Victor Lucas has recovered from his mugging at the Pump Track Worlds last night and like a true professional got straight back in to the hard work that is trudging up and down the hill harvesting images. As you will see, 5 have become 8 as the Canberra World Cup excitement mounts so check it out.

Sam Hill launches his custom built Specialized SX Trail – slack angles, 7″ travel and lighter weight than a full on DH bike. He likes the course and he likes being home in Australia [although his house is still 3723km away.]

Aside from the all new ‘Pumptrack worlds’ there is another unofficial world championship event this weekend, and this one has a long following. This is the trophy for the Boxxer Worlds which are at 5pm this Saturday – where teams of crack mechanics will run head to head in a race to strip and rebuild a set of Boxxer forks, spiced up with mandatory shots of hard alcohol and savage heckling from the cheap seats. The playing field has shifted this year with the all new Boxxer model, not to mention the UCI skin suit ban, but reigning champ John Dawson is quietly confident, he says it’s the drinking part where his skills really come into play, and everybody knows there’s no really hard booze in Australia!

Sabrina Jonnier usually does well on a long course with some hard pedalling. The question is how will she cope on a short course with lots of pedalling?

Without Rachel Atherton this year, there are still at least 4 women who could take the rainbow stripes, Tracy Moseley has got to be one of the likely ones and she looked really comfortable through the rocky sections and drops.

The short Canberra track is taking a beating and the holes and dust on this corner are getting steadily worse. Quite a few riders have gone down here but Greg Minnaar rails the smooth outside line.

4X qualifiers went down today and there were no big surprises with Jared Graves and Jill Kintner going fastest.

Tools, fast food wrappers and caffeine. This is race central for one of the fastest riders, and the hands that work these tools are pretty good at polishing one out. It’s not hard, but not that easy either…guesses on an email to Billy and he’ll send you a wallaby for Christmas.

The first thing that Doug, Josh, Steve, Bart and Homer do when the get home from a hard days racing is to check out the latest updates on Dirtmag! Or is that facetube?

exciting mountain bike race photos from Victor Lucas at the Worlds in Australia