Quebec Trip! - Tremblant and Baie Saint Paul Canada Cups

Well it's been a while since my last post but I thought I'd talk a little bit about the time I spent up in Quebec for the first two Canada Cups of the season.

It started on the Wednesday of the Tremblant race where I was picked up by my traveling companions for the next couple weeks: Steve Noble, Daniel Varga and Sam Wagler. We were then on our way to the beautiful resort of Mont Tremblant, QC. We left pretty early in the morning in order to get there for a quick ride to free the legs up after the long drive. It was a smooth drive and we arrived there in the late afternoon to some rainy and cold weather that made riding not seem as if it would be quite as enjoyable. Turns out the course was actually in good shape and not super muddy even with all of the rainy weather recently. As they headed out for a lap of the course I went out for an easy spin on the flat bike paths below the village and just enjoyed being back up there again.

The next day (Thursday) it was time for a few decent paced laps of the course since I had a couple days before the race. I decided to do 3 with the first couple just sorting out my lines and the third as more of a race paced effort. I was feeling confident on the course since I knew most of it from years past (it never really changes year to year) and was happy with how I felt on all of the technical stuff. The lap basically consisted of a long climb starting with gravel to sort things out and then jumping into some really rough singletrack and fire road to reach the top of the Porte du Soleil chairlift. Then it was downhill on a super fun wild descent that still managed to keep my heart beating fast even though it was all downhill for about 5 min. The course then finished off with some high speed paved bike path and a sprint finish up through the middle of the village.

On Thursday I also moved over to the Cycle Solutions team condo for the next few nights where I was always kept laughing by our team manager, Angry Johnny, who has been really supportive of my racing career and an all around great guy for all of my years on the team. There were also some friends that arrived later that night to fill up our condo to around 8.

Since I was feeling good on the course after my Thursday preride laps, I decided to take it easy on the Friday of the race and just got out for 1 lap to make sure I saw any course changes that might have been made last minute. The rest of the time I spent hanging out with friends and walked around the village where I ended up buying my Mom a birthday present since it was coming up on the Tuesday after the race.

The race was pretty late this year with it being a 2:45pm start, so I had a lot of time to chill out and eat lots of food before it on the Saturday. I got a good warmup in on the roads around the course and then it was time to line up for the start. Unfortunately since I hadn't done so well in the Canada Cups last year, I was placed in the second start corral so I was already at a disadvantage. I was also near the back of this group do to lack of aggressiveness to force my way forward more. I couldn't help but feel a little discouraged at this predicament but I had heard of many stories of Canadian riders having horrible start positions in World Cup events and still moving there way up so I kept this in mind (Max Plaxton's 5th place finish at the Nove Mesto WC).

The race started super hard as usual with everyone fighting to get to that singletrack first to avoid bottlenecking. There were a couple crashes/slow downs right off the bat and it forced me to slow almost to a stop and ride way off to the side to get around them. This tired me out before I even got going really and so I was not in an ideal position by the time I hit the first singletrack and had a long, slow wait to get in followed some really slow sloppy singletrack riding with everyone being tired from the all out effort and being jammed up. I continued to pass riders as the lap progressed and was feeling a little better but just as I was coming down a rock drop I got a little too far left and bottomed out my fork, causing me to go flying over the bars into a few rocks at high speed. This left me pretty rattled and I tried to gather myself on the side of the trail for a bit, assessing my injuries and any damages to my bike. Luckily I was still in ok shape so I started up again slowly and tried to get my mind back in the game.

Sprint Finish with Matt F! (Courtesy of James Clarke)

It took me a little bit to get going and I didn't feel as if I was climbing incredibly well but I just tried to make as many spots as I could throughout the race. After the first lap I was in 46th position out of around 75 riders that started and I moved my way up to 34th in a sprint finish with Matt F at the end, so I was fairly satisfied with this result considering my poor start position and high speed crash.

This wasn't exactly how I had envisioned myself finishing given my goal was a top 20 finish but I was glad that I was able to finish in one piece and no major mechanicals or injuries. Now it was time to relax a bit and enjoy myself that night in the village at Cafe D'Epoque and of course the infamous Petit Caribou!

After a quick ride on the Sunday on the sick mtb trails around Mont Tremblant, it was time to move on to our next location near Mont Ste Anne where we would stay for a few days before heading on the Baie St Paul for the second Canada Cup of the series. So I rejoined with Daniel, Steve and Sam and we also picked up a new traveling companion, Davis Ross. We made our way up to the Mont Ste Anne campground where Sam's friend had graciously allowed us to use his trailer for the week where we could shred some trails in the area and have some fun and relaxing times.

We spent a few days up there, which mainly consisted of sleeping in late and then heading over to the local 'Radio Cafe' to have coffee and use some WiFi. We would then ride the awesome singletrack around Mont Ste Anne (120km of it!) and even got a lap in of the World Cup course where I got my first crack at the storied descent 'La Beatrice'. I was scared to death the entire time coming down it but I was glad to say I did it!

I could really get used to this lifestyle with all I had to worry about was my ride that day and making sure to get lots of food and sleep. I also got to hang out with some pretty cool people, which made it all the better!

Finally it was time to head over to Baie St Paul on a very rainy Wednesday and we got there in time for one quick lap of the course, which was still holding up pretty well with a lot of new gravel laid down to combat the wet conditions. We checked in to the Hotel Baie St Paul, where we got to hang out with the Team Ontario riders and hide from the constant rain that seemed to be coming in the valley of Baie Saint Paul. Got in a few more laps throughout the week and really realized how much I love this course it has the perfect mix of technical riding and climbing to sort things out. It was also nice that we were close enough to ride over to the course in less than 10 min and everything else was basically within walking distance.

Due to the amount of rain we got they took out the two major climbs and descents on the course and it turned into a very quick lap that we would do 6 of. This time I was determined to get a good start position after last week's debacle so after my warmup I tried to arrive early and pushed my way up a bit more this time. I was only a few rows back so feeling better about my spot.

The race went off like crazy as most Canada Cups do and I found myself almost falling off the back up through the campground, so much for my ideal starting position.. I then caught back on and tried to move myself up a bit before the singletrack but the pace was still super high. Once again I found myself caught in another bottleneck and it felt as if we were walking in slow motion for the first part of singletrack. The first lap was a bit of a gong show with the amount of traffic and a pretty muddy course so I just tried to make passes where I could and hammer the hills to get ahead. I felt like I was riding the climbs well today and the course was more of my style with all out efforts followed by rests on the singletrack rather than sustained efforts such as the Tremblant climb. I was also feeling good on the downhills after my preride laps and I found I could make up time in a lot of places. The race was pretty back in forth for me with a few guys and I found myself passing them on uphills and then I would screw up somewhere and slide off the course and they'd catch back up (not exactly ideal). I was happy with my race and generally made progress throughout it, ending up with another sprint finish although I went early in the feed zone with a dirty pass that gave me good position for the final sprint and I ended up taking it this time!

Finished up in 30th place, which is definitely an improvement on last year but not quite at my goal of a top 20 and so I have some work to do for next time for sure. Hoping to really improve before Hardwood National's and Sudbury but we'll see how it goes with my new job starting up in Waterloo on Monday!

Great couple weeks of racing and I had a really fun time traveling with lots of good friends. Hopefully I can continue to do this trip every year!

Lake of Bays Road Ocup #4

Yesterday was the fourth Road Ontario cup in the circuit starting at Deerhurst Resort way up north in the small town of Huntsville and I decided to give the road racing side of things another shot since it was just up the highway from me and it was on roads I had ridden quite a bit in the past. Little did I know it would turn into a mid-May snow storm that forced many riders to pull out due to the freezing cold and wet conditions.

The race started out with a neutral 1.5km rollout so I decided to use this as my warmup although it was far from warm given the nice refreshing hail and snow to keep us moving. I also noticed pretty early on that I had made a rookie mistake and didn't check my brake pads well enough before the race, my front brake was almost worn out and was starting to make a delightful grinding noise against the rim and my back brake pads wore out before the end of the day as well just to add to the excitement. There were attacks pretty quickly after the neutral start that continued on throughout the lap and I definitely had to dig deep a few times to stay with the group on the short punchy climbs in the rolling hills of the opening 20k or so.

Once we got onto the wide open hwy 60/35 the group spread out and slowed up a bit so everyone could grab a drink and gel before driving on again. The sun came out as well so this made it seem as if the day wouldn't be quite so bad.

This brief clearing continued for a bit but a little later along this section, just as we were coming up a gradual hill, the paved shoulder ended abruptly and a rider didn't correct in time so ended up on the gravel shoulder. This would have been alright normally but unfortunately there was a nice little ledge to get back onto the road and so when he tried to get back, he fell onto the road and took a few other riders out right in front of me. I noticed in time luckily and put the brakes on but still ended up hitting the dirt. Once I picked myself and my bike up I saw that the field was moving away quickly and it would be tough to chase back on.

I dug deep and pushed hard to get back but realized I really wasn't making much ground on the group. There ended up being a group of 4 of us as a few riders had dropped off the back of the field that I caught up to. Luckily a follow car offered to pace us back to the field since we were in a crash and let me give them the thumbs up or down to dictate the speed. After some tough work I was finally able to get close to the group, I looked back and realized the other 3 in my group had managed to drop off of my wheel, I then gave a quick sprint and managed to get back onto the group for some much needed rest on a downhill.

The lap continued with more attacks including a few right after the feed zone in Baysville, which probably caused a bit of havoc for some of those getting musettes for a feed. It was really strung out for a while along Brunel and South Portage rds and the pace was pretty high. My legs were definitely starting to feel the efforts and it seemed as if the cold had really sunk into them. Along South Portage we hit a super steep little section and I worked hard to stay with the group up it but unfortunately I had cooked myself for the next little climb section right after. I dropped back from the group along with Steve N, Yuri and Conor and we tried to work together to pace back to the peloton ahead but I was pretty destroyed and couldn't be of much help. Once we realized we weren't getting back the turn to head back to the finish line was coming up and the policeman directed us that way anyway so we decided to turn back since we were freezing and the group had hammered away from us.

This was the end for me and I quickly realized I probably wouldn't have made it much further as I struggled to even make it up a couple steep hills on the 10k ride back to the finish line. My legs felt horrible and could not put out any power. Once I got back I notified the commissaire of my DNF and headed straight for the car to put on some warm stuff and get a bite to eat. I was feeling a little better but still shivering quite a bit and my legs were cramping like crazy. When I got changed and some food in me I went into the registration/awards building to find that there were a bunch of others like me that hadn't headed out for the second 70k lap and there were only 16 who had. This made me feel a little better about my performance that day and I realized I was one of the last ones left in the group before the turnoff.

It sure turned into quite the wild day of racing and was definitely one of the hardest I have ever experienced, big props to those that finished on that crazy day. Now its time to rest up and prepare for the trip up to Tremblant and Baie St Paul for the first two mtb Canada Cups!

Once again will add pictures if I find any of the race in the next couple days.