Massimo Bianconcini’s debut to X Games: when partecipating counts more than winning
A fifth placing which counts as a victory. This is the result gained by Massimo Bianconcini, rider sponsored by Marzocchi, at the past edition of ESPN X Games
August 16th - A fifth placing which counts as a victory. This is the result gained by Massimo Bianconcini, rider sponsored by Marzocchi, at the past edition of ESPN X Games, out-and-out Olympics Games of the most extreme sports which took place at the end of the past June in Los Angeles. In the USA, Bianconcini stayed at the house of the friend and rider Javier Villegas and he was welcomed friendly by all his opponents. Even the training was good and before the race there was a lot of optimism in the air. «During the event – says Bianconcini – I reached a good height, but I had some problems in the decendent part of the jump trajectory, because I was not able to push ahead the bike enough. The US setup is different from the European one: the run-up is shorter and I had difficulty in reaching the right run with my two-stroke engine. All others riders had four-stroke engines, which assure the right power for this kind of competition. Anyway, in my opinion I didn’t make a poor impression: I was brought to the attention as one of the six best Step Up riders in the world and I finished with a fifth placing, a result which for me counts as a victory».
Bianconcini’s US stay wasn’t poor of picturesque and hilarious moments.
«I have stayed in the United States for ten days – tells the rider -, and I have suddenly understood that that period of time was too short to do all the things I wanted to do. We were invited by so many riders to cook pasta at their houses, it would take a month to satisfy all of them. Only Andy Bell, a friend of Travis Pastrana and a Nitro Circus member, was lucky: we tried to cook pasta for him, but I think we were too drunk to make something eatable. Moreover one day, during a transfer, we were stopped by the police. We were traveling on a van which had only two seats and we had previously arranged the covered posterior part so that it could lodge other two people. When the policemen stopped us, they told me to open the posterior part of the van to see what it contained. You can imagine their faces when other two members of the team came out from the cab. The police officers were flabbergasted, but when they dicovered that we were going to the X Games, they softened».