Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
Going down
IN THE WORLD OF DOWNILL RACING, THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY TO GO: FLAT OUT
SA’S top downhill racer
IT’S NOT EXACTLY HD, but in the video you can make out Stefan Garlicki on all fours in the gym. Dragging himself around using only arm power, he’s in training. Not to help him recover from yet another of the fractures, dislocations or gouges that are the stock in trade of the downhill racer. No, this is about alleviating arm pump: that crippling onset of arm muscle numbness that riders know is guaranteed not to end well.
You can’t really avoid arm pump. The best you can do is try to get your arms stronger so they don’t lose all sensation halfway through a run as you bomb down a converted ski slope at crazy speeds. Or sometimes slightly less crazy. “I think the guys who are doing better are a little bit older, sort of mid to late 20s. The youngsters just go full gas all the time and crash a lot.” SA champion downhiller Garlicki is now a little older and wiser. Unlike those crazy fast, fearless young guns, totally unafraid of dying.
“You need to have that fear. That fear is what keeps you on two wheels. You have just got to learn to handle it.” It’s not just the fear, of course, that keeps you going: you also need some serious skill, bravery and resilience. He’s been on the operating table several times: broken a wrist, fingers, dislocated a shoulder, been concussed, had slashes stitched.
Garlicki, 26, is one of a new generation of downhill stars following the trail blazed by the legendary Greg Minnaar, South Africa’s multiple world champion. Motocross was Garlicki’s initial dream, but finances didn’t permit it. On a kind of gap year in the UK he discovered Four-cross. Also known as 4X, this is team downhill racing. He did some races and started thinking he’d found his niche, particularly after a move to Paarl in the Western Cape’s Boland, where a downhill track was located practically in the family’s backyard.
Six months later, he was finishing fifth at the South African championships.
His parents, both of them international-class showjumpers whose own parents insisted they put their studies first, were sympathetic to his motivation for chasing his dream.
So, instead of funding studies in architecture at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, they bought him a van – “a really old van” – and put up a shoestring budget for him to go to Europe and give it a shot in 2011.
After a positive rookie season on a small team, reality bit. In 2012, he was staring down the barrel: a broken wrist at the start of the season meant his team didn’t resign him. He needed to make things happen, fast. And he did. “Obviously there was a bit of luck involved. I had to get in touch with the right people and I got signed up by Investec.” Why them particularly? “Their approach is that
the biggest thing is doing things differently, out of the ordinary.” The story goes that he had just the right email address at hand… and they were happy to listen. Says Investec South Africa’s head of marketing, Janet Larsen, “Sponsorships engage passion points. We use our partnerships to create unique experiences that surprise and delight our clients.”
Doing downhill means being away practically half the year. On the international circuit there’s a World Cup series, which is seven rounds, and then there’s the World Championship, which will be in September in Australia.
With half a dozen years under his belt, Garlicki is still comparatively young for the sport, though experienced. “The average age for guys to hang it up would probably be between 33 and 36. I don’t think it’s necessarily because of the physical stuff; I think that by that stage they’re a bit sick of the lifestyle. By then most of them have families and kids. In tennis or soccer there are facilities to cope with the family.”
Racing takes place on set courses that get tweaked from year to year. “Basically they’re held on ski resorts in Europe. In summer they become bike parks. The ski run will become a downhill course and there are various tracks marked out. They are changed; particularly for a race, they will add features and things. That’s what makes it tricky in the beginning, whereas after a couple of years you know what to expect. Which is also why I think the guys who are doing better are a little bit older, sort of mid to late 20s.”
Margins are tiny. Last year in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, of the 250 riders who attempted to qualify for the final, 80 made it and just 12 seconds separated them over three and a half minutes. Currently ranked 44th, he explains that rankings can be a bit skewed at times because not all events qualify for ranking points and you might skip events that do qualify for points.
Mental toughness is a key to being competitive. “In the earlier stages, I battled a lot mentally to get into the right frame of mind because I perform best when I am not thinking about anything. I ride so much – I am on my bike practically every day, so it’s all there – my body remembers. It’s like going on to autopilot. Even at home, when I am riding my bike, I can just be listening to music and chatting to people and when I get to the top I can go and do a run and that’s often when I will have my fastest run of the day.”
Besides the intense competition among riders, there’s also the pressure of knowing it all comes down to a single run. “You make one mistake, one crash or mechanical… you’ve gone all the way there for nothing. You don’t get a second chance. And with our sport there are so many variables: rain, changing track conditions… each time a rider goes down there’s a line that was there and the next time you come down it’s not. Or there’s a rock lying in the line. So you have to really be thinking on your feet and just kind of letting your reflexes take over. So having a clear mind is very helpful, at least for me.”
The risks are high, but the financial rewards can compensate, though he admits: “It’s not golf.”
His outfit and equipment represent a mobile billboard for a range of sponsors that he’s put together, from the bike to the tyres. An interesting one is his protection sponsors, Leatt. “When I first started, they did just neck braces. Now they’ve expanded and they do a complete kit range. So I am wearing them from head to toe pretty much except for my goggles, which are by Adidas.” His ride is based on a stock Solid Strike that he has specced himself. “For example the reach – the distance from your pedals to your handlebars – you can get an adaptor for the bars that pushes the fork forward to make it a little longer.” Fairly tall, Garlicki prefers a smallish bike. He uses a limited amount of tech for training, preferring to go on feel. “I use a GPS mainly for cross-country training, most of which is on my mountain bike. I don’t spend all my time on the downhill bike. Some guys use power meters and some do go a bit more technical. I go a bit more on comfort and feeling confident.”
How much actual downhill does a racer do? “Most of my training is off the downhill bike, to be honest. I am probably on the downhill bike twice a week and the rest of the time I will be on a mountain bike, road bike, motocross bike or in the gym. Your upper body and forearms are crucial.” Particularly for the dreaded arm pump. “But really you need all-round fitness. Although you’re not pedalling that much, it’s like being on a bucking bronco. It’s like doing 500 squats. And the mental side, you’re focusing as well.”
Outside of racing, which is not much, he does a bit of horseriding, plays a little golf and squash and generally just tries to relax. Which is something he tries to do when he’s getting ready for the start line, too: “I listen to music. Relaxing music. I have no problem with getting motivated, so at the start I need to listen to something sort of calming. Listening to music really keeps my mind off what’s about to happen. I listen to music a lot while I’m training.”
Adulation is not, as yet, a problem. “I think downhill is a good thing in the sense that I don’t want to be a Justin Bieber. Someone like Greg Minnaar… a lot of people wouldn’t know who he is, but in the mountainbike world, a lot of people know who he is. So you get to have the fame, but you get to have a normal life as well.”
Downhill is doing so well partly because it feeds into the mountain-biking boom. “The skills relay over. Whether you are doing an enduro or the Epic or a mountain-bike race or just riding for fun, it’s all the same skills, so anyone can appreciate it. I can do loads of things for any brand, in terms of taking clients for rides, skills coaching, media events and stuff. So I think mountain biking is in a very good place.” PM