First day in Pyeongchang
Today, the track walk was on the program! I was excited to see the riders for the first time on Asian soil (with the World Cup).
The shuttle bus brought us from the XCO venue to the downhill venue. It was a quick ride, but definitely too far to walk—so I’m really glad we had the bus for that! Track walk for the teams opened at 10:00, so I went up a bit earlier to check out the tower on the hill and slowly wait for the teams to arrive at the top.
At least I burned 34.0 Kcal walking up to the platform ;-)
Beautiful landscape! Hilly—not very high mountains, but lots of rolling hills all around.
The trail is definitely special. Some riders were worried it might feel like a bike park, but it’s not. We’ll see how long the small berms can hold up—the ground is loose, but there are rocks underneath. Riders were saying that after two hours of training, it will already look completely different. Some sections are also very steep, with a lot of off-camber parts that are tricky to ride on this loose surface. There are also some big jumps in there. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the riders tackle this track during training. Training is tomorrow!
At some point, the shuttle bus never came back, and a few photographers ended up waiting for an hour. Luckily, we managed to get a lift back to the XCO venue.
I decided to walk the XCO track as well, just to see what it’s like. When I started and saw some of the rocks, I first thought I might be going the wrong way! Then I noticed signs saying “Multi-Line,” so that reassured me. Otherwise, I probably would’ve thought I was completely off track.
Wow—it’s steep uphill! It would be really fun to ride this downhill. Some sections are quite technical even on the climb, with rocks and roots. The descent has some nice berms and doubles—it looks very flowy! Then it goes uphill again, very steep and long. The final climb has switchback turns before dropping down again toward the finish line.
Along the way, there’s a road gap—quite massive, about 2.5 meters high and roughly 4 meters long! Just before the finish line, in the forest, there are little birdhouses. It looks really nice—maybe they can watch too when the riders are speeding down.
First impression: It looks very good!!
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