Pursuits of my careers as an engineer and cyclist: 2014

Well yesterday was the first mountain bike race of the year for me, also my second mtb ride of the year so I was pretty stoked! I love my new Norco Revolver 29er, it is super light and handles like a dream. Can't wait to spend as much time out on the trails as I can on it!

I arrived at the course on Saturday on a bit of a dreary day with windy, cold and rainy weather greeting me at the race site. Luckily though the rain managed to hold off until after I completed my 3 laps of the course in the early afternoon. I got an easy lap with extra practice on the lines followed by a fast one where I hammered sections of the course to make sure I could hit them at race speed. Also another fun lap with my buddy Quinton and a new rider on the team this year named Nick. The course was still dry and tacky despite the rain and this allowed me to stick with my trusty Schwalbe Racing Ralphs for race day.

Next it was off to my Dad's place in the nearby farm country for some rest and relaxation before the race the next day.

I arrived to the course around 11:30am and watched as the riders from the third start of the day went off for their races. It was so great to see everyone again and I really enjoyed hanging out and talking before my race. Lots of familiar faces and I was ready for another fun filled mtb season!

After a solid warmup on the warmup loop and on the race's starting stretch I took my place on the start line about third row back, which was very advantageous as the trail narrowed very quickly right away. The start went off fairly calmly and I was able to sit in and draft for the most part up the opening false flat before the first steep climb. Once we hit the climb it was an all out attack and this year I was happy I didn't get caught behind and didn't allow a gap to open between me and the leaders.

"Chillin on the Start Line" Courtesy of Mike Slaughter

This meant I was sitting on the back of a fast train of riders including the national champ Derek Zandstra who I knew was going to push the pace very high. I was feeling confident and happy with my position but as the lap went on I started noticing myself making some dumb mistakes and all of a sudden I realized I had gone a little too hard to stay with those guys. This became apparent when we hit the next real climb of the lap and I felt as if I was falling backwards as riders went by. I saw the lead group crest the hill as I was starting to round the corner and I could really feel he pain setting in now. As riders went by I tried to hook onto their wheels and managed to get a good group consisting of my long time friend Mike Garrigan and Matt Martindill.

"The New Norco in Action" Courtesy of Lori Bailey

We started to hit lap traffic almost right away and this really split the race apart, I felt comfortable riding with those two but a few nifty moves by Mike getting around some lapped riders gave him a good gap on Matt and I. Then as we spread out more Mark Winfield had also managed to bridge up to me and I rode with him for a little while but a lapped rider in some singletrack split us up and just like that he was gone.

A bit of a fading backwards race yesterday for me but I was still happy to finish my first mtb race of the year in a decent position and had a lot of fun ripping through the fast and flowy trails of Woodnewton!

"Done!" Courtesy of Mike Slaughter

Next race for me will be the first Canada Cup at Mont Tremblant in two weekends and it will be a wild weekend of racing and partying with the Wolf Pack Crew who are a fierce team to contend with this year!

Well it sure has been a long time since my last blog post, but this weekend's race was just too good not to post!

I spent my Saturday at the old Ontario Place theme park on Lakeshore Drive where it had been re-opened for the first time for a sweet event that Red Bull decided to put on called 'Race the Place'. It was basically a tight, mostly paved course winding it's way through the iconic sections of the Ontario Place including the 'Cinesphere', the arcade and 'the cave'. The event was set up so that there was qualifying time trials in the morning to hold your position in the start grid for the mass start 80 person final that night!

I arrived around 9am to warmup on the course for an hour before the racer's meeting at 10. I had time for a couple laps of the course along with some last minute adjustments and checking in to the red bull athlete's lounge and getting my time chip. The course was incredibly fun with lots of really fast sections with some wide sweeping corners as well as some really tight ones where you had to slow down almost to a stop. I wasn't 100% confident in the course but I didn't have time to practice more laps so hopefully I'd clue in a bit more for the time trial. I had been running cross tires since I decided to use my cx bike, but definitely was a good call to switch to my 25c road tires for the race. I noticed almost everyone else had road bikes but I really liked the handling and quick acceleration of my cx bike.

After a quick warmup and watching some of the other qualifiers, it was finally time for my tt at around 12:20pm.

Time Trial Start

I started out well and put the hammer down right away, I noticed that I was braking a bit too much in the corners and so lost a good deal of speed and had to work harder to get back up to speed but all in all it wasn't a terrible result. I ended up 6th after the first 100 riders so would hopefully have a decent position on the start line. It seemed my cornering would have to get better in order to do well in the final.

Now for the next few hours I hung out in the expo area, got some free lunch courtesy of red bull and listened to Rick Meloff's colour commentating. For the remaining time trials I definitely witnessed a lot of carnage on the joyride whoops where fixie riders would forget to pedal and do a front flip. Saw one broken collar bone and a lot of other very painful looking crashes. Good thing they would give us a chance to go around them in the final!

Finally 6:30pm rolled around and it was time for the main event! I got 7th callup from my tt result and luckily I was placed in the starting grid right behind Stefan 'Fish' Vis who was the race favourite after setting a blazing time trial time.

Waiting for the gun

It was a hammerfest right off the gun and almost like a mountain bike style start in order to get a good position into the tight sections.

'Fish' takes the holeshot

Right away a group of 3 of us formed chasing down 'Fish' with my buddy Chris Fruetel and a Giant rider who was the second fastest qualifier. We lost some time on the turns to 'Fish' and Chris went down hard in 'the cave' so the Giant rider and I had some work to do to catch back up.

Chasing down 'Fish'

We managed to get 'Fish' right before the end of the first lap so luckily for the Giant rider he was able to nab the 200$ prime from 'Fish' as he timed his sprint perfectly.

Now we were a lead group of 3, the pace cooled down a bit after the first 4 laps which all had primes and 'Fish' got the last 3 of them totalling around $140 into his pocket. Before we knew it a chase group with Chris and others had caught back up and we then formed a slightly larger group of 7. The pace then got pretty chill as noone wanted to work and so I got a chance to rest. I made a break for it on the back stretch in the headwind and Chris followed me as we came through the finish line in the lead. We held it for a little while but it didn't seem to stick as we were caught by the 5 chasers behind.

It stayed chill for the most part until with about a lap to go, I dug deep and attacked with all the strength I had left as we passed through the finish line. I flew through the next two corners and looked back to see I had opened up a good gap to the group. I then put my head down and hammered all out to try and stay away. Crossing the bridge I then noticed that two riders had bridged back to me, of course 'Fish' had joined and the giant rider had as well. I knew they were both going to be tough to take in the sprint.

We rode at a hard enough pace to stay away from the chasers who had broken up in the turns and realized it was going to come down to us 3 for the final. 'Fish' pulled off a little before the final corner and I entered it into the lead. I made sure not to start my sprint too early and just as we passed the Joyride whoops 'Fish' attacked and I yelled as I pushed as hard as I could to hold his wheel. I couldn't quite come around him in the end and the giant rider managed to sprint by and take the open class win just ahead of me.

Wow what an exhilarating race! I was pumped full of adrenaline and pretty happy with how it played out although it definitely would have been nice to nab the win!

Still made it home with a nice $250 cheque, a watch and a pretty sweet looking medal. What an amazing and fun event put on by Red Bull, I really hope they have it next year as the format was pretty awesome! It was cool to have such a mix of different riders, anything from fixie track bikes to full on dh bikes with 8.5 inches of travel.