“The day certainly was pretty massive, but I wouldn’t say it was too much. I prefer enduro’s where we have to do some serious climbing, and I find when it’s all chairlift or shuttle access it feels a bit too similar to DH. The main problem here was the heat we had for the practice day was a bit over the top, and especially with COVID regulations, we don’t have any feed zones. Fortunately for us, on race day we had some overcast and cooler weather, and even some rain. So that helped a lot with making the day a bit easier.
Although a 2000m day of climbing is big for anyone, it’s not something I’m super unfamiliar with, and I found I still had pretty good legs even at the end of the day. With racing being put on hold in the spring I did a lot of massive rides and just felt like I could get through the day without any issues.”
“Stage one and two were still pretty solid stages for me, but they were pretty short. I really like the longer stages and stage three was my favorite stage in practice as well. I didn’t really do anything spectacular on stage three, but we got caught in a ton of rain right before dropping in so it made things pretty sketchy. I just didn’t really make any mistakes and carried good speed everywhere. I knew I had had a good stage but I didn’t really expect to win it. I think the rain might have continued to deteriorate the track, and maybe the top guys had it a little worse than I did. It’s not like I had the stage in mint condition either though, so I’m not discrediting the result too much.”
“After stage three we got to go to the pits and our Team Manager informed me how I had done on stage three and how I was doing overall. I was in fifth going into the final two stages. That was by far the best I had ever been doing in a race, so what was on my mind was more so to try and not throw anything away. I rode stage four super conservative because it was pretty sketchy, but ended up losing a bunch of time. I was kind of okay with it though, because if I had crashed I may have thrown away any chance at a good result, and 11th is still good for me. I would have loved to maintain a top 10 result, but I was less than a second off that, and I’m still happy with how I rode on the day. I honestly don’t really like racing or riding in conditions like that so I’m pumped.”
“It was a battle for me from the start to finish! Unfortunately, a couple of crashes and a flat tire ended my day but not before I finished the 2000m of climbing. I was really stoked on all the tracks, although not overly technical there was good terrain and speed on most of them. The insane rainstorm added some drama to the day but I sort of liked how crazy it was. Super exciting to see Rhys win the Queen Stage and have a killer day overall! Local Kona Spanish rider Carlos Laangelan had a couple of awesome results on Stage one and three he’s moving on up in the right direction.”
“My race did not go to plan really, I was a little too excited and I guess that was the reason for my mistakes. The first stage was decent but in the second one I had a stupid crash where my bike flew into the bushes and my shoe came off, I lost almost a minute there. The race was over for me at that point but I still wanted to see where my level was in the pro field. I Rode stage three well and then it started to rain harder and I crashed hard on the fourth stage hurting my knee, I decided to take it really easy on the last stage to make sure I could race next weekend in Finale”