In Pursuit.......

Best bikes in the World, check.

Best riders in the World, check.

Best team in the World, check.

Best MTB video of the next 12 months, check.

Who said you can't do it all?

World Cup 2010 is ready for the off!

No, not that football rubbish in South Africa, the MTB World Cup is almost ready for the off, with the first round at Dalby forest this coming weekend. Check out this short video previewing the all new course in the heart of Yorkshire.

Trek World Racing kick Otter ass

The 2010 MTB season got underway this past weekend with the annual season opener, Sea Otter Classic in California. Here's the official blurb from the folks over at TWR.

At the first big hit out for the new line up of Trek World Racing here in Monterey, California, Tracy Moseley lead the way with a 3rd in the Women's Downhill, just 0.5secs off the win. New team member Emily Batty also scored a podium with a 5th in the Women's Short Track yesterday, and then backed it up with a solid 6th in the Olympic XC today. The team's other new signing, Neko Mulally, took 8th in the Dual Slalom while Justin Leov was the best of the TWR downhilling men, taking 9th. Tracy Moseley also had a 7th in Dual Slalom.

In Women's XC racing, Emily (pictured) showed good early speed in both the short track and Olympic XC, running with the leaders, but then settled into her own pace for the remainder of the races and was very happy with her condition and time back from the leaders in both events.

Emily said: "I came here last year with a stronger physical condition than this year, as I have a different set of goals for 2010, so to be where I was in relation to the top women, I'm super happy. Having the new level of pro team support has just allowed me to relax and focus on the racing this season, and I'm now really looking forward to ramping up throughout the year."

In Downhill the course this year at Sea Otter was less suited to the team's World Cup race bikes which are set up more for the gravity fed tracks of the 2010 season. Some teams and riders opted to ride XC dual suspension bikes, 4X dual suspension bikes and even long travel all mountain bikes. The course here is widely considered to be a long way from a typical World Cup course, but the racing today still gave the team a lot of valuable information.

Tracy rode a strong race and was only a fraction off winning the event for the 2nd year in a row. Justin, Andrew and Neko (pictured below) all had solid top 15 results.

Tracy said: "I'm happy with that. I really enjoyed being out racing again with all the other top girls and getting back into the racing scene for the season. It's still quite a while before we'll all be on full World Cup pace, but overall I was happy to be only 1 tenth off Rachel and half a second off the win."

Justin said: "It's a good solid start to the season, and I'm happy with how I rode today. I'm looking forward to getting a little more time on the downhill bike this coming weekend at Port Angeles for the Pro Gravity Tour round 1. That will be a good chance for me to do that before we kick into the World Cup season."

Andrew said: "It was a pretty stacked field today but I was still a little bit surprised to finish a fraction outside the top 10. I came here hoping for more, but I think that considering the bikes we have for this season, I'm not taking too much disappointment away from today's result. It's a long season of week in, week out racing, which doesn't really start until May. I'm feeling great on the bike, and that's the main thing for me right now."

Neko said: "My goal here was to improve on my results from last year where I rode a 2m 18secs, and I did just that, so I'm very happy. This race at Sea Otter is a good indicator of fitness and power, and after a long winter of training, I'm really happy with where I'm at right now. This weekend was a lot of fun, especially the Slalom!"

The cross country riders of the team are scheduled to race next week in Dalby Forest, Great Britain, for the opening round of the World Cup XC. Team staff and our loyal travel agent of many years, Jack Warshaw of Allways Travel, are busy working through flights options to hopefully get us all into the UK on time. Our downhillers head north to race at Port Angeles just outside of Seattle, at the US Pro Gravity Tour DH #1.

Not Long To Go Now!

The race season is almost upon us again, now is the time of year that things get exciting with team launches, new bikes, new riders, testing and all that jazz. For all you twitterers out there, head over to the Twitter page of the Trek World racing team for the news as it happens of pre season testing in sunny Arizona. http://twitter.com/TrekRaceTeams