This is the home of Michael O’Brien’s official web site, This space will be constantly updated to bring you all the latest news and views pertaining to Michael throughout the season to follow.

The BDS Winter series was a brand new series for the 2011/2012 winter. With the event being held at my local track Aston Hill it made sense to get some more race miles in before the new season. Despite the damp,cold and rainy weather it was an enjoyable event, the track being used was dh3 which was always going to be a challenge due to the vast amount of pedalling. This combined with the weather made it hard to get a good race run together. I finished up in 2nd place and 13th overall for the day which was a great result for me as I was by no means feeling good or confident on track. With two poduims in a row I hope to go one better at the next one !

Michael#7

The anual 661 winter downhill series came  back to Forest Of Dean on December 4th. With this being good chance of seeing where I was at interms of speed for next season and how my winter training plan was going,  me and the Abarth mtb team where keen to race. Luckily the weather was fairly sunny all weekend and with no rain it was a great bonus for the start of Decemeber, this left  the track fairly dry ! I did three practice runs of the track and was feeling good for the race runs, my Saracen Myst was feeling great so I knew we could have a good race. After the first runs I was 0.1 off the leading and sitting in second place, I knew it would be hard after that good run to improve my time as track conditions where looking slower. Unfortunatly I didnt improve and droped back a postion to third as James (Third after first runs) came though to take the race win. With being on the poduim and only a second back off taking the win I was very pleased with how it went, hopefully we can repeat this preformance next weekend at the British Downhill winter series at Aston hill.

Michael #7

A crazy race is how to sum up Aston hill, On the Saturday the weather was amazing ! sunny and hot all day, We had a really good day of practice and where feeling good on track. Sunday came and it was the same for morning practice ! sunny and hot, after practice the weather suddenly turned for the worst with a huge amount of rain leaving the junior first runs in the hardest and slickest track conditions. My run was crazy, 2 crashes and riding no feet on lots of the way, I ended up in a solid forth which is where I would stay as the rain hammered down more and with having bigger problems in the second run I couldnt beat my first time. I felt this weekend was the first weekend I deffinatly had the speed to win and only being o.5 off second place with crashes reasured me I could do it. Also this weekend we finally found out about the issue we have been having most of year with the bike. Now we are working to get this sorted I hope to be Top 5 every race.

Michael.

Tuesday night was the second round of the Silverstone duathlon series, the sole reason I do these events is for some fun and extra training for my racing. It was a great night and I ended up 3rd in the junior catagory which I was pleased with ! I cant wait for the next one on the 14th of July where I hope and can improve my time by a few minutes.

A small selection of images from the road trip.

After A very long 11 hour drive we finally made it too are apartment in the lovely town of san remo on the Italien coast line. The first few days consisted of lots of morning road rides for added fitness, With around 20 miles being covered each day it was pretty certain that we were doing the right thing to become fitter and stronger for the upcoming races. After the mornings road ride we would head up the hill and ride lots of downhill,

Sospel was the first venue a flat rocky track lasting around 6 minutes. A good day wih 7 runs in the bag but very hard work and lots of room for improvement over the trip.

Next day we kept it local heading just up the hill to romolo which by far was the hardest track of them all with huge rocks non stop.

Day 3, The hardesr road ride of them climing a massive 2400 feet up the romolo hill. The climb was well worth it in the end as it ead to the biggest decent down I have ever done and hitting speeds of 40mph was very exicting as well.

Day 4 was when I really got things moving along, a Monnaco road ride to start was ideal, After this i took the day out for some much needed rest to make sure I was 100% for the rest of the trip.

On the fith day The team headed back to Peille, It was my first day riding the track which ment it was yet another new track, Clearly the first few days had been paying off as I really got in to the swing of riding and was putting in some very fast sections of track and deffinatly feeling more at home than ever.

Day 6 saw us head over to the local trails of the world famous Fabien Barel, The track had some big drops and jumps which I had never done and knew I concer to be able to race at the highest world level. By the end of the day I had it all nailed and was doing stuff again that I hadent been doing before the trip.

Back to sospel for the next day where I got the freelap timing out for the first time, I was feeling better than ever and posted down a 3.23.50 before the rain started to close in which was only 5 seconds slower than top 30 wolrd cup rider Olie Burton.

The eight day was unfortunatly the last day of the road trip so we headed local to romolo for more riding but this time on the other track, The track was very fast and rough which ment to was great for rider training, With a very sucessful last day It was time to head to the apartment and get packed up to drive home the next morning. The trip was so valuable and I learnt so much, Im looking forward to being able to do some more training with Olie before the next U.K race.

Michael

This Week see’s the Speedsport Abarth team head to Italy for a team bootcamp, The week will consist of Hard road bike training and Loads of downhill action, Stay tuned for photos, videos and website updates from Michael though out his time in Italy.