Bear Mountain XC

Last weekend I raced out at Bear Mountain in Mission, BC. The courses there are known for a big climb and rough, technical, really fun descents. Every year it is one of the hardest but most enjoyable courses of the year, this year was no disappointment!

Dawn and I travelled over Friday afternoon and started our journey from the ferries to Mission right in Vancouver rush hour traffic...always a good time. After waiting in line for the tunnel for an hour with no gas, getting lost a couple times, and realizing how much we LOVE the island, we finally arrived and checked in. Last year's lap count was 3 for the elite women, this year they raised it to 4, cut out a large section of singletrack climbing, and changed the downhill to include a relatively newly cut trail.

Once we got up the climb and into the singletrack I started to get excited about the race, the course was really technical with a couple steep rock faces, a sketchy, rough section of roots and drops, and a lot of hard work to be smooth.

On race day our start was at 1pm, the sky was clear but it wasn't too warm (still appreciated after Kamloops). When the gun went off Dawn took the lead, I followed with Melanie Vaughn, Linda Robichaud, and K.J. Sadler. Melanie and I rode together on the climb and through the first bit of technical singletrack, but just before the feedzone on a flat, soft section she took the second place spot. Heading up the climb again on my 2nd and 3rd laps my legs felt pretty flat and the descents were no place to try to recover. Going into the feedzone on the 3rd lap Linda caught and passed me, so I grabbed on her wheel and held on through the last bit of singletrack before the climb started again. Linda is a great technical rider, so I knew to beat her I would have to beat her on the climb (which had been beating me all day), I gave that final climb everything I had, redlining it to the top and got into singletrack ahead of her. The rest of the lap I was running scared, pushing all the descents and dropped my lap time from the 2 previous laps. I finished up in 3rd with Linda about 2 minutes behind me, to stand on the podium for the first time at a BC Cup this year. Definitely not my prettiest race, but a great learning experience!

Congrats to Dawn and Melanie for 1st and 2nd places! Thanks to Chris for the feed and pre-race tech support!

Now I get a month off of racing! I'll spend the month recovering, then training and fine-tuning for the last BC Cup/Provincial Championships up at Mount Washington on August 30th. After that we'll start Cyclocross season in Mid September! This has been a great Cross Country race season, and I can't wait to see what happens in the cyclocross season!

Elite Women
1 Dawn Berg (OBB/Everti) 2:16:37
2 Melanie Vaughan (Steed Cycles) 2:24:47
3 Joele Guynup (Island Racing Club p/b Robert C) 2:29:32
4 Linda Robichaud (Team Whistler) 2:31:07
5 K.J. Sadler (Active Life Multisport Team) 2:41:36

Moving on up...literally!

This week I headed to Burnaby with Drew and Dawn Berg for West Coast Racing's "Cardiac Classic" on Burnaby mountain. This is a new race and course for the BC Cup Series, and quite a new challenge! The course sent racers out on a long climb from the new skills park up to the SFU campus. The climb was long, steady, and steep, steep, steep. It was a great climb to settle into a rhythm and go. The climb was followed by a walking path that went across the top of the climb to connect into singletrack and was a great opportunity to recover before heading into some of the best singletrack of the year! The descent was fast, rough, and suited for 4-5" travel bikes. The burmed corners were super-smooth and there were lots of bridges and logs to keep your head working--definitely not recovery singletrack! From the descent we moved into an open area for passing, more singletrack, a short climb through the feedzone--THANKS to our feed Harrison!!--and then into a rolling singletrack that was filled with roots, logs, and bridges that set you up perfectly for corners. From there racers popped up about 1/3 of the way up the first climb and set out to finish up their laps, then take the somewhat sketchy fire road back to the finish.

The race started nice and steady because everyone was ready for the big climb to shake things out. Going into the 90 degree corner off the start I was last in the women's field, up the first section of fire road I attacked a couple girls and started catching up to Melanie Vaughn. At the beginning of the climb repeated in subsequent laps I passed Melanie and continued spinning up the hill. Dawn Berg, Kristin Johnston, and Joanna Harrington were just out of sight ahead of me.

Going into the singletrack I felt great after the climb and tried to push it as much as possible. I caught up to David Huntley, a fellow islander, and followed him down the descent. In the next open section Melanie attacked up a short climb and went into the next bit of singletrack ahead of me, up the next climb towards the feed zone I attacked and went through the feedzone and into the singletrack ahead of Melanie.

The next two laps I road with a few guys, battling it out and felt great about my climbing and descending. Each lap my smiles on the descents got bigger the better I knew the trail...not too bad considering the climb that came before each descent! Heading down the fire road towards the finish line I got pretty nervous. The fire road is somewhere that you have to let it all out, or lose a lot of time. I lost a lot of time and Melanie caught up to me mid-singletrack, about 300 meters from the end, I stayed on her wheel until the last corner where she came out with more speed and sprinted to the end, I tried to sprint up to her, but didn't have the time or the speed, so I finished the race in 4th--consistent with my BC Cup races this season. Needless to say, I'll be working on fire roads this winter! Ahead of Melanie came Joanna in 1st and Dawn in 2nd.

Post-race, racers got to enjoy a BBQ supplied by the race sponsors and organizers and tons of draw prizes. This was one of the best organized races, with supportive and enthusiastic course marshals, a great course design, great prizes, and a great atmosphere. It definitely lived up to the expectations established by West Coast Racing in their organization of the Vanier Park BC Cup cross race last fall--Thanks again to the organizers for their hard work and a great race!

Next week I am off to Mission for Provincial Championships at Bear Mountain--Another great course! After a weekend of heat, a weekend of altitude, this last weekend of steep climbs, I can't wait to race at another great venue!

This weekend was the "Ziggy Gnarly" Canada Cup in Canmore, Alberta. We flew in to Calgary Thursday night and headed to the Stampede to check out the early edition before heading to Canmore Friday morning.

The course in Canmore is hard but amazing with wicked descents and steep climbs. This is by far one of my favourite race courses in the year because of how technical the riding. The singletrack is riddled with roots, rocks, stumps, and that is all before the "Coal Chute" which is a relatively steep, very loose section with black dirt that involves skill at "surfing" on the bike. The climbs are all under 8 minutes, but each lap has 400m of climbing, so they are relatively short, but steep.

Everything felt great for the pre-ride, technical skills were all in sync, the climbs (besides being a bit out of breath at the end) weren't too painful, and the course was in great shape!

On race day the temperature was somewhere around 20 degrees. The whistle went off and the race was led out by Jean Anne McKirdy and Melanie McQuaid. The first climb felt ok, and the descent felt really good, but as soon as I hit the second climb my legs had nothing left. I spent the next 2 laps going as fast and pushing as hard as I could on the descents but then suffering up the climbs with flat, unresponsive legs to finish up in 12th.

Though my legs didn't want to work, I focussed on descending as fast and as smoothly as I could and improved my course time by 10 minutes-not too bad for a year's worth of training. I finished the race happy to have finished, and ready for next week's BC Cup at Burnaby Mountain to see how my legs feel after another week of recovery from Kamloops and a solid ride at Canmore.

Below are the results for the women's and men's fields in the race. Congrats to Mical for winning the race for a second year in a row and improving her time by 3 minutes!

Elite Women - 24.9km
1. Mical Dyck (AB) Terrascape/Trek 1:36:57
2. Melanie Mcquaid (BC) Natures Path-BMC at 2:00
3. Jean Ann McKirdy (BC) Rocky Mountain Bikes 2:53
4. Joanna Harrington (BC) Fineline Ride Shop, Whistler 6:13
5. Catherine Vipond (ON) Norco Evolution Team 7:00
6. Danelle Kabush (AB) Luna Women's Mountain Bike Team 8:34
7. Marie-Claude Surprenant (QC) ÉQUIPE DU QUÉBEC / Sportif Bromont 16:19
8. Andrea Bunnin (SK) Spoke'n Sport/ Kona 17:07
9. Pepper Harlton (AB) Juventus 17:45
10. Lisa Morgan (NZl) PNP Cycling Club 19:41
11. Mandy Dreyer (ON) Freewheel Cycle 21:35
12. Joele Guynup (BC) Island Racing Club 22:25
13. Erica Musyj (SK) BCW 24:19
14. Krystyn Ong (AB) Juventus 25:05
15. Margie Smith (AB) wilson mountain sports 27:22

Elite Men - 33.2km
1. Tim Heemskerk (AB) United Cycle Team. 1:48:23
2. Martin Lazarski (BC) Rocky Mountain K Capital Source at 0:45
3. Stefan Widmer (BC) Rocky Mountain/K-Capitol Source 1:45
4. Raphael Gagne (QC) Rocky Mountain 2:07
5. Matthew Hadley (NB) XPREZO 4:23
6. Julien Fillion (QC) Équipe du Québec / Fillion-VM 4:37
7. Craig Richey (BC) Oak Bay Bikes 5:21
8. Colin Kerr (BC) dtfferent bikes 6:14
9. Francis Morin (QC) Specialized/ Team Quebec 8:07
10. Steve Gaffney (AB) Independant 9:07
11. Daniel Sessford (YK) Blue Competition Cycles 9:41
12. Matt Green (BC) Rocky Mountain - K Capital Source 10:34
13. Mark Fenner (AB) SCUM 12:15
14. Andre Sutton (AB) Hardcore Cycling Club 12:42
15. John Gray (NZL) Rotorua MTB 12:50
16. Andrew Thomas (SK) Team Sask / ERTC 13:40
17. Brian Bain (AB) Cyclemeisters/Bowcycle 14:04
18. Cody Canning (AB) ERTC/Revolution Cycle 14:30
19. Cameron Jette (ON) TEAM TREK STORE 16:00
20. Dallas Morris (AB) Team H&R Block 16:17
21. Manuel Fehlmann (BC) Balance Point Racing Team 17:08
22. Kyle Douglas (ON) 3 Rox Racing 17:56
23. Thomas Skinner (BC) Rocky Mountain - K Capital Source 18:26
24. Ryan Atkins (ON) Ironwood Racing 18:35
25. Simon Tremblay (BC) Giant, Summit Cycles 19:20
26. Aroussen Laflamme (QC) Webcor-Alto-Velo-Kona Endurance 21:01
27. Cory Zetterstrom (SK) BCW 22:55
28. Cameron McKnight (AB) ERTC - Revolution Cycle 26:09
29. Shawn Bunnin (AB) Bicisport 26:19
30. Mike Bidniak (AB) Team Alberta 29:38
DNF . Michael Mitchnick (ON) Team Trek Store
DNF . Frederic Bussieres (QC) Xprezo/ Aviawest
DNF . Duncan Gavin (BC) Different Bikes
DNF . Drew Mackenzie (BC) IRC p/b Cameron Law
DNF . Brad Tilby (BC) Star and Garter Wheelers

Race the Ranch Canada Cup

I am writing this in the few minutes before work the day we fly out for the Canmore Canada Cup. It was a quick June, and promising to be a quick July as the weekends and races tick by. Last weekend we headed out to Kamloops for the "Race the Ranch" Canada Cup. The laps were short (about 5km), flat, wide open, on a mix of double and singletrack.

On the preride three things stuck out in my head, there was no following, the dust was so bad that if you got close to people lungs and eyes would burn from all the dust. Then technically the dust, in some places it was 6 inches to a foot deep making ruts hard to see and the steep short climbs a bit trickier. Finally (and probably the most important) the heat. Our pre-ride didn't start until 7:30pm the night before the race and the heat was still suffocating.

On race day the temperatures started climbing above Victoria's moderate 20-25C by 9am. By 1pm, during the warmup, the temperature had peaked at 40C (104F). With a wide open course that required pedalling everywhere, there was no avoiding the sun. The start of the race was relatively slow, but picked up on the first plateau. I was sitting in 4th feeling pretty comfortable, until we hit a dusty spot and I lost the trail and both wheels sending me sliding across the trail. By the time I got myself and my bike up and running the field had passed me. I worked to catch back on but tried to remember to keep things steady, I picked off four girls over the next three laps. By the end of my fourth lap the heat had gotten to me and I wasn't moving very quickly, every lap I had been going through the feedzone twice, getting three bottles per feed--bottles to dump in the feedzone, bottles to drink, and bottles to dump during the lap. Just before the commissaire table at the finish line Catherine Vipond (who rode great in the heat!) came around and saved me from a final lap.

Overall I ended up 6th in a race that felt like a feat to finish as some of the elite men put themselves in the hospital and DNF's were high. The results for the women are as follows:

1. Catherine Vipond (ON) Norco-Evolution 1:51:18
2. Jean Ann McKirdy (BC) Rocky Mountain Bikes 1:59:56
3. Andrea Bunnin (SK) Team Saskatchewan 2:10:07
4. Stacey Spencer (BC) Different Bikes 2:12:37
5. Christy Love (BC) West Coast Racing/Ambleside CC 2:16:48
6. Joele Guynup (USA) Island Racing Club/Straight Up -1 lap
7. Lisa Morgan (NZl) New Zealand -2 laps
8. Julie Melanson (BC) Balance Point Racing -2 laps
9. Mandy Dreyer (ON) Ind -3laps
DNF. K.J. Sadler (BC) Ind
DNF. Melanie Vaughan (BC) Steed Cycles
DNF. Joanna Harrington (Aus) Fineline Bike Shop, Whistler
DNF. Susan Stephens (ON) Team Whistler
DNF. Jennifer Tabbernor (BC) Ind

This weekend we are heading to Canmore for our second (and last) Canada Cup of the year. Last year this was one of my favourite courses with hard climbs and awesome singletrack. After two days of re-hydration and relative rest, and a day of hill climbs under my belt, I am feeling pretty excited for this race!