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Day 43: On Patrol in Planai

Day 43 Planai

Day 43: Trail sweeping with the Planai park trail team. It was sunny again in Schladming, and this morning I joined the Planai bike park trail shapers and builders, Gary and Yannez, for their morning run down the trails. Every day, without fail, these guys do a few early morning runs down each trail to check for general obstacles that might have sprung up in the night, for whatever reason. The area is farmland and it is not unheard of for wood to be chopped and stacked in an inconvenient location for a biker! Or, as was the case yesterday, a meadow which the trail ran through had been newly mown and the trail was completely covered in cut grass – couldn’t see it at all. So the guys just sort these things out if necessary before other riders get on the trails. After this we took a few pictures as we do every day we’re on the trails. Below is Gary over the stream jump on the “Pro Downhill” trail, and then one of me over a steep corner a little further down the same trail. There is a huge berm on the outside of this corner but it was only put in last year. It is much quicker to rail it round the outside but this corner featured in some of the freecaster footage (see time 01:08) of the last UCI World Cup here in 2009, so I just wanted to have a go at it. Of course I was much quicker than they were…!

On the way back Tim had an interesting exchange with a hiker he encountered walking up the DH trail… When Tim politely pointed out that this was a bike-only trail this old fella just shrugged and waved the big stick that he was carrying as if he meant to use it! Not the most sensible approach, and at the pace some of the riders were bombing down today he wouldn’t have stood much chance anyway.

At the bottom we stopped in at the main bike shop here for a chat; it’s part of the main ‘Talstation Planai’ gondola building so you can’t miss it. The Alpreif Bike-Center is run by Sebastien and provides quality rental bikes if you need one. Planai-Schadming is a Lapierre sponsored bike park as of this summer. All the rental bikes are Lapierre so there are plenty of Froggy’s and DH-720’s to go around! Guiding and lesson packages are also available for those new to bike park riding. It’s a pretty cool set up here, easy access, a cool vibe in town, and great trails with a big altitude drop from top to bottom. There is planned expansion but no firm details yet. The money that is being invested thanks to the Ski World Champs in 2013 is really developing the general infrastructure and if only a fraction more cash is put towards the trails this could really establish itself as a big player in the European bike park scene. Time will tell.

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