For my last week in Europe I joined up with the Aussie teams in Darfo Boario Terme Italy for the Trial Des Nations.
Please read on to see how the week unfolded..
Now with Videos!
Monday was spent driving from Isola in France to Darfo where I met up with Dylan Rees and Trevor Cambell, who did not attend the world round in France. Three weeks ago we were all rivals in the Open Solo class at the Aussie Titles and now we join together as a team to take on the rest of the world!
Darfo Boario Terme is a small community of 14,000 residents 120km north east of Milan and 70km south of the Swiss border. It is
nestled in a beautiful green valley surrounded by mountain peaks slightly north of Lake Iseo in the Brescia province. The TDN paddock was in the middle of town in a car park between the shopping centre and railway station. This made easy access for spectators and small buses were available for transport to the further Sections.
The team were accommodated at the Hotel Oasi just up the road from Darfo. This hotel was very welcoming to motorcyclists of all kinds and had a large number of motorcycle enthusiasts visiting throughout the week, who were all very friendly. The hotel was in close proximity to the mountains so we were able to ride up the hills and train at any time we wanted.
On Tuesday our Team Manager, Denis Fitzpatrick, organised for us to go training with multi-Italian Championship winner Fabio Lenzi who trained both the men and the women for two days. Fabio took us to an area not far from the TDN itself and a club further south that had all man-made sections. In training he set up sections and timed us to encourage us to think quicker when practising and also gave us indication of how the Italian observers are likely to score.
On Thursday I spent most of the day resting and a little training with Colin, and as the paddock was open from this day, from here on we familiarised ourselves with the competition area.
Friday the girls rode the final round of the Women’s World Championship, I spent the majority of the day training with Dylan and Trevor, trying to get our heads around the slippery European rock. Once we had finished training, we rode back to the paddock to watch our girls finish the day. Here we were informed that Brooke had been taken to the hospital so “Dylos” went and retrieved her bike from the section for her. We were all very pleased to hear that she was ok and it was more a precautionary check on behalf of the Italians.
Saturday came and the girls went off to ride the Women’s TDN. The day before the men’s TDN and the same as the world championships, the sections are opened up for inspection. This is very important because all the riders can go out and take a very close look at them and if need be, inform the officials if there is something they feel needs checking for safety. This also makes things easier with the tight time restrictions. I asked my minder (Dad) if he could do the loop with the Aussie riders so we could work out lines and also work out the loop (in Europe the loops are often in excess of 10km and can be difficult for the minders). We were all very happy to see that the sections were not excessively long and all except for one, very ‘cleanable’ for us.
Before we even began checking out the sections, we were all disappointed to learn that several teams had opted to move from the championship level to the international. Germany and Sweden, who normally ride the championship level, were now in our division! The only country opting to stay in the A division was USA who immediately secured themselves 5th place with the best in the world behind Spain, Great Britain, Italy and France.
The girls finished the day in 7th place, just pipped out of last years 6th by the host nation, Italy.
Sunday arrived. I was very happy because Kristie and Kev Zar both offered to mind for us, which meant we had a minder for each rider. Our minders being Ross Middleton (dad), Denis Fitzpatrick, Kristie McKinnon and Kevin Zarczynski. There had been rain overnight so we were expecting the sections to be harder than the previous day (although it had also rained Saturday).
At 10:00 the Australian Trials Des Nations men’s representatives rode up onto the podium and all received our cards and had the team
photos taken. After a few compulsory photos with the podium girls we left at 10:04. We rode for 5 or so minutes through some rough trails to section 1 where dad had problems with the handlebars on the Beta Jordi had lent him and went over the top of them! We saw that section 1 had been eased off from yesterday to cope with the wet conditions and after quickly revising our lines we all went through.
Section two featured larger rocks that we were more suited to, but we still took a couple of nervous points here. Section 3 was very easy so we all looked at this briefly and cleaned it without any problems. Section 4 was much trickier and had two places that were claiming big points from the teams ahead of us so we spent longer here and were careful, but still couldn’t help but take a few points.
Colin and I were now beginning to think about last year’s TDN mishap and the risks of taking time penalties so we started to push hard to keep right behind the teams ahead.
Section 5 was a flowing section with a couple of sloping hills and rocks that we were very fast to ride and all clean. Section 6 was the beginning of the slippery sections that took points from the Aussie team. This was also our first glimpse of the controversially harsh observing! Throughout the day the Australian team was given some very strange 5’s!
Section 7 was the section we all dreaded riding, it was a long climb up a steep and extremely slippery, steep rock gully. We could only escape with two 3’s and a five for this section.
Section 8 was a long ride away on a large pile of rocks in a flat paddock. We all had good rides here and took no points. Section 9 was next door and was very similar but trickier. Unfortunately we took a few points on this one.
Section 10 was our weak point. Here there was a slow climb up a slope with some very, very slippery rocks. I took a 1 but we still left with more points than most of the teams at the TDN.
Section 11 was also slippery but more our style with a splat jump at the end so we rode well and only took 1 point away with us.
Section 12 was back to the spectators and back on dry, grippy ground. This held just a couple of climbs up rocks and we were all out clean.
Sections 13, 14, 15 and 16 were a little trickier but still very much our style so we were not harmed here.
17 returned us back to Slippery ground on steep, sloping hills but we were all riding with confidence here so we left with no points.
18 was a tricky one. It featured a steep hill that we climbed and descended, but the last climb stumped all the Aussies except for Trevor. The observing was extremely harsh here and not just for the Aussies.
The second lap didn’t change a lot except I thought we had potential to halve our score. Unfortunately that wasn’t to be, reducing our first lap of 55 to 39 in the second, but we definitely were coping well with the increased slipperiness and just finished the last section before the big rain came.
I have to thank our four minders who made a big effort, especially Dad, Kevin and Kristie who all volunteered to support us. Dad was great even though the sections were difficult to get to and very steep to climb. “Who knows, you might make expert yet Dad!” Denis took on a more managerial role and made sure everything was running smoothly plus kept an eye on us in the sections. Kevin was an awesome minder and was always there with food and drink but still made it to the important part of the sections to help us through. This is a result of his years on the TDN team and knowing the requirements of the riders. Kristie was always there putting our bikes in the line, giving us food and drink and helping with the time and putting our wheels in the right spots.
And that ends another year of the TDN, we finished in 6th but 10th overall which
was similar to previous years. I think if the teams stay where they are this year we have potential to do a lot better in the event than we have ever done. We are not as far behind the other teams as we might think! now the team members get back to the job of being Open Solo rivals!
Video links below are for sections 2, 13, 14, 17 and 18. Each video has all four of us riding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvJLu4FjYgs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo06jsIkxm4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhJMrJ8wBB0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk2Phg4llbg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ImevwnFJOQ