Avrig MTB Challenge

I thought that I could wrote this race report earlier but it comes only now. Avrig MTB Challenge was the first stage of “Triada MTB 2015” – a set of 3 races.

Arrived in Avrig with my ex-team-mates Eli and Tudor on Saturday evening for my first Eliminator Race I’ve participated in Romania. The course had some dusty corners and some big logs that seemed to be too difficult for some riders that tried to jump them. I’d prefer the safe way so I didn’t do anything spectacular. Qualified 17th without any troubles. In the first series I’ve ended up with Luci Logigan and Bogdan Dumitru. I’ve qualified in the next round but there I’ve stopped. It wasn’t a problem as XCE is not my specialty and I didn’t bothered too much as the important race was on Sunday.

As Avrig is a small town there aren’t to many option for accommodation so we had to drive almost an hour to our place. After the traditional pasta dinner we went to bed.

Everything was ready for the race. We even had the chance to check a part of the course, from our car, which wasn’t the most encouraging thing.

After a fast start on the dusty and full of potholes road we’ve cleared a train track and then the race was on. Oh well almost 8km on the road out of the 44km of the race.

I warmed up pretty well on that section so I’ve started to fell good. Everything went well until the last 10km when we arrived on dam of Olt river. There was just a gravel road and front wind. I was in a group of 4 or 5 riders. Everything went well until the last 2 km when we entered on a bumpy grass path. Then I’ve started to loose time. In the end I’ve finished 12th at Men Elite cat.

Not really happy with the result but nothing worth having comes easy. In the end all the hard work will pay off, but first I have to suffer a bit.

Many thanks for the support to my family, sponsors (you can always see them in the right sidebar). Was fun to travel again with Eli and Tudor after a long time.

See ya all this week end in my hometown, Cluj, at Napo Cup, a UCI C2 race.

Cheers,

Vlad

Photo credit: Ioana Simen, Ileana B. Voiculescu, Photo Memories (if I’ve missed someone let me know)