King of the Hills Lohnsburg Freeride and Challenge

Brought to you by the awesome peeps of Gravity Sports Austria under the commando of Alex Frischauf, this 3 day event was set up with both the Downhill novice as well as the more seasoned rider in mind.
It was held on the Skirollerstrecke in Lohnsburg am Kobernausserwald, Upper Austria - basically a skiroller track to pratice on during the summer months.

Unfortunately it had rained heavily the day before, so we arrived to a wet and slippery track - the tarmac's perfectly smooth thus quite grippy, but as it is located deep down in the woods, it takes a fair while for the surface to dry up. We took it easy throughout the morning however as time went on the sun did its job and things were looking good for a few hours - unfortunately the rain returned with a vengeance later on in the afternoon so we had to call it a day around 4.30pm. Nonetheless much fun was had by all and that pesky left hand corner sure presented a challenge to many a rider - I think somebody even managed to crash into the anthill...

On day Nr. 2 the weather was more on our side, the sun came out and we were set to go, and so this lovely day was spent freeriding while in the afternoon, Hack and Fee from Layback Freiburg held a couple of workshops focussing on the basics of sliding and downhill skateboarding, as well as one for more advanced downhillers and stand up sliding fun with Felix.
All in all it was a very good day with lots of riding and everything ran smoothly, unfortunately it was somewhat tarnished by one accident during which a female buttboarder broke her lower leg - hopefully she is well on the way to recovery by now! Other than that no major injuries were reported apart from the inevitable road rash, a busted knee and a twisted ankle.

On the final day those new to the sport had the chance to get a taste of racing and what it's like to ride with others - the track is fairly narrow thus things can get tight quite quickly so only 2 people at a time (as opposed to the usual 4 man heats) were sent down to battle it out.

I could not stay until the end of the day as I had to embark on my journey back to London town, so I don't know the outcome of the race. Either way it was an awesome weekend, a big thank you and shout out to those who made it happen, Alex and the whole GSA team, Layback Freiburg and everybody who made it such a successful event, hopefully it'll happen again next year!

Also, thank you Stefan Kubitschek and Matz Fink who kindly let me use some of their photos, cheers guys!

Soul and Signature from Layback Freiburg on Vimeo.