After a little break from racing, the world cup returns to Europe and to a new venue on the calendar. Val d'Isère in the deepest french alps was a challenge to reach for all the teams with big trucks.

With Brendan Fairclough still off the bike because of his thumb injury from Windham, the ladies Floriane Pugin and Emilie Siegenthaler, as well as Junior Noel Niederberger will have to pull it for Scott11.

We will have several surprises ready for you during this week. Let's start with Rob's Dirty Business right here!

Val d'Isère surprised us with a pretty steep, very narrow, slippery and sketchy track. The riders will have to get used to this style of course that we can't even remember having at a world cup during the last 10 years.

After the track walk, I (team manager Claudio) was supposed to do my helmet cam run for redbull.com/bike, but a thunderstorm shut the chairlift down and the rain kept me waiting at the bottom. When the skyes cleared up, I hiked up the track with the bike on my back and managed to ride down just before the sun went down. By the time you read this, you might be able to find the POV-run on redbull.com/bike . If not, I'll send you the link in the next newsletter.