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Switch to full suspension helps French mountain biker come back as world champ
It's been seven long years since Julien Absalon won the cross country world championships. On Saturday, the French legend of mountain biking earned the rainbow striped jersey for the fifth time in his career.
"I won four in a row, and the last one was in 2007. It was a long time without," said Absalon. "It's a pleasure have the jersey, and it will be nice to ride with it again next year."
His world championship win came at the end of a perfect season.
"I got all the jerseys I could win: the nationals, the Europeans, the World Cup overall and the Worlds. It was perfect!" he said with a big smile.
One thing Absalon did differently in the process of ending his drought of world championship wins was to race a full suspension bike. He was a reluctant and late convert relative to his rivals, but after winning the Worlds, he was enthusiastic about his new bike.
"At the beginning of the season, the BMC team manager asked me if I wanted a dually because the other riders on the team were asking for them, but I told him not to bother because I wasn't going to use it anyway."
"Finally, the team manager talked me into trying. I thought it was good for me to ride the hardtail because I always stand up on the pedals."
Absalon is one of the world's best climbers - he dances uphill relative to his competition. Although he was afraid of losing that advantage, after the World Cup in Windham, where Nino Schurter continually made up time on him while riding his dual suspension on the technical downhills, Absalon had told Cyclingnews that he'd consider going with full suspension for next year.
However, after the Meribel final round of the World Cup, Absalon agreed to take a full suspension home with him and ride it in training.
"In my mind, I thought I'd be riding my full suspension starting next year, but after Meribel, when I saw the track here, I thought I needed to try it," he said. "It's not possible with my hardtail to follow Nino on the downhill. I was losing 15-20 seconds per lap to Nino on the downhills in Windham."
"When I got here, I was going to do one lap on a full suspension and one on the hardtail to compare, but after one lap on the full suspension, I didn't even do the lap on my hardtail. I thought, 'ok, I know my choice.'"
Absalon knew it was a risk to race the Worlds with a new, untested bike, but he said, "I needed to try it because it was faster. It turned out to be a good option." Absalon doesn't expect to always use his full suspension going forward - he will pick it or the hardtail based on each race's course.
Winning and winning again
Absalon compared winning title number five to his first win.
"The first one was crazy because it was two weeks after the Olympics and it was a big surprise. It was cool because I was riding in front of fans in Liege. I started just to enjoy it and it was very muddy, so I decided to ride with very low pressure. I figured if I flatted, it didn't matter, I was still the Olympic champion, but then I won the race in front of Thomas Frischknecht, which I never expected. It was was good to win it in France."
Since then, he's found defending the jersey to be a challenge. "After that, it was maybe harder to win because once you have it on your shoulders, you realize that maybe it won't be yours any more. It's hard to defend it than to win it."
Absalon made one other big change to his preparations this season. "I changed my diet. I don't eat any more pasta. I eat totally different, so I lost 2-3kg but output the same watts. So with less weight, I feel better and less tired."
The amicable French star also answered the inevitable Olympic question. Although he's not the current Olympic champion, he has previously won.
"Yes I hope I will be in Rio if everything goes ok the next few years," he said. In the shorter term, he's looking forward to the World Cup next year and the Worlds, which will be in Vallnord, Andorra.
"I like the track in Vallnord, so we'll see. Maybe I'll do some more races this year, but basically my season is over."
It’s one of the biggest entertainment-electronics fairs worldwide. The ‘Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin’, IFA. It opened its gates last week, presents its visitors the latest products and information - and DTM is in the thick of it.
BILS2RThe most popular international touring-car series is represented several times, at the IFA. The Audi RS 5 DTM of reigning DTM Champion Mike Rockenfeller decorates the booth of DTM’s German TV partner ARD (hall 2 / stand 2). Four racing simulators offer the visitors the chance of demonstrating their driving skills and battling it out with one another in the racing game ’DTM Experience’. During the on-stage talk on the ARD booth, Mike Rockenfeller and Gary Paffett talked to Norbert Haug about their chances in the remaining three races of the 2014 season. On Tuesday from 15:45hrs CEST (14:45hrs BST), championship leader Marco Wittmann will be at the ARD autograph counter to sign autographs for the visitors.
Meanwhile, Gary Paffett’s AMG Mercedes C-Class also can be admired at the IFA. At the fair booth of Euronics (hall 23, stand 102) that has been designed as racetrack, the visitors also can test their skill in a simulator.
The IFA will be continued up to and including 10th September, with daily opening hours from 10:00 to 18:00 hrs.
Early contact between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton put Mercedes on the back foot in Belgium, and once again, just as in Canada, it was Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo who was there to take advantage.
The 25-year-old took his third victory of the year - just one fewer than Rosberg - and, having won last time out in Hungary, he’s now done something the German hasn’t done this season - win two races in a row.
Ricciardo is the first Australian to win in Belgium since the late Jack Brabham triumphed at Spa-Francorchamps in 1960.
More importantly for Red Bull, Ricciardo’s success handed them their 50th victory in Formula One racing, just five years - and 103 races - after they won their first in China in 2009 with Sebastian Vettel at the wheel.
Adrian Newey, who contributed to 100 wins with Williams and McLaren before joining Red Bull as chief technical officer in 2006, has now been directly involved in 150 Grand Prix victories.
Rosberg’s second place finish - the 21st podium of his career and his tenth rostrum of the season - enabled him to extend his points lead to 29 points over Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton, who retired for the third time this season.
Behind Rosberg, Valtteri Bottas scored his fourth podium finish in the last five races and Williams’ first rostrum at Spa since Juan Pablo Montoya came home third in 2002. Bottas now has as many podium finishes in 2014 as Williams managed in total between 2007 and 2013.
Bottas’ gain was fellow Finn Kimi Raikkonen’s loss as the Ferrari man narrowly missed out on his first podium finish of the year at a circuit on which he’s won on four previous occasions. Still, fourth place represents Raikkonen’s best result of the season and he also finished ahead of team mate Alonso for the first time this year.
Elsewhere, Alonso kept up his record of finishing in the top ten at every race so far, Lotus saw both of their cars retire for the third time this season and the first time since Canada, Daniil Kvyat finished in the points for the fifth time this year, Kevin Magnussen’s post-race penalty handed Nico Hulkenberg a solitary point for tenth, and Andre Lotterer suffered one of the shortest Grand Prix debuts ever, lasting barely a lap before his Caterham gave up the ghost.