Rider Diary: Tracy Moseley 
Interview with Tracy Moseley - September 2009
Britain's most established female downhiller, Tracy Moseley has been racing at the highest level for 15 years and is one of the only gravity racers to have won a round of both the downhill and fourcross World Cup, alongside multiple national titles and the prestigeous UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup in 2006. Finally the UCI Downhill World Champion in 2010, Moseley followed in the footsteps of Steve Peat, when pulling on a long-awaited Rainbow Jersey at Mont St. Anne. Read Tracy's feature-length interview here, before catching the latest in her rider diary.
March 1 2011
Urge Cabo Verde - Part 2
In February most World Champions aren't taking on crazy challenges; but then Tracy Moseley isn't your typical World Champ... What follows is a personal story of epic adventure, supporting great causes and cold showers - the Urge Cabo Verde.
Day 4 was a travel day, 6am start with a minivan taking us back down the volcano to the dreaded ferry. This ferry trip will go down in my history book forever! To this day I have never felt so travel sick! Added to the fact that my stomach had a disagreement with something I had eaten after the race on the volcano, I did not have a great time. Just trying to get to the bathroom was a death defying task and once on the toilet, trying to remain on the toilet seat was its own challenge! It was the roughest crossing I have ever experienced.
Fortunately I was not the only one to suffer. More than half of us had utilised the sick bags and all got off the three hour boat trip looking somewhat worse for wear! Sadly there was no time to recover as this was travel day on ‘boot camp' and we rushed straight to the airport to catch the first of two inter-island flights to take us north to the island of Sao Vicente. After arriving and taking a quick trip to visit Cabo Verde's most famous singer Caesaria Evora, eating some dinner very gingerly, and another cold shower, we finally made it to bed around 11pm; that was a harder day than racing down the volcano!
The next morning we were up at 7am to catch an 8am boat across to neighbouring island Santo Antao. This would be the location of the final three race runs.
The logistics of travelling so much with so many people and all the kit we had was a mission in itself and the plan was to charter a separate plane to carry our bikes, but that plan fell through. Fred the organiser of the trip then had to charter a fishing boat to bring over our bikes later that morning. That gave us a couple of hours to chill out in the sun whilst we waited for our bikes to arrive. As soon as they arrived chill out time was over as we had to build the bikes in record time to make it to the top of the mountain in time to do run two before it got dark!
This time we had transport to the top, leaving us just a short ten minute hike to the start point. We had climbed high into the mountains and the start was covered in cloud and mist and you could not see past the first corner! You make out that it was really steep and my first thought was that it looked like the famous old World Cup course in the South of France, Cap D'Ail!
We decided to start a few corners down the trail as it was just so dangerous and technical at the top without being able to see where you were going. Getting chance to ride the first few hairpins soon gave me an idea of what I was about to encounter though! It was a narrow cobbled trail that was made really slippery from the mist in the air and some of the turns were so steep it was impossible to get around without hopping your back wheel. All this with a death defying cliff off to the side which you could barely see made it quite the experience.
Once we descended below the cloud we emerged into an amazing valley where you could see the trail below you, corner after corner. The trail widened, and the corners opened up lower down the course and I started letting go of the brakes more and more until I came into one corner way too fast, pulled too much front brake and ended up on the cobbles! No damage done, it just knocked my confidence and I started riding very conservatively again. The finish line finally came into sight and I was amazed that we had all made it down with only a few minor crashes. My mistake and cautiousness cost me the win, finishing in second, thirty seconds behind Sabrina.
After the race we still had some descending to do through the village and down to the vans. The singletrack trails through the village were amazing. We were riding past guys carrying doors, old men sat outside what looked like the local pub, kids playing football in the street, dogs and chickens everywhere. It had a great feel to the place and all the people had such amazing smiles on their faces and cheered and waved us through. To us it would seem like a fairly inhospitable place to live, but to them it is home and they really did seem content with life. Something coming back to Europe you cannot say about everyone you meet on the street in your home village.
Back in the mini vans and after another hour bouncing around in the back of the bus we arrived at our hotel for the night. After dinner I was ready for a shower and bed, but sadly there was no water at the hostel! Shower with some bottles of water was as good as it got...
The next morning we were up early to set off for race three. We were dropped off high in the mountains, in the clouds yet again. We had to ride about 20mins traversing along a fire road to reach the start. At least this time we could see the trail and it looked a bit more trail like rather than just cobbled hairpin.! We had time to walk down to the first few corners and I wish I hadn't as the first hairpin corner had a broken wall with the biggest cliff off the side. I made sure I went slowly around that corner in my race run!
Despite the start, this turned out to be my favourite race of the week as it had a little bit of everything, a few climbs, some high speed, but most of all some flowing singletrack. You could still never really relax as there was always a big drop off the side of the trail and not knowing the trail you could not afford to make a mistake. However it flowed and had some beautiful sections. I had a good run and ended up in first place.
After a picnic lunch at the finish amongst the villagers, donkeys and goats, we were then shuttled back up to the same point. The cloud had lifted a little and we rode off to a different start location heading down into the next valley. We had a couple of short hikes and some beautiful single track to get the start of the final run. Again we had time to walk down the first section whilst the organiser, Fred, made his way to the bottom, taping off any junctions. We went around the first corner to see Fred still climbing what looked like a pretty tough uphill, something my carbon Remedy would love!
Come race time I made it up both climbs before descending down into the valley. Here I found myself back on familiar territory, my favourite, the cobbled switch backs! They were not as tight as run two but they still seemed relentless and I still didn't feel as though I was getting any better at them! The finish line finally appeared and I was glad to have survived this epic of an adventure taking the overall women's title and finish a respectable eighth overal !
All that's left for me to say is a massive thank you to everyone at the Urge Event Crew for dreaming up and making such a unique adventure, race and experience happen. Also a big thank you to my sponsor Trek World Racing and Osprey for all the support. Next stop, the Cape Epic!
