Ouch x 2

Last weekend we headed to Whistler for a new BC Cup race held in the Olympic Cross Country ski park that was developed for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. The venue is beautiful set back about 10km from the main highway and has great terrain to build cross country mountain bike trails.

The trails and roads have just been built and so the roads were loose with unsettled gravel and the trails are a collection of loamy, dusty, and disintegrating segments. The organizers put tons of effort into the trails, unfortunately, with the lack of rain we have had this year, it isn't a great year to build trails--generally new trails need to be cut, ridden on, rained on, ridden on, rained on, and then dried before they completely set up. Riding on too new of a trail can destroy hours of labour by trail builders.

At the start of the race I headed up the relatively steep climb in last, my legs just weren't responding well. By the top of the climb I had gotten myself into third and just before the first section of singletrack I sprinted into second and headed through the first section of trails. I rode the rest of the first lap and most of the second lap in second until I tried a new line to enter into a singletrack section and both wheels slid out, Karen Trueman passed me and left me chasing until just before the third lap where I headed back into second.

I started to fade halfway through the third lap and Linda Robichaud launched an attack on a fire road section, I let her go, but then put out a solid effort up a short climb to pass her heading into a longer climb. In the last 5 minutes of the race I got a gap of about 30 seconds on Linda, but in the finishing straight got confused and headed out for another lap. Realizing my mistake too late, I ran up an embankment to cross the finish line still in front of Linda. However, after a bit of debate, I was disqualified for "exiting and re-entering the course in different locations."

This weekend we headed to Mission, BC to race the Bear Mountain XC. With a busy week at work, I couldn't head over until late Friday night, so I missed my opportunity to pre-ride. I was a little worried as Bear Mountain is one of the most technical XC courses I have ever ridden with lots of rough singletrack that can be fast or treacherous depending on your fatigue level.

At the start line I realized that I was the only Elite woman to show, which meant, to get the BC Cup points and the 1st place prize money, all I had to do was finish. To keep the race interesting I decided to try to stick with the top Senior Expert men. The climb at Bear Mountain is about 15 minutes long and relatively steep, when it finally rounded over into doubletrack my legs were burning and I was ready to head downhill for a while.

The first singletrack section is fairly wide, high speed, and straight, but with big slippery rocks and loose gravel. Down this section I suddenly decided to practice my trials riding and did a bit of a hop, perpindicular to the trail, a tripod with my right leg, and then a headfirst dive followed by a somersault and my bike flying through the air. I stood up right away, got my bike out of the trail and then stared at it, trying to figure out exactly how to get back on....the course marshall looked like he expected me to start cussing or crying, but kept mostly quiet except to make sure I was ok. I finally figured out how to get back on my bike and gingerly picked my way down the rest of the loose sections.

My bike was mostly fine except for my gears which were relegated to my largest cog in the back. Everything else skipped and I was too nervous that I would end up with no gears if I tried to adjust anything. The rest of the first lap and the second lap were without any major issues, but on the third downhill, completely exhausted (the race ran 30 min over the "ideal" length) I had the worst asthma attack I've probably ever had. Too stubborn to take my inhaler, I pushed through to the finish unimpressed with my riding, my lungs, and the lack of competition.

Drew had a strong finish in 3rd and we headed back to the island for a Sunday of recovering! This weekend we stay on the island with a BC Cup on Mount Washington.