Adam Craig's 10 Reasons Offenburg Was Bollocks

Adam and the Offenburg crowd

6. A darn good bike track with roughly a ton of people out to watch. There’s a bunch of trails in the Offenburg ‘burb of Rammersweier. Most of ‘em are pretty fun when the dirt is absolutely perfect. Like concrete perfect, with perfect 70-degree sunshine. And a proper thousands of people—a LOT of people, most of whom adhered to the German spectator code, that being beer, brats and YELLING… It was rad.

5. Respectable start position and narrow start loops. When you’re on the second and third row, as Oli and I were, you can actually race from the gun. It’s handy.

4. Good legs. Yup, good start position and good legs mean you get to ride at the front. It’s kind of strangely easier up there. Stay with the group, get a bit of draft, try not to crash into something someone else just jumped over, don’t even try to respond when Absalon attacks and things will be surprisingly manageable. When you have the aforementioned really good legs.

3. Ill fated “attacks”. I don’t think what I did really qualified as an attack, but on the fifth lap, after sitting in a bunch and thinking I was riding comfortably with the leaders, I figured I’d try my (meager) hand. This hand pretty much involved thinking I could ride 1k of the course faster than the rest. A downhill bit, not surprisingly… To earn this opportunity I pulled the second place group of five around the whole fifth lap. I figured that would get my karma in order for a low-blow singletrack surge. I was foiled. Some swiss guy, Florian Vogel, jumped me into the woods and I had to do what I’d already been doing, ride plenty fast and have a good time. But not get a 1-3 second gap of glory as I’d envisioned. I figured I’d try, a top-three result being an automatic Olympic Spot and all…

2. Being Humbled. After a strange uphill root bobble by Flo I led the rest of the lap and was still feeling spry. Then the real guys started playing their (substantial) hands. Sauser surged and blew things to bits. I got dropped. Then I got a bit tired. The big ring challenge was getting to the good legs. Weird… Damage control went into effect and worked out fine, I slid back to 8th, a coupe minutes off the winner. I’ll take it at World Cup #2. I’m not even supposed to be in shape yet… That’s OK though, Oli and I have a good training camp planned in the French Alps so we can get ourselves together. He was wise enough to ride the Anthem today and had a good time ripping around, ending up 30th. We can both build on this week for sure. It’ll be good.

1. Relaxing. We’ve been doing lots this week, and it turns out it’s good for you. Makes you fast, and fresh, and generally promotes good feeling. (but doesn’t completely cure clumsiness, as we broke two glasses and two plates this week…) We ended the week with some nice sunset relaxing with our hosts, Rita and Felix, along with the Slovenian women’s team who stayed downstairs, enjoying some of their fantastic local Weissvein and Rotvein. Overall this week kicked ass.

Reader Comments 

Posted Wed Apr30, 2008, 5:07 PM — By Dan M

I am stoked to be wrong. The headline "Offenburg was bollocks" had me thinking that Games hopes would be dashed to pieces, bikes were lost by the airlines and you'd have to compete in a woman's kit on a borrowed 'cross rig. But I was mistaken! Keep on posting while I wait for the "no hardtails" trail to melt out.

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