race in the past for “professional racers”, so this would be the first time “Joe public” would be allowed to enter a race on the steep and treacherous mountain! It was going to be a nostalgic trip for Jack, returning to the venue for the first time since his 3 ^rd ever world cup at the venue 14 years ago!

Ahead of the event we had a Gravity School coaching camp at Morzine, spending 2 days on the Pleney Black working on race craft on the fast, rough track, before heading to Morgins on Wednesday to spend a day riding some of the best turns in the world. With us for the camp were team riders Rueben Taylor, Tom Westgate, Seb Sumner, Oscar Hakes, Josh Wood and Haydn Fletcher. Also joining us were Gravity School coaching riders Jon Morley and Edward Jones. All of the guys were riding with great pace and excited for a weekend of racing.

Practice at European Champs was brutal, with dry dusty track conditions, and as a result there were a lot of injuries. Our group started out as 9 and we lost 3 to injuries. Shout outs to Oscar, Jon and Seb who were all claimed by the track, we wish you guys speedy recoveries. Saturday actually saw so many delays that elite seeding was cancelled because there wasn’t going to be enough time to get all of the riders down the hill before dark!

Our crew had a mixed bag of results. Tom Westgate led the charge and finished 19 ^th in junior with a great performance and a very respectable time across categories. He narrowly missed out on beating Jack for the first time, by 0.7 of a second, and this was after having to pass a rider half way down his run… with a clear track Jack would have been done for! Jack himself had a smooth solid run and finished 48 ^th in elite. Rueben had great pace in practice but one too many crashes in practice left him feeling battered and bruised coming into the race run, and as a result he crashed again. Theo, Hadyn and Josh all rode well and had solid results in their categories – well done guys.

We now have a break before the European Cup at Verbier in September. The next episode covers our team day at the training compound which is a must watch – Dad race, little bike race and lots of other stuff went down!

Enjoy and thanks for watching.

Words: Jack Reading

Video: Loamlifemedia