Offenburg World Cup round 2

Hi All

Just a quiick blog to let you know that my report from the first round of the World Cup series will be up on Tuesday when we return to Luchon. We have had major problems with uploading my reports to this site, but all will be well when we touch home briefly on Tuesday.
I'm currently sitting here in the race village of the Offenburg World Cup watching the junior men race by and not enjoying the strong smell of meat and greasy chips that keeps wafting by...but Ian is complaining that he is hungry so I have to type very quickly so he can be fed as he has to look after me tomorrow.
My second world cup starts tomorrow and it will be a toughy. Unfortunately I'm gridded even further back than the first world cup due to a mistake with my UCI points, that can't be ammended for this race. Plus you have to finish in the top 40 to be guaranteed a decent grid position at the next world cup race, and then it is based on UCI points. So my challenge tomorrow is to try and finish without being lapped as I expect the first lap to be total carnage.
The course has a short start loop and then plenty of fun twisting single track that is very similar to Sherwood Pines or a Gorrick race course. There are four quite big drops that require your confident head on. They're not actually hard, just look scary and if you panic or look at the drop for too long then you're in trouble. They're also very rough and already brusies are appearing on my legs from riding them. There is one nasty drop that looks terrifying and is pretty tough to ride if you're not relaxed. Ian hates it and has refused to ride it with his saddle up....I had no choice and it took a few attempts before I nailed it and I was shaking in my shoes when I reached the bottom. However I have ridden it everytime since during practice and hopefully will fly down it tomorrow. The rest of the course is pretty easy, but I'm certain will be harder as race speed. I think the toughest part of the race will be just trying to get past people as there aren't many wide sections.
Anyway the sun is shining and if it stays this way then it will make the course alot quicker than it has been in practice as we had rain earlier on in the week.
I will let you know how it all goes as soon as I know.
Cheerios for now
KPxo