One of my favorite races is Bockstensturen in Varberg, far away from home and a long drive but a long, tough and fun route makes up for that! I am getting a routine for this race since I have done it the last 5 years and I have won it every time and I repeated everything this year, including the win.
During warm up I noticed something was wrong with my gears, sometimes when pressing the gear leaver nothing happened, I was just hoping it would last for the day. I have never done this race in dry conditions and it was the same this year, it rained a lot the evening before start and half way the sky opened up and we had lots of mud and slippery single tracks! We started with the men and it was a fast start out of town. I could not get the heaviest gear to work so I was spinning very fast to try and stay with some of the guys and it was difficult. It felt better as soon as we got to the forest when I did not need the heaviest gear. I got in to a good group with 4-5 guys and managed to stay with them for about 50 km but unfortunately that group split on a very muddy and technical section and after another 10 km I slipped and crashed in to the bush, it took me some time to get back on the bike and I lost the guys and ended up riding the remaining 40 km all on my own. I got away from the other girls from the start and I got nervous when I saw a big bunch of guys fast approaching with 10 km to go, I thought the girls were in that bunch, but when they passed me one by one I saw that no other girls were there and I could relax a bit and comfortably ride to the finish to take my 5th consecutive win at Bockstensturen.
