European Championship Test Event

7 May

I am a bit late on this post but: we are into the European Championship week. But before this we had a test event.

Romania is holding for the first time such an important mountain bike race and I am honored that I had the chance to race on this nice course just before the event.

Cheile Gradistei is a resort in Fundata, 50km away from Brasov and I won’t start to explain and talk how beautiful it is up there. You have to see with you own eyes.

I have traveled this time with my old friend, ex team mate, Eli. Arriving on Saturday gave us some time to check the course and wonder about everything. This was on a new higher level than everything we previously had in Romania. It was a combination between the Nove Mesto and Albstadt World Cup courses. I can not tell exactly but this is the feeling hat I had. Hard work was put into this course and I would like to thank and congratulate every single one for getting it done on time. I can figure out that it wasn’t an easy task at all.

Now getting back to the course and details. After a mindful, wet and slippery first lap, everything started to feel better and I was more confident. The forecast for the race was good so I was pretty excited about it.

The 10:00 AM start wasn’t my favorite, but this is it when you are racing at Master category. I started pretty paced and didn’t try any brave things even though the race lasted for one straight hour. I’ve cleared all the “scary” jumps and rock gardens without any kind of mechanical or physical problem. I have left every ounce of energy but I simply couldn’t do more at that moment. I got back to the basics and prepare the following races.

Many thanks to Eli for a safe trip, to Larisa and Dorin for their help at the feed zone, to everyone who cheered and of course to my trusty sponsors.

4th in the end is not great, but also not terrible. This was the very first race of the year, the first round of the Romanian XCO Cup, we will see how things will go.

With this post I would also like to announce a new partnership, with Smith, an independent distributor of electronic components that is providing custom supply chain solutions. And I would like to thank Robert and Magda for doing a hard awareness work. I am grateful to have you on board. Another partner will be Milkit, the Swiss sealant and valves manufacturer and innovator. Their products will be available by the end of this week in Romania at Cycle Master and their network of dealers.

Cheers, Vlad

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