WINTER
PLANS

Hey guys! Stoked to be back here and keeping you guys up to date with what I am up to and what is happening in the gravity scene.

As I am writing this column I am fresh off the world cup in Fort William and currently in Germany.

I am not sure if I wrote this in the previous column but I am the lines coach for the YT Mob downhill team this year. That basically consists of me being on track while the riders are practising and watching how the track develops as well as seeing where the other riders go and just being the eyes and ears of our riders while they are riding. Practice at world cups are hard as u have very limited time to get up to speed on the track so a lines coach is essential nowadays otherwise you will starting the race on the back foot.

The opening round of the world cup was just recently in Fort William, Scotland. This is a popular stop on the world cup circuit with them having hosting a round every year since 2002 basically.

The race went pretty good for our riders and my experience as the lines coach was also very well received as it was also part of what I do often back home with my coaching.

The only complaint of this event was basically the tv coverage internationally. The people struggled to view the races as well as the format they are using now. Normally the downhill world cups would have a qualifying round in which you would need to qualify into the top 60 to move through to the finals on race day. Now you have a top 60 qualifying, and then there is a semi final in which the top 60 has to try and get into the top 30 to get into the finals for race day. And also, the semi finals were broadcasted last year which this year it wasn’t.

With having the semi finals it creates one more high risk run u have to do as well as keeping a lot of fast riders who would have the goal to make finals out of contention as downhill has a lot of outside factors that are out of your control.

It will be interesting where the controlling bodies take this as it is definitely not good for sponsors etc. So we will see.

Next for us and my team will be a Rockshox event in bike park Winterberg in Germany and then we will be off to Poland for the next round of the UCI world series. Poland is a brand new venue and this is always very exciting as no one knows what to expect.

I will keep u guys up to date as to what is happening during the rest of the season, I hope you guys have all your winter plans in place haha!

Keep well! Until next time!

Johann “Pottie” Potgieter