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. With only the rainbow stripes elluding the Malvern-based rider, 2010 and Mont St. Anne would be an apt counterpoint to Steve Peat's astonishing World Championship title in 2009. Read Tracy's feature-length interview here, before catching the latest in her rider diary.
July 7 2010
Flying directly into Edinburgh was so good as I didn't have to do the eight hour drive up to Fort William. Only a couple of hours later and we were there, sun shining and a dry dusty track awaiting us. I was going to be staying in my campervan this weekend so soon found my spot and made a home for the week.
I was really pleased to hear that they had done some changes to the downhill track as after coming here for eight years it was great to have something different to learn. I think the work they had done was really good as it added some more technical elements and some more sections where you had to pick a line and control your speed rather than just going flat out all the way. I qualified in fourth and ended up finishing in fourth which I was a little disappointed about as this is one of the World Cups I really wanted to win. I just didn't have the speed on the day which was frustrating. I then took full advantage of the sunny weather we were having in Scotland and stayed up on the Isle of Skye for a couple of days and did some great XC rides. Such a beautiful place to be when the weather is good!
I then had the epic drive home, a couple of days at home and then to Afan for the Kona Mash up, a enduro type race where you get timed on certain sections of the trails at Afan. I really like the concept of these events as you get quality time on your bike, you can ride with your mates so it's a great social and you can also be competitive as you get timed on a few of the stages! I decided to do the Enduro category this time as I wanted a longer ride. It involved getting timed on an eight minute climb as the first stage...wow that was a painful one! The worst part about the whole day was after giving it my all on all the stages, unfortunately there was a problem with the timing and there were no results! Gutted...I really hope that they can figure out a timing system to work at these events as the concept is great. Even without the results it was a fun day and some great training!
Next stop was back on the World Cup circuit, out to Austria for round three at Leogang. It was a new venue for the World Cup. I did make the fatal mistake of checking the weather forecast before I left and once again it said rain for the entire weekend! Sadly it was damn accurate and we had another really wet and muddy World Cup. This time I was really getting on well, I felt good on the track and qualified in third only 1.6secs back. I had a pretty good race run, but just faded a little towards the bottom and ended up sliding out in a corner right before and uphill section, so lost all of my momentum for the next section of the track. I dropped from second at the split to finish fourth. So frustrating as I really felt like I was riding well enough to win this weekend. However I got some good points and I moved up to fourth in the overall.
We then had another week in Leogang before an IXS Cup race on the same track. It was still cold and wet for the first couple of days, I did some training on the bike paths that they have everywhere in Austria. They are so nice for riding on. Then the weather started to improve and by the race run on the Sunday, the same track as the World Cup became a dry, fast race track, so different from only seven days previous! I had a great run, knocking off over thirty seconds from my time, good enough to take the win. I really hope the weather can be like that for the World Cup next year.
Next stop on my European tour is our team camp in Chatel, France.
Tracy
