Claudio blames last night’s wine and a bit a rain for a hair-raisingly sketchy preview run down on a slippery and steep Vallnord course.

It’s time for another Claudio course preview. An essential part of the whole World Cup weekend experience these days (can a weekend start on Thursday? It can now).

>>> Watch Claudio Caluori and Loïc Bruni fail to ride a tandem down Vallnord (2016)

This time Claudio is feeling a bit worse for wear. “Tiredness” is the claim but we reckon it sounds more like a hangover!

His co-rider for this preview is Brook Macdonald from GT. Brook claims to be nervous (yeah right) because he hasn’t even walked the course before heading off down this preview run.

It may have been a good idea to avoid the course walk anyway; Claudio ‘crashed’ three times just inspecting the steep Vallnord course on foot.

The first half of the run is indeed a bit sedate compared to the usual whooping and hollering Claudio videos, but come the second half things get rowdy with “French line” overtaking, ridiculous opposite-lock drifting on slippery grassy sections and a rather odd jump into the finish line area that we think may cause a bit of drama come race day.

Enjoy!

Video description

Red Bull: “Following the fun of downhill races at the Crankworx events in Les Gets and Innsbruck these past few weeks we’re back to the serious business of World Cup racing here in La Massana in the Pyrenean mountains.

“As ever Claudio Caluori is our trusty guide and is joined in this course preview by Brook ‘The Bulldog’ Macdonald. Brook isn’t one to throw caution to the wind at the best of times, and despite the track being muddy in places, he leads Claudio a merry dance down the 2.1km course. So much so Claudio resorts to a ‘French’ line to catch up with the New Zealander.

“Bad weather in Vallnord in the past few weeks have deemed a section of the track unrideable lower down the course and so a new section featuring a couple of berms have been introduced just before the approach to the final jump and finish line. Don’t worry though, the course continues to be steep as ever.”