One of the many goals of the AZ Devo program is to help riders get the MTB World Championships. We are very excited that Cypress was selected to the USA Cycling’s Worlds Team and had the opportunity to compete this year in Champrey, Switzerland. He represented Arizona, his team, his sponsors and his country very well!
Thanks again to all our wonderful sponsors and supporters that helped make this happen!
Cypress’ Write Up:
Getting into Switzerland a few days before my race I was amazed at the beauty of the country I was in. It seemed as if every direction you looked an incredible view was waiting for your eyes to discover! I was really excited for the possibility to explore this place a little bit, but knew I had something quite
important to focus on in the meantime. After a couple days of pre-riding the course I was super stoked to race on it. I was able to run super low pressure in my tires without worry of burping thanks to Stan’s tubeless rims, and felt very comfortable bombing through the technical sections on my Trek Top Fuel 9.9 SSL.
The day of the race came around, and I was surprisingly not very nervous for what would be the biggest race of my life so far. I felt really good in my warmup, and legs were feeling really sharp as I headed over to the start boxes to be gridded. I knew I didn’t have the greatest start position at 59th, but there was plenty of oppurtunity to move up during the start if you were feeling good.
The gun went off and chaos ensued. I seemed to be holding my position at the very beginning. Throught the start loop I maybe lost a few places, but was feeling pretty good. Then the big climb came. Hitting the bottom of the climb I started to go backwards. Losing countless places I finally made it to the top where the technical downhill began. Arriving here I was greeted with lots of running. Due to being pretty far back in the field the congestion made it nearly impossible to ride your bike. I made a place up here and there while running down the whole descent, but came through the first lap near the back of the field.
As things began to sort out a little more, I began to feel really good in the super technical sections of the course. Starting to make up a bunch of places, I was feeling really good even in the power sections where I’m usually not quite as strong. But then came the climb. Once again I found myself almost riding backwards. Every lap I lost five or more places on the climb. Luckily I was able to take these places back each lap on the downhill and the more rooty sections. The rest of the race continued in a similar fashion.
I crossed the finish line in my start postion, 59th. At first I wasn’t very happy with my result, but have come to look at it as more of a learning experience for this coming cyclocross season as well as next year’s racing. Having the ability to race one of the most technical World Cup courses as a first year junior and excel in the technical sections is very inspiring to me. But I was still glad for the race to be over. The days following the race it was great to relax a little and go for a couple fun rides just exploring around Champery with others of the US National team and some of our friendly neighbors from the north.
Since coming home I have put a great start into some needed rest. I’m now taking a couple weeks off of training before I begin to ramp up again for my cyclocross season.
