Nigel Page reports from Vallnord - Nissan UCI world cup round 3

Well round 3 of the Nissan UCI World Cup is over - we took some great positives away from the weekend. We had a mixed weekend of good and bad. The track was exactly the same as last year apart from the last corner coming into the finish. Vallnord is an amazing place for riding, with huge mountains and tons of downhill runs - the track they use for the race however is average at best. Pretty cool at the top with some fast open corners into a series of tight man made berms, then a fast section that flys off a natural fade which was pretty scary to watch and then into the tight rutted out woods for the remainder of the track, quite a bit like a UK track... but not what we should be seeing at a world cup event. Chris was still recovering from the flu from last week but managed a pretty solid run finishing in 12th only 3.5 seconds down. He was really fast on the first half of the track in a podium position but just lost out a bit on the bottom half with a lot of coughing up at the finish! It is pretty hard getting the flu during the race season when the races are back to back with all the traveling in between. But thats racing! Ruaridh and Matt both made it through to the final this week which was a big relief after La Bresse. Ruaridh had solid run although he had a big mistake in the middle - he was 6.22 seconds down on the winning time putting him in 36th for the day. Matt was 7.46 seconds down finishing 49th. These easier short tracks are just so close in times... roll on the big longer fast tracks! Julien was riding great all week and in qualifying he had the 2nd fastest split time. He then crossed the line in 13th but he had clipped a rock with his pedal and smashed into a tree hard with his hand. How he finished 13th after this was pretty amazing but unfortunately with a 'quick' 3 hour trip to the hospital we found out he had broken the 5th metacarpal bone in his left hand and pushed his knuckle back. Pretty painful! Julien will have surgery on wednesday morning to put a small screw in his hand and should hopefully be back for round 5 in Maribour where he finished 2nd last year. Get well soon Ju. Claire missed the first day of practice due to still being stuck with the flu, then a big crash in practice on qualifying day banging her knee up pretty bad, didn't do much good for her confidence. She still managed a 17th place for the day which was pretty good considering. An on-form Steve Peat won again beating Gee Atherton by just 0.02 seconds, followed by Greg Minnarr in 3rd, Mick Hannah very consistent in 4th and a great ride by Justin Leov for the 5th and final podium position. All eyes where on Sam Hill the last man down as he was the fastest qualifier and on the first split he was over a second faster than everyone but went of the fast fade jump so fast and had a massive crash. He was so lucky to get away with no serious injury so that was good. On the Saturday night the 4X racing was great action, this is definitely the best 4X track on the circuit for racing in my opinion. Lewis had a good start in the first round leading out of the first corner but made a mistake lower down and getting passed by 2 riders and so being eliminated. Lucas Mechura was riding great but with him still only managing a top 20 qualifying position, this puts him at a disadvantage in the outside lanes in the later rounds. Lucas made it though easily to the 1/4 finals and the last 16. It was a tough heat with Joost Wichman the eventual winner, Michael Prokop, and Jurg Meyer. Prokop got a bit off balance over the first jump hit Lucas and that put them both out of the semi finals. It ended up a great race in the final with some great passing. Joost taking a much deserved win for the day. Again there were lots of fans in Andorra constantly coming to our pits for pictures of the riders and their bikes and asking questions and wanting to sit on our bikes. Great stuff! We are now in San Romolo in Italy for a few days of recovery and tuning the bikes with some testing before we head up to Donnington Park next week for Bike Radar live and then onward north for Round 4 of the Nissan UCI World Cup at Fort William, Scotland. Cheers for now, Nigel Page Team Manager - ChainReactionCycles/Intense www.CRCintense.com Photography by Victor Lucas.