Caroline Buchanan World #5

Last weekend our friend Caroline Buchanan achieved 5th place in the World Mountain Bike Championships in 4X, and 5th in Junior Women Downhill. Downhill is pretty obvious, you race a mountain bike down a hill, but a lot of people don't know what 4X (Four Cross) is. Basically it is 4 people racing mountain bikes, BMX style down a hill. What I mean by BMX style (for those who just know nothing about bikes) is it's a track full of jumps and berms (banked turns) and they have a strating gate the drops to begin the race. Unlike BMX they only race mountain bikes (which have a bigger wheel, suspension and usually gears) and the track runs down a steep hill. Are you confused yet?

As a long time mountain biker and now BMX racing with my family, I enjoy this chance to write about something in my blog which is my hobby. I've known Caroline for a long time, since she was about 5. She's been ranking at the top of BMX racing for many of those years and recently moved into MTB, we recently put together a website for her as a sponsorship deal. At 17 she's a lot younger than her opponents which makes this effort huge, and she's also getting 5th in Junior downhill which is 'not her best discipline' so I have no doubts this girl *will* be a world champion.

I watched the racing excitedly from 3AM on Sunday morning with the live broadcast courtesy of freecaster.tv, and you can read Caroline's press release below but my rundown is as follows...

In the first run Caroline hit the optional pro section (very big jumps that many others weren't hitting) with speed and style took first from third position in one straight, and the commentators including World #1 Downhiller Rachel Atherton we're as excited as the late Big Kev when she did! I was nearly falling off my chair as she caned the opposition to make the Semi's, I was so excited I sent her dad an SMS message saying what a good run it was.

In the semi final she was unlucky and was shut out on a couple of corners, and ended up coming together with one of the other riders so she missed the final but made it through to the small final which decides 5th to 8th place. She seemed to have a slightly tougher time of it in the small final, but as you'll read in the press release she had planned to go out easier and pass on the big jumps, and did it to win the small final and nail 5th spot in the world.

Congratulations from myself and the CWS crew on your awesome achievement. For the full video of the small final go to http://www.freecaster.com/live/1000006_1005117 and to see Caroline talking about the race go to http://www.freecaster.tv/live/1000006_1005148.

Check out the snapshots from the race below courtesy of "Print Screen" and freecaster.tv