Despite having a strong international field of riders unofficially attending the 2021 Austrian trials championship, the 2018 UCI 20″ World Champion Thomas Pechhacker managed to grab the victory and thus remove all doubt on who’s the master of trials on Austrian soil.
We spoke to the newly crowned Austrian champion on how his competition went, and how the preparations leading up the the championship were.
– I was really surprised about my good feeling during the competition
Those with the experience of building a trials park for scratch, know how physically hard it can be. And, when you need to bring out your peak performance immediately after the building is done, it can go both ways in terms of competition results. Fortunately for Thomas Pechhacker, he’s made of something else than the rest of us.
– I was an organiser and a rider at the same time, it was quite hectic I would say. We did everything from scratch, which means we built a whole new trials park and created a new training opportunity for our new trials club. At this point I want to thank the whole crew of Virgosystem Trials for the help, and Karol Serwin for setting all the sections.
– That being said, you can probably imagine that my preparation on the bike wasn’t perfect. Therefore I was really surprised about my good feeling during the competition.
– After the first few sections I got into a good rhythm
With such a demanding preparation before the race, Thomas had some issues from the get go.
– My start was a bit shaky, but I still managed to keep my feet on the pedals. After the first few sections I got into a good rhythm, and managed to make a perfect second lap. I managed to keep the momentum for the finals and rode another five solid sections.
– The level was high throughout the whole race. Along with the best Austrian riders, big international names like Samuel Hlavaty, Laszlo Hegedus and Karol Serwin were on the starting list. Riding the final felt like a small world cup. I really enjoyed the battle!
The sections were built by Karol Serwin, Thomas’ trials coach. They had a little bit of everything.
– They were perfect I would say, because they had everything. Technical stuff, big jumps, balance and also very challenging for the endurance. I really enjoyed riding them, and I think the other riders did as well.
Thomas has a plan for the upcoming months, preparing for the world cups and world championships coming up later this summer.
– Next I’ll go to the Polish mountains with the Life Cycle crew for some good days of training and preparation for the upcoming season. From their I’ll go straight to the HC race in Poprad (Slovakia).
To view the full results at biketrialaustria.at, click here (pdf).
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