For the stars of the Gravity side of the UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Cup the off-season has been a long one. But the green shoots of spring brought with them the chance to take their fresh race rigs for a gallop down a track which commands respect - Lourdes’ Pic du Jer.
The track in the south west of France features a fast, rocky and often widely-taped top section and an even faster lower half peppered with big features. Showers moved in and out of the two-day test session turning the exposed rocks from barely grippy to polished marble within seconds.
Santa Cruz Syndicate’s young pinners - Jackson Goldstone and Laurie Greenland are both eyeing up a big season. Greenland is a proven UCI World Cup winner, Goldstone is making the famously tricky leap from Junior to Elite. The Canadian wonderkid has been hamstrung by a ruptured appendix and remains in need of further surgery before R1 in Lenzerheide.
Last time out in Lourdes, Commencal MucOff by Riding Addiction’s Amaury Pierron opened his account with a win. He smashed his way to the overall title in 2022, but it was hard fought. Loïc Bruni was the chief fly in his proverbial ointment but the man in his shadow here, his teammate Thibault Daprela, may be backing himself to take up that mantle in 2023.
Two living legends survey a slightly changed battlefield. When it comes to downhill racing, Santa Cruz Syndicate’s Steve Peat and Greg Minnaar have been there and won just about everything. For this season the UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Cup tracks will look slightly different in an effort to help limit their environmental impact.
The UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Champion - Loïc Bruni has a top secret new Specialized Gravity race rig being unleashed in anger for the first time here in Lourdes. Although it officially does not exist, it also very much does exist. And it’s very quiet. And it’s very fast. The arms race is back on in downhill this year and Specialized look to have taken an early lead.
Jackson Goldstone looked smooth during Saturday’s open practice session until a crash at around the halfway point of the track, just as the rain started, curtailed progress somewhat. The eighth generation of the famous Santa Cruz V10 downhill race rig looks to be in good shape.
Lourdes in the wet is a roll of the dice. With no race win up for grabs many opted not to venture out into the rain during the second half of Saturday. Conversely, some did acknowledge the opportunity to test processes amidst the carnage of the grip-free rocks and once dry loam. Christopher Grice has jumped ship from the big rig of Specialized Gravity squad to the development Gen-S set up.
Continental Atherton Racing were out in force and relishing the ability to get the train rolling for the first time properly in 2023. Charlie Hatton narrowly missed out on the win at the opening British national round of the year was reunited with Andreas Kolb and second year Junior Dom Platt. 
This is a big year for FMD Racing’s Phoebe Gale. The 18 year-old is up into the big leagues of Elite for the first time along with habitual sparring partner, Norco Factory Racing’s Gracey Hemstreet. Gale has already singled out Fort William UCI World Championships as her target to get up to speed for and was insistent that she wasn’t putting herself under zero pressure. 
Gracey Hemstreet took a tumble on the torturously steep wall section on Saturday. The Squamish native was uninjured. In previous iterations the wall offered up fewer line choices, but with a slightly re-worked configuration this line, to the riders left, opened up and rewarded those who opted for the slower entry to more direct angle of attack.
Laurie Greenland and many of the amassed pro’s were taking the chance to further dial their race bikes in by running telemetry systems. Data acquisition has shifted from being the preserve of a handful of teams to de rigueur for just about every squad with an eye on the top step. 
Specialized Gravity are stepping things up (again) this season and Jordan Williams is a big part of that. The young Brit is making the step up to the big leagues this year. He’s already started winning in 2023, is on a custom sized Demo and is seemingly loving life aboard the big red ‘S’. He went fastest in the first timed session of Sunday, by seven seconds. 
Nina Hoffmann was a big hit with the fans at Saturday evening’s pro signing session. The Santa Cruz Syndicate star became the first German to win a UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Cup since Regina Steifl’s victory in Mont-Sainte-Anne in 1993 when she took to the top step in Fort William in 2021.
