Relentless Energy Drink : Seanan ORiordan talks highs and lows of 2011

Relentless Energy sponsored rider and Irish downhill mountain biking champion Seanan O’Riordan sends us an update on his 2011 progress

Well, the 2011 season has come and gone faster than I ever could have expected. A very interesting and successful year full of highs and a few lows. With the last four races being one after the other, the past month has been absolutely exhausting!

2011 World Championships, Champéry, Switzerland

The big old monster has slowly been coming all season and having just finished converting my van to a camper, I was looking forward to testing it out at the longest event of the year. Needless to say, videos or photos cannot really describe just how mentally challenging this course is. The gradient and design of the course is beyond anything on offer anywhere else and really turns everything you know upside down! After walking the course I knew it would be opposite to any other race – speed regulation was going to be the challenge, and not getting too excited.

Practice was a love-hate relationship. With it being from Tuesday to Saturday there was a lot of opportunity to learn the course but it also easy to get too comfortable and forget that straight out of the gate you're into high speed and huge jumps. I was extremely happy with the way it went and was confident for Friday’s timed practice session.

" Having everything to prove, I went up for my run a man on a mission"

Friday came around fast and the course was dry and dusty. I felt great and wanted to lay down a fast run and treat it as a race run to gauge how to ride for Sunday. A great run saw me 10th at the speed trap, which was an amazing feeling, but Champéry had other plans and kicked back hard on the last lightning-fast open section off the road under the lift. Dropping in too late off a line saw me land on a take-off and get ejected over the handlebar faster than I could blink. Getting up, I saw that my bike had disappeared clean down what looked like a cliff face. It took me about 10 minutes to get the bike and use it as a pick to get back up the hill!

Race day saw a dry practice session but the mountain overlords decided to throw some H2O into the mix to liven things up a bit. Cue Mountain Rescue race-run taxi service! The course had turned into a death trap and was claiming the junior field like some sort of maniac. This blew the doors wide open for the race. Having everything to prove, I went up for my run a man on a mission. On the top section I immediately was blind with the spray from the front tire and came down to one of the really steep sections with one of the Croatian riders in a pile at the bottom of it. Not ideal Worlds’ race run conditions. After an overtaking manoeuvre and a trip into the catch-netting, I just wanted to get down without any more incidents. Crossing the line saw me into second but I knew that was not going to last long. I ended up 61st with a diabolical run and a lot of new knowledge to build on for other big races.

IXS Swiss Cup Round Four, Disentis, Switzerland

After a brief stay in Morzine after Worlds I headed across Switzerland to the IXS Swiss Cup Race. A brand-new course and 30-degree heat saw excellent conditions and a flawlessly run race weekend. With a few World Cup names in the mix and a track with an amazing mix of high speed and technical forest, doing well was going to be difficult. A sixth place in qualifying gave me a good indication as to what I had to do on Sunday. I felt that at this race I managed to come up with a pre-race routine to keep myself focused and relaxed. An amazing run, bar losing both pedals on a fire road and scooting down it, saw me finish in fourth place, only .7 off third! A great weekend and a great result – time to move on to the next race in Châtel, France.

IXS European Cup Finals, Châtel, France

"It was hovering between zero and one degree Celsius and I woke up in my van half frozen from the cold."

Straight from the dust and heat of Disentis were the Finals of the IXS European Cup in Châtel, France. The Alps have the most unpredictable weather you can imagine due to the hundreds of peaks and valleys. This pretty much guarantees that the forecast for your area will be way off. Châtel was no exception. I arrived on Friday to three degrees Celsius and torrential rain – not ideal! A disaster of a qualifying run left me in 16th position in a field of World Cup and high European standard, so plenty to build on for Sunday’s race. What do I wake up to on Sunday morning? My worst nightmare – snow! It was hovering between zero and one degree Celsius and I woke up in my van half frozen from the cold. Practice that morning was the most dismal thing I have ever experienced – some people even packed up and went home! My race run couldn't have been any more unpleasant; being a one-man show at races means I don't have someone to bring me up a training bike to warm up on, so I couldn't feel my fingers in the start gate!

A nightmare run with zero vision due to the puddles on the course and I was down and into an alright time considering the conditions. I eventually ended up in 12th place with a far from perfect weekend. If I get on a pro team next year, people better be careful!

Irish National Points Series Finals, Yellow Water Forest, Northern Ireland

Straight from Châtel I headed home for the finals of the Irish Series. It wasn’t exactly fun keeping myself company on the 12-hour drive and 17-hour ferry journey! I'm considering investing in a talking parrot for next season. Arriving home for a day or two before the race, it was nice to see the family and sleep in my own bed. Two hours north of where I live and I was at the race site, again in rain and wind. Race day on Sunday wasn't much different. Now when I say it rained, I mean it was like somebody had turned on a giant tap over the mountain. There was a full-on river going down the course for the race! We have two race runs in Ireland, and each one was just a battle to see anything. In both runs I must have crashed three times in each by going way too fast for the conditions; it was all or nothing in my eyes! A fourth place on the day and another Irish National points Series Championship in the bag! That’s two years on the trot now, so happy to get it done again!

Closing the year

Now for the amazing Irish winter... Back into the gym and a training schedule for the next six months. I'm happy with how the season went, but also really looking forward to 2012. If I can achieve these results off my own back then I can only dream about what I’m capable of being on a pro team.