Day 23: iXS German Champs seeding runs

23 Jul 2011

Day 23: Seeding for the German National Champs, and a visit to Misterbike. For the first time in a fair few days, it didn’t rain. This was great news considering the roots on the iXS DH course, and with a generally warmer day things dried up fast. Today was the seeding runs for the iXS German Champs, and I walked the course to do my best job at imitating Tim and taking some good pictures. Just like school, “could do better”…

It was also good to see Jasper again (from German mag MTB Rider), who we met at the Mega in Alpe d’Huez a couple of weeks back. Not sure how he got on in his seeding run yet but it should be up there. And also had a good chat with iXS photog Thomas Dietze from Extreme-Pics, who we met at the iXS in Wiriehorn last weekend. We hope to be able to feature some of Thomas’ pics from the main event here tomorrow.

Before all the action kicked off we took trip to Misterbike in Pforzheim to stock up on some much needed equipment. Pforzheim is the nearest big town to Bad Wildbad, only 25 minutes drive away. And if you are in need of kit then it is most definitely worth the trip – I have not seen such a well-stocked shop in a long time. And they know their stuff – Stefan talked me through the set up of my new bike (oh yeah, I bought a new bike…!) like a seasoned pro, although he does race the same bike so knows it pretty well. Huge thanks to Rainer for sorting us out – great shop and great guys to talk bikes with. Had a little play around on the new machine this evening and it rocks…

Finally, dinner at the Sommerberg Hotel. Just when we were thinking this place would really benefit from a view we found the Sommerberg, run by the outstandingly friendly Tilman. Great views out over the valley, and a great ‘Biker-Spezial’ offer on the food to match. Evening chat was as usual all about bikes, as we were joined by Heribert and Lutz (and later by Ingo) from German race team/website IK-Pictures. They have a number of team riders here with even more pro-photographers, and have established an awesome network for any rider at these events to get high quality images of themselves at very low prices. And how else could we end our time in the Black Forest than with a Black Forest Gateaux? So I ordered one, and will probably still be working my way through it in a couple of hours time…

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