Offenburg World Cup + Euro Camp - Max Houtzager

Offenburg, Germany
Junior Men (126 starters)
Teammates: Keegan Swenson (USA-Cypress Gorry, Ryan Geiger, Casey Williams, Tyler Coplea)
Result: 88th



Pre-riding with former-Olympian Adam Craig was incredible. Following his playful yet aggressive riding style made me feel super dialed on the technical sections and really got my trail mojo flowing. I couldn't stop saying how I've never had more fun on an XC course than a proper super d or downhill track. It is in a park nestled in the city of Offenburg yet weaves and switches between wine country hills and dense European forest. The short punchy climbs follow with downhills consisting of high speed flowing single track, a couple drops/chutes (very west Marin, thank you WA team rides!) and built up bermed sections on mostly tacky hard pack dirt with some roots thrown in for good measure. There was nothing beyond technical, but this was definitely the kind of course I've been itching to get on all year! Although my teammate Tyler fractured his collarbone in the 'Snake Pit' section, I could not be more excited to race.

Between warming up on the road next to every country's fastest juniors (in their national team skinsuits, including some fierce looking junior women) who did the most intense focused openers, to lining up in the 6th starting box back mid-pack in the largest most competitive field ever (all the riders that attend worlds and then some, the most attended world cup), you could say I was pretty nervous. Despite my strongest start of the season and not horrible starting position, I couldn't get to the front half before the first climb which led to participation in a massive ball-up. Thus, all the USA juniors but Keegan ran the entire first climb, and nearly the rest of the climbs on lap 1. When things sorted out slightly after the mess, I started lap 2 last American.



I took my hardest individual effort/attack from every other race this year and did the same thing, but on every single climb. It seemed ridiculous crossing the start line after only 1 lap pedaling like I was in a sprint finish. You had to constantly balance making the most aggressive passes of your life without errors or wasting energy, at the same time brain-dead from turning yourself inside out. On all the downhills I'd usually catch up and get stuck behind some Euros which got pretty annoying, although I was able to pull some pretty gnarly passes (like passing twice on the inside of a right hand turn into the steep drop to G-Out berm dubbed the 'World Class Drop'). I was totally stoked on how I rode (especially compared to the Euros on downhills) all around and learned a lot about how to race at this level. In the end I was only 10 minutes off the leader which isn't too bad given all the running on lap 1 and traffic later on that the front group did not deal with what so ever (shown in lap times). A rider finished no more than every 10 seconds and I worked my way up to 3rd American (11 seconds off 2nd, stuck behind a Euro for the entire last downhill on the last lap as I closed the gap)! Keegan totally killed it as well despite some unfortunate mishaps and I can't wait to do some more world cups (especially the less attended). The results show lap times, and my fastest lap was 60th fastest out of the whole field(which isn’t too bad for a world cup and being forced to go slow on a lot of the downhills)!