The Cannondale Factory Racing and Overmountain team camp was this year held in the seaside township of Finale Ligure, in Northern Italy. Everything about the place was amazing, from the sandy beaches, the tight narrow streets, great food and incredible MTB trails. Team Camp involved plenty of interviews and photo shoots as well as a mock Enduro race and also a XC relay race held with the journalists who had travelled from all over the World to be there. It was an incredible week, albeit a cold one!
We decided to incorporate the First of the Italian National MTB Rounds into our journey back to Germany, the unofficial “Italian Winter MTB Champs.” There was a huge field with a lot of big names racing which gave me a great chance to test myself against the best in the business once again. I had a great start and found myself in the lead group on the first lap and from there the race strung out a lot more. I fought hard and by the final lap of seven I found myself in 2nd place overall after Marco suffered a puncture while sitting in second position otherwise it would have finished up as a Cannondale Factory Racing 1,2,3 as Manuel Fumic took a convincing win. All in all a fantastic start to the season for the team and a great 2 week introduction for me to Cannondale!
