Hardwood U-cup

A little late on this one again, but I decided I would put up a post about my first race back as an alumni for Queen's Cycling at the first University Cup of the season. The 'U-cup' series is a really laid back and fun time and it was great to be back to hang out with the Queen's crew and get a chance to race at one again after missing them last year due to my injury.

The weekend started off by meeting my good friend Brett Weersink Saturday morning at Vaughan Mills near Toronto. Brett was one of my co-captains on the Queen's team last year and we made our way up to Hardwood Hills to take part in the team pre-ride and do some riding on the trails afterwards. It was great to see old friends from my year's at Queen's again and I also met some new team members that just joined the sizeable 30 rider team this year. We rode the first lap as one big team, a few injuries and mechanicals happened to occur right away including a separated shoulder (I think?) and a bent derailleur hangar, which caused some delays but is likely to be expected with that large of a group on a trail at once. For lap two the 'A' team and 'B' team's split up into groups and we focused on lines and tactics for the upcoming race. Etienne is running a tight ship this year and has the team riding pretty smoothly, so I'm looking forward to another potential U-cup win for Queen's!

After the ride we headed over to Jeff's famous cottage on Six Mile Lake just down the 400 for some nice relaxing dock time, boating and hot tubbing. Some other highlights included cliff diving, rope swing and a really intense and delicious white chocolate fountain!

Etienne is thoroughly enjoying the boat ride

Now on Sunday it was race time and we all made our way over to Hardwood for the 11am start of the Men's A race. After a tasty breakfast prepared by Jeff's incredibly hospitable parents we were all ready to tear it up! I didn't forget to have my trusty sweet potato of course.

My love for sweet potatoes

After a good warmup with Jason and Cam, practicing the start hill a few times and making sure everything was ready to go I lined up on the front line beside my fellow University racers (as Alumni now). The race start was fast as Will Clarke from Guelph must have been ready to show off his skills at his home course. 

The Men's A start

I didn't get the best jump and unfortunately I noticed as I shifted up my gears began skipping right away, which was not the greatest situation to have for the upcoming race. I quickly put that out of my mind and then moved my way up on the climb and entered the singletrack in 1st to try and get myself off to a good start. Fairly quickly a small group consisting of my teammate Etienne, Will C and Alex Flav were riding together for most of the first lap. As we started the long section of doubletrack on the course though I started to lose some time as Will and Etienne got away after I had lead most of the start. I managed to catch back on after ripping it up through coffee run and drafted down along the stretch before the finish line.

Having fun on coffee run

 The rest of the race was spent trying to open a gap for Etienne on Will and finally on lap 3 we were able to get a small one through the climbing singletrack sections. I made sure to keep the pace high and tried to pull Etienne along as best as I could. Was glad to be able to use a little bit of team tactics even though I wasn't able to count towards anything in the standings. Etienne and I rode the last couple laps together and in the final sprint he took the lead as I drafted until the last possible second before shifting in my highest gear so as not to cause a skip and sprinted by for the win! I was pretty happy to finally have my first U-cup win after 5 years of racing them and had a very fun weekend as well. I hope to make it back for the final race at Ganaraska Forest and hopefully help out with some more team tactics and watch Queen's hoist the University Cup for the fourth year in a row! 

Provincials at Horseshoe Valley Resort

So I thought I'd finally get around to another post, there have been a couple races since my last National's summary but Provincials was kind of the last big hurrah of the season. In mid August, the Duntroon Ocup went pretty well where I missed the podium by 30 seconds coming in 7th place. I also headed up to Quebec for an awesome race for Marathon National's in St Raymond and it was a great weekend spent with some good friends from Queen's and U of W.

Duntroon Ocup - Preparing Myself for 'Son of a Pitch'!

Callup for Marathon National's in St Raymond, QC

Now on to my past weekend up at provincial's at the exciting new venue of Horseshoe Valley Resort! After hosting a fun BBQ and games night on Friday with my new housemates in Waterloo, it was time to be up and early for preride on Saturday morning. When I first woke up I found out that the course had been closed for the morning due to rainy conditions so I opted to grab a few more minutes of sleep after being up fairly late the night before. Then it was time to head over, picking up my friend and teammate Petey D up at U of Guelph at his new home in res on the way. It absolutely poured on us on the way and we definitely considered throwing on the mud tires for preride, but as we got closer it seemed to clear up, so I figured my trusty Racing Ralphs would do the trick.

Once we got there it was sunny/cloudy and a little humid and after dropping my stuff at the beautiful Disera residence in Cathedral Pines, it was a short ride down to the course for a couple laps. I rode the first lap with Peter, making sure we got all of the lines down with some tricky rock gardens and rock jumps that needed a few runs over. It was great to see everyone from the Ocup circuit again and I definitely spent a lot of the day socializing with friends as well as my two preride laps to get ready. I took my bike to Havi the skillful Norco mechanic to make sure my bike was dialed in for the race ahead and then my second lap I put down the power a few times to be sure my bike and body were ready.

I was feeling pretty confident on the course and it was wicked fun, especially the final downhill after the massive singletrack climb to the top. Although I knew the steep sandy climbs would hurt, it was at least a nice relief to have a fun descent after them to recover. I headed back up to my 5-star accomodations at the Diseras, where we had a delicious potluck dinner and I met a lot of new friends and had a nice relaxing night before the race.

Race morning, I was feeling good and everything seemed ready to go, once again it was nice to be able to actually ride down to the course and so Quinton and I rolled down to the course to hang out a bit before the race. Warmed up a bit on the road and Copeland forest trails across the road and practiced the start loop once to make sure I was prepared for the hard start.

Lined up in the pen and for the first time ever I got a top 10 callup, which got me pretty excited! I was second row and off the gun lost a few positions up the climb but made a few back on the downhill/flat and corners towards the first singletrack. Entered the first singletrack in 11th position, which was just off my goal of top 10, so I felt like that was a good spot to be in. Was riding in a group just behind Watson, Davis, Ryan and Matt Martindill and hesitated a bit on the big rock over since riders ahead were paused on it, which allowed a small gap to open and extended as I made mistakes through the singletrack. Before I knew it my legs were really starting to feel it and after the first half loop Corey and Matt F had bridged across to me. We were able to ride together for a bit before they got away from me on the long steep climb before the final descent. It took me a little bit to recover and recollect myself after that hard start pace and partway through lap 2, Petey D caught me and I upped the pace to stay with him as long as I could. It didn't take long before a few mistakes and slips before he slowly rode away from me (I wasn't too mad since he's the second fastest junior in the world) and I then made it my goal to catch Matt and Corey.

They weren't too far ahead so I worked on nailing all the sections and getting past the large amount of lap traffic before getting stuck behind them in singletrack. It was hard to tell the gap but I could see them around corners and came really close to Corey on laps 3 and 4. I finally on lap 5 was able to make it up to Matt F and I rode behind him for a bit before he squeezed by a Masters rider that stopped me on a climb and caused my calf to seize as I put it on the ground. I fought my way back and managed to catch him on the final climb and attacked hard on the two open gravel sections to get by lapped riders and make it first to the descent. This move worked perfectly as I opened up a good gap and rolled in for 12th place on the day.

Ripping down the really fun final descent!

One of the rock gardens near the end of the course

Just outside my top 10 goal, so not a bad performance and realized after the race that I had just missed the under 23 podium by a minute or so, which was somewhat frustrating but glad that I had a fighting chance for it. Corey definitely rode an awesome race and rocked the 5th lap to get away from me and take the 3rd place medal on the day.

Big thanks to the Diseras for hosting me at their beautiful home, Emma and Angry Johnny for their ongoing support all the time, Havi and Norco for their amazing bikes and service, my Mom for always coming out to support and feed me in all the races, all of my friends and family for their support and my awesome coach Peter for being a great friend and mentor to help me excel in my racing career and in life.

Now it's definitely time for some R&R as the mtb race season comes to an end and cross season begins. I'm pretty stoked to try out some cross racing since I just got a new Norco cross bike and looking forward to some fun rides into the fall as well as rejoining my fellow Queen's racers as an alumni for the U-cup this weekend!

On another note I am selling my mtb for the year at an awesome deal, check it out on Pinkbike

http://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/1420754/