Buzet DH, UCI C2 category race in Croatia

I did my first ever DH race in Croatia last weekend. I flew to Ljubljana, Slovenia, on friday night and drove down to Buzet.
On saturday i did four training runs before qualifying and the racetrack soon appeared to be one of the best tracks i have ever ridden.
So fast and proper DH track all the way from the top.
Qualification run was ok and i felt pretty good, although i finished 13
5th which was far from my goal, top five. Difference between me and fift was like 5 seconds which would be easily doable.

On finals day i did 3 training runs even though i felt pretty comfortablea after one training run. I decided not to waste good riding day as racetrack wasn't physical. My finals run was good and i got about 5 seconds off. That just wasn't enough as slovenian riders were so strong on Buzet racetrack and i finished 13th amongst 175 participants. The winner of the race was only 18 years old slovenian guy Jure with amazing time, beating me by 11 seconds.

Still the trip was so goood! So nice people and beautiful nature!

 Here's chest cam footage from saturday

National DH series #1

First round of nationals is now behind and it was incredibly tight again. On a 40 second track there wasn't room for mistakes. Tuukka got third place on men 12 years old after tuff qualification run with two crashes. Lauri won men 14 years old with impressive time. Oskar still struggling with his leg injury but managed to get good second place finish. I was 5th.

Now it's time to me to travel Croatia for Buzet dh race as there is month between first and second national series race.

Junior podium from Calpis enduro

Oskar won, Lauri was 3rd 

Enduro warm up race at Calpis

We did enduro experiment on last sunday at Calpis in order to improve our abilitys for DH. Also, it was good fun!

Oskar took impressive first place in juniors with his Zerode DH bike and Lauri Portti took third place with his Zerode with mud tires. I bet when they get on proper dh track their bikes will feel pretty light now!

I managed to get 16th place in elite gategory with my xc bike. It came out that 12cm of travel wasn't quite enough for this race that included only just over one minute long and pretty rough tracks. I am still happy how well i managed to push the limits of my bike, as i didn't crash once and on each track i got my time within about 1 sec on every lap, exept two  last tracks of third lap where i pedalled all the leftover energy out and got about two secs better times than on last two laps.

Results: http://www.mtb-enduro.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Lopputulokset-Calpis-2014.htm