84km MTB Marathon in the Heart of Quebec. Victory!

Quebec has a MTB Marathon series called the Raid. There are 4 races in the series this year,
1)Raid Velo Mag (the one we did at MSA in June)
2)Raid Massif du Sud(missed it but will go next year)
3)Raid Jean D'Avignon(East Hereford )
4) Raid Bras du Nord( near Quebec city)
To be a "Marathon" it needs to be between 80- 120km, compared to the usual regular mtb race which is around 50km or less depending on the terrain.

This past Sunday I did the 3rd one, in East Hereford. The town is about 45min south east of Sherbrooke. Right on the border to Vermont.
It was my second year doing this race and last year I finished second overall to a local Elite strong man named Jean-Philipe Thibault Roberge(JPTR). We blew punches all day at each other and after 4hrs he won by about 20 sec!. Anyways, that was last year.......

This year he was away out west doing a string of Canada cups and Nationals. I looked around at the start line, some familiar strong faces but nobody I was really worried about, except maybe Pierre Harvey, (yes that Pierre Harvey). I was confident in my fitness and was ready to go. The gun went and all 110 of us were off. I surprised myself and easily took the lead down the road, with everyone sitting behind me waiting to see.
We turned right on the first gravel climb, I had a gap, so I said lets see what I can do here!

I went for it. 1km in with 83km to go --I went alone! I was just bombing and felt great all day, I ate, I drank, my bike was excellent. There was tonnes of Kingdom Trail style downhill singletrack. It was 4hrs of just me, my bike and the trails. I almost forgot I was racing, almost....On the long stretches on rolling straight gravel, I could see a group of 4 in what looked like an organized chase, so I had to buckle down, and for the final 35km I really dropped the hammer.

It worked, I came through the finish at 3hrs 51 min. 8 minutes ahead of second place.

Feels good to get a victory once in a while. Seems like it's been a long time!

Better Fortune? Maybe just a bit...

The latest Camp Fortune Sunset Series mountain bike race was last Wednesday evening. The temperature was mercifully moderate - well below 30, if I recall. I'm pretty sure that if the race was Thursday night, I would have skipped it; actually, I probably wouldn't have skipped it, but I would have gotten heat exhaustion. I'm happy to have not suffered that fate (again)!
The field expert/elite field was quite thin - a total of 5 guys. No doubt, this is in part due to observations described by Neil two weeks ago. In any case, I had arrived early enough to be on the bike 30 minutes prior to start, and caught up with Imad and Dustin heading out for a lap - to do a little course prep. Yup, to get the course ready for the race. Uh-huh, the race put on by Camp Fortune, a race for which I (and everyone else) have to pay for entry, as well as for trail access, and which starts in 30 minutes. But I digress!
OK, off we go, no time to spare It doesn't take long to find a "small" problem - a large tree fallen across the trail. Well, this is no good, it sure would suck if the race had started with that in the way. Not to worry, Imad heads back to the start to get a few big burly racers to move the fallen tree. Not being in that particular category, I keep going. As Neil noted two weeks ago, the course is poorly (i.e. not) marked. Well, that's not quite true. Most of the single track has tape along both sides of the trail - that must have taken forever. On the other hand, none of the intersections are adequately marked. It's not as if the intersections have never been marked - at most places where there is a choice on which way to go, there is ripped tape on the ground. I did my best to retrieve random unused tape segments (such as the tape along most of the single track...), to tape off as many incorrect turns as possible. I hope it helped, and I will say that this sort of course marking is the absolute least we should expect for a sanctioned race that carries an entry fee. I'm sure my tape will be gone in two weeks - no big deal, it'll just take someone from the race organization 30 minutes to go around and prep it before the next race.
OK, we didn't fix all the problems, maybe not even most of them. There is still lots of erosion, and the course does need attention - but hopefully we helped most of the racers go the right way most of the time...

A few race notes:
- as mentioned, the expert/elite category was thin. With only 5 of us on the start line, it was a very civilized pace.
- Imad crashed hard, right in front of me. I was sure there would be a dislocated shoulder, or broken clavicle, but it turned out to just be just a flesh wound, and a bent bike. Bend it back and keep going!
- my string of flats on the 29er has finally come to an end. I'm set up tubeless with my ZTR rims - no more pinch flats, and the bike is handling great.

2011 Nationals report

Well, I've been putting this blog post off for a while, with the hopes of finding a sweet photo to upload, but no such luck.
Nationals was a pretty awesome race. The course was at the Canmore Nordic Centre, and involved a lot of climbing, and fun trails. There was one somewhat sketchy descent that was taken out of the race (sad face!) but other than that, the course stayed the same as it was from pre-riding. I got to Canmore on Thursday afternoon, and only got to spend one day on the course, but I think that was enough. I had most of it fairly dialed by the time I got called up to the line on saturday morning.

The race start was super fast. I felt very sluggish off the start, and just didn't have that top gear. I think the altitude was affecting me. Off the start loop, I was sitting about 3rd from the back of the pack. Not good. So, I just started going harder, and gradually passed people. The race continued like this. I feel like I never really "got going" but I was climbing better than the people around me, and just kept on the gas, eventually dropping the people that I was battling with. I came across Cam Jette, who had blown up pretty badly. I told him to get on my wheel. He stayed with me for half a lap, then attacked. I spent the rest of the race chasing him, but never was able to close the gap. Overall, I finished 16th. Last year was 17th. Not quite the improvement I was looking for, but still pretty good.

I had a blast riding the course, and being out here in Canmore is Awesome. With a capital A. Sunday involved a hike up a mountain, plus a mtb ride. Monday was a 3+ hour hammer fest, then a hike, and some rock climbing. Tuesday was a 5+ hour ride, on which I bonked severely. Wednesday looks like easy recovery, and then maybe some more climbing, if the bad weather passes.

I'm not sure why, but I'm really digging Canmore this year, and find myself checking out rental prices. uh-oh! Tomorrow, Eric and I leave to head up to Edmonton, for a Canada Cup on saturday. Should be fun.

Ontario Cup gets all Buckawallow

The 5th Ontario cup mountain bike race was right in between Bracebridge and Gravenhurst Ontario. A venue built and owned by a guy who loves mountain biking.
Imad,Ryan and I liked our chances as most of the top guys were away at the World cup in Windham, NY.
We set up camp close by and got in a couple good pre-ride laps on a course with an awesome section very similar to Ridgetop in Kanata lakes. We seemed to have an edge through there due to our home made skills from riding Kanata often enough.
We ate dinner and were forced to our tents early due to an obscene amount of mosquitos. But that made for a nice long sleep, (9hrs for me), I think Imad got about 11hrs in his makeshift bed in his so called "tent", which is actually his truck with the seats down.
After some final adjustments on the bikes we headed for coffee. We had a choice between Mcdonalds and Tim's. Ryan and chose Mcdonalds, Imad chose both and got coffees an mcmufins from each. Before heading back for the battle, we decided to take a swim in the nice big lake, and man, did it feel good!! Dropped the core temperature dramatically on a +27 humid day. Ok. on to the race.

We were off at 1:30pm. Imad drove a mean pace and led us for the first part with a field of about 30 already starting to string out. I quickly moved up and took over the lead with Ryan right on my wheel. I led through until about 1/2 way through the first lap and out of all the rocky stuff. Ryan took over from there and at this point there was only 3 of us, Ryan, me and Preston Wagler. Just before the end of the first lap Danny Souter caught up and attacked. I couldn't quite hold on after my effort and fell about 5 sec off pace.
I came through the feed zone in 4th and missed my feed as my feeder wasn't expecting me to be so close to Ryan. Thankfully I still had a little water left in my bottle and was able to make it around again without cramping.
Fast forward 4 laps later....I was holding 4th strong with about 500meters to go and messed up my pass on a Masters rider, sending myself into a tree stump and dislocationg my thumb. I was able to hop back on but couldn't respond to John Slaughter who took home 4th leaving me to roll in 5th.
Imad was not far behind and claimed 6th!
We found out that Ryan had jammed up his chain and had fallen back a bit leaving him to claim 3rd!
So all in all in was a pretty successful weekend. All 3 of us made the big podium and even won a little bit of dough!
Next year with a little bit of luck I think we should be able to pull off the win.

Rough Fortune

Well, I did my second Sunset series race this year at Camp Fortune. Took the lead early, only to give it up to Imad and Vincent 3/4 of the way through the 1st of 4 laps. Managed to take a wrong turn,(as did many others), and crashed twice on a course which is in serious need of some TLC after many seasons of abuse and an especially rainy summer season so far. In the end Imad took the win, I came in 3rd well behind. Props go to Imad for a stellar ride and for keeping his lines dialed by regular visits to the beast we call Camp Fortune!

Other Kunstadt riders included Richard , James and Norm,(the Badger). James took some wrong turns too and Richard got many flats (3 total I think).. Richard: your luck is bound to turn around. I didn't speak with Norm after but he looked happy.
In all honesty, the place needs some work, the course was poorly marked, I know at lest 5 people I talked to after got lost. The trails are badly eroded and injuries are a very common occurance these days. I landed on my head, Rob Kerr needed stitches for his right ankle, Nancy Manning, (former world champion, and new team Kunstadt member), cracked some ribs. There were trucks, (3 over the course of 4 laps) flying down the course and narrowly missing me and likely many other riders.The least they could do if they want to run and charge people fo a race is ensure that there will not be oncoming traffic! Also, I don't think marking the course would not be too much to ask. On the plus side it was a beautiful night and Nancy seemed to be all over the place cheering us on. It would be wonderful to see someone new and enthusiastic like her, take the reigns for the series, just feels like it needs to be freshened up a bit.