EWS ROUND ONE
THE KONA GRAVITY TEAM LEARN SOME HARD LESSONSNOT QUITE TO PLAN
Well for once the EWS weather gods played ball and round one went off without a weather hitch, there was no snow, no hail and no rain and there was even a bit of blue sky. The technical off-camber tracks threw up their own unique set of challenges though. This was Connors’s first European EWS event and the tightness of the Italian tracks caught the flat pedal legend off guard. Connor would go down three times and even lose his chain and have to scoot over a stage finish. He would finish the day’s racing in 58th. Miranda’s day wasn’t a whole lot better, after riding conservatively on stages one and two (and finishing in 13th on stage one and ninth on stage two) the final two physical stages would just ask a little too much and force some errors negating the morning’s performance. Miranda would finish the day in 18th. Both riders, are taking positives from the race and can put them into action on friday at round two! Don’t forget, there is another race here this weekend on the same tracks, so both Connor and Miranda will have a chance at redemption.
The athlete experience
Started today’s race with the intentions of keeping it smooth and consistent- not focusing on the end result but trying to ride the tracks ‘live’ -as in reacting to changing conditions and lines. The first two were a great start and where I wanted to be, but the more physical 3/4 I lost a lot of time and wasn’t as happy with my riding. I felt that 1/2 were safe, so I tried to push more but ended up loosing time and then suffering through the physical parts. Lots of good take aways from the race, as well as happy with my form. The goal moving forward is to try and slightly increase the overall pace of my stages, being more consistent everywhere. It’s an incredibly hard discipline to figure out and every stage is unique, so it’s exciting to have another crack at it this weekend.
The athlete experience
Today was a hard race for me, I had three crashes throughout the day, all of them due to coming in too fast to corners and losing my front wheel off the track, I even lost my chain on a stage and had to scoot the bottom section. Although I’ve raced quite a few enduros now, these European enduros are a whole different beast compared to what I race at home and in North America. There’s a lot more to it than being able to shred my Process at the bike park. You need to relearn the way you read a track and learn how to pace yourself for 10+ minute stages. Although my race didn’t go how I expected, I’ve learned a lot and pinpointed my weaknesses and I’m eager to improve throughout this season.
And it was much the same for Carlos Langelaan, after a couple of good first stages, he made a few mistakes under pressure which proved costly, and relegated the Spaniard to 89th.
We don’t have any photos of him from Canazei but Jakub Riha, our Czech Republic Kona marketing manager, rode to a solid 40th place! Not a result to be sniffed at all, especially starting with a plate in the high 100’s, that’s a lot of passing.
Team sponsors
As always, thank you to our team sponsors for their support.
Latest from the cog
Want to read more? Check out our latest posts on the Kona Cog.
Kona Dream Builds: Kevin’s Razor Sharp Single Speed Honzo ST
It's been a minute since the crew at Chain Line Bikes dropped one of their epic dreamy builds, that all changed last week when they posted up this insane Honzo ST that they built for one of their regulars. Kevin's Honzo ST is a no-expense spare single-speed beast. I...
Kona Dream Builds: Jono’s Custom Painted Process X CR
You may not know who Jono AKA The Trail Mole is, but we are pretty sure you are familiar with his dog Moka. Moka went viral a few weeks back with this post and has racked up over 3 million views! Well, now it's time to meet the custom painted Process X CR DL that Moka...
Kona Dream Builds: Tayte Proulx-Royds’ Process X CR
Boy, do we have a treat for your Friday! It's Kona Factory rider Tayte Proulx-Royds Process X CR, all built up with her 2024 Team Parts. The multi-disciplinary wunderkind will be riding a bunch of Kona bikes in 2024 to tackle everything from Cross to Freeride. For...
Around – A Year of Biking Around the Globe with Tito Tomasi | Kona Bikes
https://youtu.be/l_8Yn_73_1Q?si=sgKt8NHmXV8JlIQq One year to shoot around the globe and even more time to work on such a project - here is AROUND, Tito Tomasi's 2023 project, and his last one with KONA bikes. This video summarizes Tito's vision of mountain biking in...