I love Windham. im not sure if its because the place is small friendly and its back country, its like the Yeehaww of the east coast, and sometimes its nice to escape to nowhere and quietness, or because the place is known as the ‘Land in the Sky’. The town is nestled amongst miles and miles of rolling rolling, forest covered hills which give way to vast expanses of sky, there is nothing severe, jagged or impenetrable about the skyline and i can see why it is called The Land in the Sky. It reminds me of a favourite book by Michael Morpurgo: King of the Cloud Forests.

Anyways: The drive to Windham from St Anne was long and arduous, but 2 hours from winham lies Lake George, and as it was July 4th, we thought we’d stop off and join in the celebrations. Watching the fire works over the lake, and just being around Clay (porter : www.3mg.com) who was so stoked to be back in America after French Canada! haha we were all happy and mellow.

The next day we rented a boat, Stevie myself and clay hopped aboard and Gee, Affy, Browny and Pete got jet skis and off we went for a few hours, hot sun, water, boats, it was awesome and just the way to chill before the next world cup race….

Once we got to windham and found our accommodation ( the place we stayed last year wouldn’t have us back, something to do with Gee and I setting fire to his bedroom on race night i expect) we walked the track…and similar to every race track so far this year it had been somewhat groomed and ‘bike parked’ which is a real shame but understandable as they are trying to promote the place year round to ride.

Personally i love the track which surprises me as its not really as technical as i normally like, its quite short, its intense from tip to butt, with rock gaps and senders and such right off the start, its so fast too, with a lot of corners that count for every little .05 of a second, putting a run together on that track is hard work as theres so much on it, i mean its really full with things for such a short track. Some big gaps and rock hucks make it nice and scary!

However the first day practise i thought i might actually have to retire, i couldn’t ride my bike at ALL! i felt horrendous, and i couldn’t see how people could ride bits, i walked down 1 rock section, then the last rock garden i thought, fuck i cant walk this too, everyone was there looking at it so i pushed up and made myself ride it and it was fine, so i knew it was all in my head, this funny feeling, and i think a few people felt the same after st anne being so tough and such a long drive, not much rest really.

The shoulders were still so beaten up and sore, and it would take me and hour every morning to warm myself up enough to go ride, something which i have learned as a most valuable lesson.

we were also having trouble sleeping, so i decided to smash out some Co-Codamol before bedtime, which i don’t recommend but hell did it work, slept like a frog, sometimes needs must…..

Affys neck was so sore and stiff that he resorted to this wierd honey liquor, he never drinks normally so it knocked him out a treat!

The next day was completely different and i was having a lot of fun, although slowly! i remember Affy saying to me last year (who was at home then in his Halo) learn the track, not the speed, and i won last year despite all my worries, so i tried to do the same thing. i made some quite drastic changes to the geometry of my bike with mechanic polish pete, and shit the bike felt good!

Stopping trackside to whoop at the guys and pump my fist in the air, and when they return the fist pump it makes my day, Elliot Jackson got top marks!

The first day or 2 and it was quite wet, it rained intermittently which made it hard to know how fast to go, one run i tried a different line into this bog and i heard this huge whoop and Cedric comes charging top side of me thru the bog screeching with laughter, so funny i almost fell off! guys rad and makes racing so much more fun!

Sven Martin chief photographer caught the sharp end of my tongue a few times after he told me i ”had to practise quicker” i was furious and told him where to go, but secretly he had hit a nerve and i know i gotta practise faster, then the end result on sunday will be faster, but its hard to do when you scared!!

ANyway, theres this one rock gap that was called ”doom drop” last year, and i hadn’t done it yet so saturday i decided to hit it up, just like last year,before race day came around. i was scared to do it for sure, its gnarly, you send off this rock not very far but so fast and you land in a rock garden, you gotta be precise and you smash your life up. guys were wild, smashing wheels and faces galore!

Tried to follow Gee man in but by now the dust was so much i couldn’t see, so i just nailed it myself, scary. The next 2 runs i landed different place each time, only once smashing my chain guide into bits! That done, the track was dialled, i had my lines, i was confidant in them all, i just needed to speed her up now.

dream team!

Race day came and i awoke bright and early…in a good mood no less so i was stoked already! Up to the pits and it was just pete, stevie and myself there so i took the opportunity to sing whilst i warmed up which is by far my favourite race ritual.

singing Ace Of Base flat out, with the fan blowing cool air because it was that hot already, thinking about my 2 practise runs, feeling my shoulders all tapped up and safe, watching Pete readying the old girl, i felt calm, i felt happy and i felt ready. and nervous!

We always try to chill on the first practise run, just rolling down, checking things out, getting ready, and i tried to do this, but i couldn’t! i just couldn’t, i set off on a roller, found myself going faster than any other run, i hit the turns so good i whooped, hucked the rock gap at the start, drifted the lost turn like never before, it was so sick! i kept stopping on the way down and saying ‘slow down chill out’ but id set off again and it was like i just had one pace that day, and it was a good pace!

Going up for race run i was slightly quietly confidant, i knew that if i had a good run that i could win, its just that putting a ”good” run together these days was something of an anonymity!

After Mt St Anne Browny had mentioned to me that i seemed wholly unfocused at the top, and so i tried to bring pull myself together at windham. Thinking back to the good old days of 2008 before all the injuries and problems started and i believed it was possible to be invincible, i remembered my focus at the top, how i would warm up, where my mental state lay, so i tried hard to create that vibe. Even thinking back to Windham last year got me into the groove.

It surprises me again and again just how much of a mental game DownHill is, of course skill and physical fitness play a huge factor, but i believe that half of it is down to your mental state.

For some reason Windham just seems to do it for me, im not sure if it is being in America, a country that i affiliate with, or Windham being quite back country and relaxing, of the fact that the crowd there is always so vocal, it just gets me going and this year was no different.

Off the line i felt something change, something in my mind said ”you can push this 110% and its going to be ok” into the first rock section the crowd was WILD, it made me laugh out loud, boom boxes: flags: chants: bongo drums, it was such an awesome feeling having those people pressing in on both sides of the track, whooping and hollering so close to you, making me brake late, making me trust my tyres that bit more. ill go out on a limb and say my top section was one of the most perfect race runs i have done, vie never slid and pushed that hard, arriving at the middle where you send a huge road gap i got nervous and thought ”no one will ride that faster than me, i need to chill out so i don’t crash and waste that good a run” so i held back and rode on.

sitting on the hot seat watching Pugin come down i was nervous, she pulled 2 seconds back on the bottom half but it wasn’t enough and i took the win! The relief i felt was enormous, after all the injuries, after all the tears, i was stoked that i could still be up there and win, stoked to be able to win riding at 80%, stoked on life!! stoked on america and stoked to be going to whistler for 2 weeks to ride and chill out!

I must mention the Organisers at Windham, they are ALL volunteers, and they do an amazing job. So friendly, so happy to have the races there, they get really involved and just check out one of the ladies finger nails! dedication!

No other World Cup has an amateur race on friday, World Cup XC on saturday  and World Cup DownHill on sunday, with kiddies races in between. It makes for such a good vibe and atmosphere and other races could learn alot from these guys!

Well Thanks for reading. as ever i feel weird writing blogs as they always end up so ”me” oriented, but i hope that this insight into my racing life might give just 1 little girl the drive to become a professional DownHill racer, lord knows she can do it!!!

Cheers.