Us At The Tdn

[mattl]

As a minder for the US team this year, just wanted to give info on what went on, it was a real dissapointment.

The team was signed up to ride in the A class. The reason was the TDN has eased up in severity of the sections since 00, last year in Italy was just way easy in B, and with Geoff at his very best, same with Cody, Chris, and Ray, the thought was this was the time to do it.

While walking the sections Friday, the first group of six were just insane, dangerous looking, jagged edged type blasts with virtually no run at that even Raga and Lampkin were complaining about, so the team dropped back to B, a very wise decision, as Vesty told us later, all the teams except Spain took a pounding.

Dropping to B meant we were first out at 7:56 AM, and the whole day the guys were really riding great, everytime the clutch third ride was needed someone came through.

On the second lap with over an hr. to finish, plenty of time we were pretty shocked to run into the Italians still on their first loop at section 9, this about six hrs. after our start. Then we were stuck behind Italy, Britian, and Spain by Section 11, the rest of the way.

Trying to figure out which section to punch out on trying to get by was hard because the A teams were then spread out, the guys were forced to take fives to get back at section 15, the easiest of the trial.

We also had the wrong info on the penalty points and grace period, no fault but our own, and this was a factor in Chris timing out by one minute.

If we got in on time the score would have meant first in B .

We kept trying to figure out if went quicker on loop one if could have made it but would have run into the A class sooner and had the same problem, unless we could have passed them when they stopped after the first loop, they just took so long on their first lap it was unusual.

But, real proud of the way the guys rode, they did it as a team and rode their asses off, also proud of the womens team, they did the same, really rode as a team, just had a few too many mistakes mainly on the second lap can't do that at the level the rest of the top women are, but it was great to be there to help them both.

Louise is really improving all the time, and she is someone that everyone was talking about. She is one of only a few top women that has the trick riding down to get her into position for the tight stuff.

[city trials]

Thanks Matt for another eye and another view.

We have a thread on trialscomp, early that day I thinking the USA was going to win after the first lap.

Then to go back on line later and find such drastic changes in the results made me wonder what when wrong.

I know our United States riders, rode there hearts out enough to win, it's a shame time wasn't on our side.

To all the minders, mechanics and support staff like yourself, thank you for helping our United States team out.