TransRockies

This year I got to race Transrockies for the Canadian National team, as a project to help Canadians get the most points possible so we can qualify more men for the Olympics. For TR I was working for Max to help him get points, and get a few myself along the way.

Kate Scallion picked me up in Kamloops and we drove the rest of the way to Fernie together. The race started in Fernie and the full 7 day version went clear to Canmore. I only raced the 3 day version, called TR3.
nical singletrack called ‘Hyperventilation’ for 35min. I was quite proud of myself for only dabbing once. It summited at the top of a small mountain and then we dove down the fun decent. I rode as fast as I could and didn’t catch anyone or get caught. I had a pretty good ride and finished 4th.

For Day 2
For day 1 we did a 31km time trial loop in Fernie. It rained all night and half way through the morning. By the time I started at 1:30 it had stopped raining and the sun was out. The first 5km was a soupy gravel road with a hub deep puddle, so you got good and wet to start. From there we climbed steep, slick, and tech we started as a big pack, and for whatever reason I didn’t have very good legs. We started pretty hard with two old Czech racers pulling us along up the gradual climb at 35km/hr. Eventually I felt that the pace was too high and that I would really pay for it later, so I dropped off and rode my own pace. The lead group opened up quite a gap over the 30km climb. On the last 5km it was a singletrack climb and I was able to catch and pass the Czech guys. On the steep sketchy descent I caught one other guy, but from there I had to ride the whole 40km of rolling logging road by myself. It kind of sucked, but I kept pushing because I didn’t want to have a terrible result on the GC. I lost quite a bit of time in the GC, and finished 6th on the day.

Day 3 we started in Elkford, I felt pretty good and since I was supposed to be working for Max I thought I’d actually do some work. I set the pace and pulled the whole group on the rolling gravel/mud road for 26km. Along the way I chased down a few attacks and eventually Max went with an attack from Corey so then I sat on while Adam Craig pulled trying to chase them down. Just before the check point, Marty’s rear derailleur was making an awful racket, and it looked to me like the chain was off the top pulley by the cassette, so I told Marty to “Pedal backwards” and ‘crunch pop bang”, there went his derailleur. I felt really bad, however I found out later that the cage was probably broken before hand, so it wasn’t actually my bad advice. But, in the future, I won’t tell anyone to pedal backward! They had to make it a singlespeed to run all the steep up hills and ride the gradual stuff.

From checkpoint 2 I still felt pretty good so I pushed hard on the singletrack. I caught Adam Craig and the New Mexican racer who was only 30sec behind me in the GC. For the next 5km we climbed a super steep, somewhat muddy, and REALLY overgrown mining road. I rode maybe 50% and the rest it was so steep and overgrown that I pushed with my head behind my handlebars to protect it from the alders bushes. 40min of this was more than enough, and then we got above the tree line. Form there we kept on climbing, and climbing, and climbed some more. There was another big hike-a-bike section before we arrived on the top of the continental divide. It was a beautiful view looking all around at the tops of barren mountains with a few glaciers.

On the descent I was able to drop the Kona guys and caught Corey when he had a flat. At this point I was the 2nd rider on the trail, with only Max ahead. However I was pretty tired and on one of the 5 creek crossings I wrapped my chain around the pedal axle, so I had to stop and fix that. Shortly afterwards Corey caught and passed me. I finished 3rd on the day, and was very happy with it. I was far enough ahead of Carl Decker that I moved up to 4th overall in the GC.

This Sunday I am racing the Bromont Canada Cup, so hopefully I am recovered by then.

Nationals

Nationals!!

I had an awesome race at nationals this year! Probably my best race since nationals last year – and probably even better than that.

In the morning both Cathe/arines had good races. Pendrel rode away from the field and won solidly, and Vipond had a very good race to hang onto 4th. It was pretty exciting to watch their races on the live webcast and then I caught the finish in person.

My race I started a bit slower than sometimes – I knew from the Alberta Cup I did here in Canmore last month that I really suffered from starting too hard. This race I was in about 10-15th into the singletrack climb on the first lap, and guys were already starting to pop halfway up the first climb. I got on Craig’s wheel (blue competition cycles) through the road section and we worked together a bit, then on the climb I got ahead and away.

I rode a good lap 2 and then on lap 3 Cory Wallace (kona) caught up to me and we worked together a bit – he made me suffer on a few of the false flats but I figured I could suffer though it and stuck on. By the climb I was feeling good again – Cory and I were trying to close the gap to a group of 3 with Marty, Eric, and and Kris – they had been dangling out front at 15-25seconds all race. Lap 4 we caught Marty right near the end of it when he popped off the train, and then starting lap 5 I thought to myself “man do my legs feel good” and that it was the time to go for it – commit 100%. So I cranked those afterburners on and ripped up the climb, I dropped Corey by the “eye dropper”, a drop back into the stadium that I built last year with a pick axe. Then I motored up the dbl track climb and caught Eric at the start of the singletrack climb, he was pretty blown at that point and I was just flying up the climb. I felt really good and could see Kris not that far ahead (maybe 10s at this point), I thought to myself 5th is pretty good, I’ll be happy with that, but I kept chasing hard anyway. I hadn’t closed the gap on the climb and didn’t close it descending the “laundry chutes”, but then climbing the next gradual singletrack Keith yelled to me that it was only 8sec and that I could get him – oh, and I had tons of fans including the super fans from Kamloops, so that was motivating too. So I chased hard and could see Kris before the next corner and thought that he looked like he was hurting, over the top I closed a bit and then along the rooty flat section I closed quite a bit more, by the actual descent into Shorty Chutes I took a few of my sweet lines jumping rocks and roots and just sprinted to get in the draft for the fast ski trail descent, Kris pulled hard in the singletrack hoping I’d make a mistake, but I was on fire at this point, I felt really good and when we hit the final open ski trail to the finish I sat on his wheel and then put out an amazing sprint to take 4th!

Needless to say I am super excited and completely out did my expectations of what I was capable of at nationals this year. Also of note, Catharine Pendrel won the elite women’s making us the Fastest MTB House in Canada, and Catherine Vipond and I were both 4th so we are the Fastest Mtb Couple in Canada!

Many thanks to the good folks at the Nordic centre (Magi in particular) for letting me work here last fall building a lot of the race trails, and for all the support this year.

Next up Keith, Marty and I are doing a sweet road trip including Fernie, Rossland, and Revelstoke, so I might be out of touch for a bit. The girls meanwhile are going to race two world cups in Europe, so we are trying to make them jealous of our sweet riding.

Oh, and at Edmonton last weekend I had a good race finishing 5th - it is a great venue too - being right down town and attracking lots of spectators.

Best EVER

Updates... updates...updates. Well, I’ve had a fantastic few weeks back out west. Catherine and I went on a super cool canoe camping trip to Wells Grey provincial park. We borrowed a canoe from friends Ryan and Tanya, and then were over at a friends place returning a dvd and they suggested we go to Murtle lake, the largest “no- motorized” lake in NA. They also lent us a canoe cart, fishing rod, and some waterproof bags, so we were set.

We loaded up the trusted vibe and with all the gear (of course including bikes) and drove up to Blue River and then 30k in on a dirt road. There we loaded up the canoe on the cart and pushed/pulled it the 2 km into the lake. At this point the skys opened up and we got a bit wet, but it quit raining in time for us to put the canoe in the water and put on a few more layers. We had an excellent paddle out into the “middle” of the lake, and then we started watching the rain clouds move across the mountains, out from the shore, across the water, and finally on us. We got a little wet and were glad for the waterproof bags, and made it to shore without any white caps coming in. We set up camp on a beautiful sandy point with absolutely no one in sight or that we could hear. In fact we couldn’t hear any people noises and with the snow capped mountains around it was super nice. After camp was up and the sun was shining we went out fishing, Catherine got a little bored of me casting and had just fallen asleep when I got a good tug on the line and saw a fish jump, I reeled it in an Catherine woke with a jump to help me land it in the boat. I cleaned the 13” rainbow trout out and we paddled back to the camp site. There we roasted the fish over the camp fire in tinfoil with pesto – it was the BEST EVER!!!.




The next day we had beautiful weather and paddled out, fishing but not catching along the way. We had 3hr road ride to do for training, so we thought we’d go do a nice easy spin on hwy 24 west from Little Fort. Well, were we ever in for a surprise! We had a nice 10 min of flat up the river valley, and then the road veered up the mountain side and we ended up climbing at 8% grade for 17km. It was actually a really nice climb and we quite enjoyed the ride.

The next weekend I drove down to the Bear Mountain BC cup race with Pete, and we stayed with retired racer Ricky Federau. He is now full into chicken farming (for a few hrs a day) and the rest of the time he is just loving life. He mixes it up with kayaking, skiing, mtb and road riding, running, and just about anything else you can think of that is fun outdoors. He also coined the phrase ”best ever”. Anyone that knew Ricky from the race scene would know something awesome was “money”, “cash money”, or maybe even “the best ever”.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and headed out to the race. There was a pretty good group of us there for the elite field, and Daniel Sessford led the charge up the hill the first time. I was able to get into the singletrack first and got a decent gap on the BC style descent. Then we had a 10min climb and Dan almost caught back up to me but I held him off, rode the descent pretty well lap 2,3, and at the start of lap 4 I saw Ricky was close at the bottom of the descent. I turned the afterburners on and ripped up the climb and shredded the descent to stay ahead for the win. Ricky came in 2nd, with his baggy shorts flying, and the biggest grin on his face possible – exclaiming “it was THE BEST RACE EVER!!!”

Speaking of best ever – I’ve been eating fresh carrots from our garden, and I got my new Xprezo SUB 5 with XX – both of which are the best ever!

Iron Lung and Test of Metal

From Hardwood Catherine and I flew to Kamloops and spent a few days at home before packing up AGAIN and heading to Canmore. I owed the Nordic centre 2 days of work because last fall the weather flipped and went to -27deg C, so there was no point in trying to trail build then. At Canmore we stayed with Magi and Steff and had lots of fun hanging out with them.

There was the “Iron Lung” mtb race happening that weekend on the race course that I designed and helped build. I started a bit hard and had an absolute sufferfest of a race, finishing 2nd to Steff. It was awesome to hear from all the racers how much they loved the race course and neat to see over 375 racers out all having a good time. Unfortunately due to a short sighted matter of pride by a member of the club in charge of national championships, the race course will not be on the course I designed. This is particularly too bad for all the non-elite level racers – those in it just for fun- who had so much fun at the Iron lung and were inspired to bring their friends back for the next race there.

Here's a picture of a rider going off the "eye dropper" into the stadium at Canmore, I build this section with a pick axe.


Check out this post for a shout out on the race course at Canmore.
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/dailynews.php?id=19332

From Canmore we drove back to the loops for a few days, and then on down to Squamish where we stayed with Olivier (a fellow Xprezo racer) and Melanie for the Test of Metal. The Test is a super cool event because everyone from the community gets interested and behind it. This year the 800 spots sold out in 24minutes!!! As an elite I was able to register day of because they want my high profile figure there...

Anyway, I had a decent start and felt pretty good, but going through one dip in the trail my chain somehow jammed with my front derailleur and twisted the derailleur. I rode it for a while and then realized that it was stupid and I was going to catastrophically break my bike, so I stopped and fixed it. It took forever to fix because with the full suspension linkage on my frame it is hard to get an allen key in there, so after 3min or so I was able to go again. I was back in about 35th at this time, and had lots of fun blowing by racers and weaving in and out on the double and singletrack. By the “9 mile” a good climb, I had caught back up to 10-17th place, and then by the top of it I pushed really hard and was up to 6th. I rode the plunge a bit slow as I was starting to get tired but then got it back together and finished strong through crumpet woods to the finish. I ended up 5th in 2:41, not a bad race for 3 min on the side of the trail and then not being able to draft anyone for the race.

An Update....

So It's been a while and I know I should have updated long ago... but here is a bit of a recap for the last while...

The Houffalize, Belgium World cup was actually a pretty good race. It was somewhat muddy, and had good steep climbs and descents, I had fun and raced hard. We then flew to Oshawa Ontario and spent a few days with Catherine's folks before heading up to their cottage near Gatineau.

From there we went to Baie Saint Paul for the first Canada Cup, I had an ok race, not the best or worst, I cranked the turbos on for the last lap and was able to get ahead of Peter - so that was fun as we had been battling it out all race.

The race at Tremblant was pretty good, every year they make it smoother and easier (which I don't like), and this year it was even dry. We were able to race pretty much the whole thing in Big ring except a climb in the middle. I had lots of fun and used my technical abilities to make up for short falls in fitness and reeled in a few racers by the bottom of the long downhill. At the end I was able to out sprint Peter on the line to take 5th.

During the week we did some intervals on roads near the cottage, it was 35deg and humid, and I was dying in between my 10min intervals so I jumped in the nearby lakes each time for the recovery.

From there it was off to Hardwood, it was pretty hot and I had a decent race but not the best, I ended up 11th, and this time Peter got me...

UK world cup

So I raced the Dalby forest world cup yesterday. It was the first world cup of the year, so everybody is keen to test their form.

I had great preperation, with lots of time on the course during the week. We have been staying with the Myers in Guisborough, and having a great time learning lots about the UK from them.

Race day dawned with a light rain shower, enough to make Catherine worried but the track didn't actually get wet. Catherine had a great race - she started on the 2nd last row and finished 42 out of 90 or so. Kika had a slow start but moved back up through the field for 6th, so I guess she has good legs too.

My race was a bit crazy. I was on the 8th row or so, and there were another 8 rows of guys packed in behind me. When the gun went there was a crash in the first 50m, I avoided that, and then we hammered at 50km/hr on the flat to a 90deg corner, there was another crash there and I just avoided running over the guy's head with my chainrings, then back up to speed, 90deg left, avoid another crash, and then stand in line to get into the singletrack. All in all it was actually a pretty good start as I avoided the crashes and was just a bit ahead of where you really had to stop and wait.

From there I had a decent first 2 laps with a bit of waiting here and there. By the 3rd lap I was ready to crank it up and actually race, but it was super frustrating because the only places to really pass were on the flats and 2 uphills, and on the flats I just got out gunned by some of the euros - then we would ride the descents slower than I wanted to - and they would sprint up the next climb and I just didn't have the legs to sprint on every open section (like driving a car behind a Saskatchewaner, everytime you get to a passing section it is 140km/hr, and when you are twisting through the mtns it is 60km/hr - ARRRGGGHHH!!) Anyway, I found it hard to race my best, or the fastest way to get around the course. By the end of the 6th lap I was quite tired and faded a bit. I ended up finishing 101st out of 160, so not what I was hoping for but decent none the less.

We are heading to Belgium tomorrow for Houffalize WC next weekend.

Europe

So, Catherine and I got lucky on this one. We decided to skip Sea Otter and fly to the UK a bit early to do a local race there and get used to the time change. We left Tuesday and got in Wed, and merrily went on our way - oblivious to the fact that volcanic ash was spewing into the sky and flights were getting cancelled.

We hired a car from the manchester airport and they handed us the keys. With a measly 4hrs sleep in me I hopped in and took off on the left side of the road, shifting with my left hand. We quickly got the roundabouts figured out, and headed towards Caistor. We got part way there and had to pull over and sleep for a while, but finally arrived to visit and stay with friends of Catherine's Peter and Mary. She knew them from a year long exchange she did at age 7, so we got to check out where she lived and all the neat little places around her town.

From Caistor we drove to Stoke-On-Trent, and did the Midlands XC race. It was a brilliant course and very well put on. I had some good competition with 2 other world cup racers there, but I managed to drop them on the Canadian style rooty section and get enough of a gap to win. Catherine had a little less competition and won by 12 mins, so she worked on how many guys she could pass, and I think she was at about 120 by the end of it.

From Stoke we drove to Guisborough to stay with Rob, Ruth, and Tom. From here it is about 1h to the race site at Dalby, but we have a brilliant set up with Tom being a registered mechanic at a local shop.

We have seen some beautiful countryside - with daffodils lining the road sides in the country, and lots of ancient, as in 1300 castles and a prior. Oh, and I got a Phesant for dinner when I was out on a bike ride.




Yesterday we pre-rode the course at Dalby. There were 7 people riding on the track. It was very quiet and we are super glad that we avoided the 5+day travel fiasco many of our racing friends have and are going through. The course is 100% man made, with every obstical placed just so, and the rest of it quite buff. It will be hard to drop other racers based on technical skills, but it is a lot better than most european courses I have ridden. I think the start will be absoutley chaotic, as it is flat and we will go into singletrack fairly quickly.

Hope all is well across the pond. Theoretically I should be updating quite frequently now as I've got a lot of races lined up in the next month and a bit.


Ox tongue for dinner anyone?