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What doesn’t Kill The Kona Gravity Team Makes Them Stronger

EWS ROUND ONE

THE KONA GRAVITY TEAM LEARN SOME HARD LESSONS

NOT 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.

Miranda Miller, Kona Gravity Team Rider

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.

- Connor Fearon, Kona Gravity Team Rider

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.

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