THE ROCKET BLOG #3: KALNICA BIKE FEST - SLOVAKIA

 

THE ROCKET BLOG #3: KALNICA BIKE FEST - SLOVAKIA



Night-time Whip-offs have become a classic show in Bike Park Kalnica. Photo: Lukas Neasi


I first visited the famous Slovakian bike park, known for its progressive and technical jump lines, last year. Bike Park Kalnica is a special place, where the feeling of the freeride community can be felt as soon as you arrive and park your car. The park is managed and built by passionate local freeriders who have not yet subdued to the family-friendly flow-line trend, which has manifested almost in all western well-known bike parks. The park is built by freeriders for freeriders and this idea is felt in every single track in the park. On the other side, Kalnica Bike Fest is the biggest MTB bike festival in Slovakia and surrounding countries, which brings together all MTB disciplines, from Marathon to Slopestyle. The crowd, the atmosphere and good tracks convinced me to put this festival in my yearly calendar. This year I was participating in the pumptrack challenge and the Whip-off contest. 


Waiting for my qualifying round.


Despite taking time this off-season to practice more pump track riding, I still need to learn how to actually race pumptrack. One small mistake that costs 0,2 seconds and boom you're out of top 8 and not qualified. I was a bit disappointed but didn't think too much about it since I was also not familiar with this particular racing format. I was looking forward to Whip-Offs which is always my go-to discipline and also the crowd in Kalnica is roaring amazing.
      

Me and Natalia, the Queens of Kalnica Bike Fest Whip-Offs. Photo: Lukas Neasi


The Whip-Offs were a party on two-wheels: a loud, cheering crowd, chain saws and cow bells and amazing music. This year I wasn't the only girl throwing the bike sideways. Natalia Budner, a Polish freeride girl, joined me and we put up an amazing show together with the boys for the crowd. Since there was only two of us, the organiser decided to declare us both as winners and queens of the Kalnica Bike Fest Whip-Offs. 
The rest of the festival days I spent learning new tricks and practicing the ones I already know. Getting as much time as possible on the bike is crucial before the most important event of the year - Crankworx Innsbruck in Austria.


With love,

Špela Horvat a.k.a Pocket Rocket



UPCOMING EVENTS

MAY: KALNICA BIKE FEST

JUNE: CRANKWORX INNSBRUCK




SOCIAL MEDIA





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE ROCKET BLOG #2: IXS DIRT MASTERS, WINTERBERG - GERMANY

Image
Winning the crowd is never easy. Photo: Hanna Retz THE ROCKET BLOG #2: IXS DIRT MASTERS, WINTERBERG - GERMANY IXS Dirtmasters in Winterberg, the biggest MTB gravity event in Europe, has become a classic venue for many different Mountainbike athletes. Is it the crazy cheering crowd? The after parties? The community? I’m not sure but, if you live in central Europe and you don’t show up at this festival, you get this feeling of missing out. I was invited to take part at this year’s women’s Whip-off Contest and I was thrilled, because at this particular event, only invited riders may take part and the invited-riders-list is usually filled with big names and A-pros from the European MTB scene.       F irst rows of fans filled with kids, reaching their hands to touch their favourite heroes. Photo: Hanna Retz The Whip-off contest was scheduled for Friday and there was supposed to be an hour of practice 2 hours before the big show and 30 minutes warm-up before the actual contest. The problem w
Read more

THE ROCKET BLOG #4: CRANKWORX INNSBRUCK & GETTING INJURED

Image
  THE ROCKET BLOG #4: CRANKWORX INNSBRUCK & GETTING INJURED The event I was most proud about: Whip-offs at Crankworx in Innsbruck. The Crankworx in Innsbruck was considered the most important event of the year for me. I was competing at Pumptrack, Speed & Style, Whip-offs and women's Slopestyle, and I was so proud of myself to make it that far in my career, where I could compete in invite-only competitions on one of the most important events in the world. Due to competing in so many disciplines at the same time, the practice schedule at Crankworx Innsbruck was pretty hectic and for me as a rookie rider in all of the freeride disciplines, it was hard to properly time-manage everything and set priorities. I admit, I did feel under pressure by not just ride on all practices but also to deliver my best. I had so much fun at speed & style practice, ticking off the course nicely and I was looking forward to the biggest event of my career, the Whip-offs. The wait until you can
Read more