DON’T START RIDING TRIALS
Don’t start riding trials if you don’t want to make friends all over the world.
Don’t start riding trials if you don’t want to travel worldwide.
Don’t start riding trials if you don’t want to do stuff with your bike that everybody think its impossible and awesome.
Don’t start riding trials if your biggest competitor is also one of your best friends.
Don’t start riding trials if you don’t want to share the best experiences of your life with your best friends.
Don’t start riding trials if you don’t want to learn how to be able to come back after the worst injury or competition.
Don’t start riding trials if you don’t want to learn about life. Don’t start riding trials if you don’t want to do the coolest sport ever.
And, of course, all of these comes with a price. Endless hours of training and making some everyday sacrifices. Training in the gym, training with the bike, the trials bike, the mountain bike, the road bike. And sometimes the result won’t show all of this effort, because the day of the competition yo had a bad day, or you didn’t felt as good as you were while training the week before. This is what happened to me this year at the 2019 UCI World Championships…
2019 UCI URBAN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
“This year it has been the year that I have been training the most, on and off the bike. The year I was most focused on trials, it was my year priority. Last year I missed the finals of the World Championship by only 10 points and this gave me extra motivation to work harder to be ready for this year. The result was not the expected.” — POL TARRÉS
The national Spanish team met in Madrid airport and flew to Amsterdam. From Amsterdam to Beijing. And from Beijing to Chengdu. It was a long travel with more than 35 hours. They tried to sleep when they had to and tried to stay awake when they were supposed to in order to kill jet lag and they pretty much did it.
This has been the third year that the Chinese city of Chengdú hosted the Urban World Championships and this makes the stay a bit easier for everyone.
The venue of the competition was in the same park and the were made with the same obstacles but with a really different design which makes no advantage at all when it comes to riding. Section 1, “the Panda section”, made of rocks. Section 2 made of logs. Section 3, the waterfall section. Section 4 “the Chengdú section”, made of concrete,. Section 5, the UCI section.
THE 26″ SEMIFINALS
The semifinals started at 9 am which made all the riders wake up really early, since they start warming up a bit more than 1 hour before the start of the competition. It was not raining but all the grass and the obstacles were wet from the night, which made the sections even more difficult.
Pol did not had a very good start, he started with the waterfall section and it was full of mud and he crashed in the first rock. He did not entered straight and the back wheel slippered making him crash and not being able to get any points. The first lap he could get 90 points from the 300 possible which is a really bad score. He was not focused into the competition mentally and it made him make silly mistakes.
Pol did not had a very good start, he started with the waterfall section and it was full of mud and he crashed in the first rock. He did not entered straight and the back wheel slippered making him crash and not being able to get any points. The first lap he could get 90 points from the 300 possible which is a really bad score. He was not focused into the competition mentally and it made him make silly mistakes.
THE NATIONAL TEAM
The Spanish trials team was the most successful team in the UCI Urban World Championships. They not only won the National Team Competition but they got 7 medals in total. Sergi Llongueras won in the Elite 26” category, Borja Conejos got the silver medal in Elite 20” and Ion Areitio the Bronze in the same category. Vera Baron finished second in her first ever World Championships, and in the Junior 20” category, Toni Guillén was second and Antonio Fraile third. Dani Baron, in Junior 26” category was also third.
As Pol said after the trip to Chengdu “it is a pleasure to be part of this team, not only the riders, but the staff. Thanks to Alejandro, Jesus and Amparo for making this trip an unforgettable one!”
If you know Pol, you know he loves taking pictures wherever he goes. And here you can see some of the best shots he did during the trip to Chengdu.
