I spent the last 2 weeks in Val di Sole, tearing up the Italian countryside. Despite the best efforts of the organiser, I skillfully managed to avoid drinking Grappa coffee all day long and we got some work done. It all went pretty well and we’ve built some big stuff. It’s 450m long, 8 corners, a split section with the choice of fast, big, gap jumps, or a slower tech line. It’s got a 25m long rock garden. That’s longer than any I’ve built for this last season. They were all fairly short, so you could pick a line through pretty easily. You’ll need some more skills for this one. There’s also a Benedek kicker made with logs across the landing. Sounds sketchy but should work pretty well. Both these features should be good for the suspension bikes but the other jumps will favour the hardtails. In theory this will mean a track which is fair for anyone, whatever type of bike they use. There’s going to be a test event at Val di Sole next year, the week after the World Cup at Maribor. We’ll see how it works then. After that we’ll be able to tune it up for the Worlds for some good racing.

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Rock garden

Split section

IT’S A LAMBORGHINI TRACTOR!!! I thought it was pretty cool but the locals told me that Massey Ferguson’s are much better.

England v Tonga

Money laundering. This is what will happen to you if you pass out with a bar of chocolate in your pocket after celebrating an England win in the Rugby World Cup.

At the moment I’m sat on a bus from Barcelona to Andorra. I’m about to spend 2 weeks there building the 4X track for next years World Cup at Vallnord. I’ve been there once already to come up with some ideas. Looks like it’ll be a good 500m long with about 7 turns and a split line with some big jumps. I’ll put some pictures up once we’ve built some stuff. I’ll be getting some input from Cedric Gracia so should be cool. Laters, Phil.