Martijn checks in from the Red Bull Crashed Ice
I was asked to attend in a side event at the Redbull Crashed Ice in Valkenburg, Netherlands. We were going to race down the track with 3 other riders on mountainbikes with ice spikes. It was going be my first experience on ice, onboard a Speed series Pro 26". To get better grip I installed close to 400 screws in each tire, which added an extra 1.5 kg of weight per tire. The result was outstanding, I had more grip on ice then with normal tires on the road.
As we came down the 575m long track, it looked surreal from my point of view. Also during the training runs the 7m high starthill with a 50 degree drop down and some cool jumps made it look really cool. The head organisation of Red Bull International were a bit sceptic in the beginning about riding with bikes on ice, but after seeing us ride it down the track they were thrilled with the event. After some runs we came quite close to the fastest skate time's and we didn't even go full pull.