Björn Levin

After my 10th national championship last fall I had a knee surgery scheduled. The surgery went well, as all hours of rehab training that followed after surgery. With a healthy knee was the motivation back on top!

When spring arrived, the motivation is not as strong anymore. There were fewer Swedish Championship races than usual on the calendar. At the same time they scheduled two in the early spring and two late fall. Would i now put in the hundreds of hours training by myself in the forest, rain or shine to have the chance to take an 11th gold? was a question I asked myself some time before the first two races. I’ve never seen myself as a “talent” in the sense that I have found it easy to learn new things in the sport, the only talent I have is that I have been training very hard to reach the goals I set for myself.

The focus this year was not even close to 100%. Quite early, I felt that my last seroius season was last season. Although I managed to get away with a second place overall , it’s only because I have a lot of experience , and physics is still on top thanks to a newborn interest in the form of enduro.

This was my 19th racing season in the sport. I will remain within the federation as a trainer, etc. but my time as an elite cyclist is now completed. I will certainly show up for a few races in the future, but then it will be on a completely different level. The love for the sport is still there and I still think it’s fun to ride and compete. But the motivation to continue to put down the work required to keep the level I had before is not there.

15 of my racing seasons I’ve spent the national Elite class, with 10 gold and 3 other medals as a result. Before I started driving Elite, I won the A-Cup attending class for 2 consecutive years. The year before so I won the junior championship.
There were 17 seasons with international competitions with the World Cup, European Championships and European Cups. The best results where an European Championships  Gold medal, and several medals in both the World Championships and European Cups.

I want to thank all sponsors, most have been with me for many years. Your support has helped me to a long and successful career, and for that I am eternally grateful!

BIG win yesterday and im really happy about my 10th Swedish Championship title in Elite category:) Epic support from my friends and great riding resulted in a win on 2 points ( both from when my titanium pedal axle broke mid section) with closest competitor on 30 points.

Thanks to al my sponsors, family and friends for your support throughout the year

One step closer to nr 10!

Back on track! #1 again after a solid day of riding. The body feels good, the new bike is great and i´m looking forward to the last two rounds!

1st and 2nd was held this past weekend, first day i started a bit sketchy since i didn´t have a lot of time on my bike after my surgery. But my riding got better and better but finishing on 19 points with both 1st and 2nd on 18 points wasnt very fun. Second day i rode on only 1 point until i had 3 sections to go when my fork snapped! I got second 2 points behind Joacim Nyman and was pretty pissed that my fork just cost me a win that i would have needed after the tight podium the day before.

Witch is why I needed to get surgery on both of my arms today due to basically  having armpump from the moment i wake up in the morning to when i go to sleep. Hopefully they  got it right and i will be back on my bike in 2 weeks! It´s going to be tight since the first 2 Swedish Championships is in 2 weeks and 4 days, but I have faith in my physical preparations and will hopefully manage to get a good start anyway!

Travelled down to Germany for the first comp of the year since the Swedish Championships starts quite late this year.

I still cant figure out how to deal with the difference in UCI compared to BIU witch often results in a very all or nothing type of riding. And the conditions in Germany with 15cm of mud on the ground and quite dangerous sections did not help! I finished on 19th place with is quite bad. My friend Joacim Nymann finished in 15th place and when i saw him ride the 1/2 finals i realized that even if I where to make that cut i still lack so much of the UCI specific techniques that is needed to be able to ride that type of comps. I better try to practice them a whole lot moore!

Really looking forward to this season, I’ve been doing alot of work in the gym during this winter and I have made alot of progress! Working with a new trainer really changed everything for the better and im super stooked on starting riding more outdoors. I just returned from a few days in France riding in Saix. I was not real keen on going back home to -15 degrees but the spring must find it´s way up to Sweden sooner or later:)

and iv’e had some time to reflect on this years comps. Im not that happy with my results abroad this year, but i won´t bore you with my analysis of that. I am well pleased with my riding at home soil though, last year i got second in one comp and won by small margins a few times. This year i had my fire back and was pretty much untouchable in every comp.

I literally went straight to the gym after my last comp, started working on this winters training together with a new personal trainer. We have already made quite alot of progress and im really stocked on next year already!

I also made my debut on the enduro track, and i night do one or two more comps during this winter:)

Thanks to all of my sponsors, friends and family for this year. See you in 2013!