A winter's worth of preparation, and my first race with Trek!

So here it comes, time to see how hard I’ve really been working and how will I stack up against the rest of the elite category for Sunday’s Ontario Cup. The race will be at Mansfield outdoor center, and this year I’m lining up with the big boys; the elite division. It’s crazy to think that two nights from now it will all be over and racing season will have officially started, but until then that’s all that I can think about…Of course I’m nervous!

I got my bike all cleaned, tuned and ready for the race on Friday, and today (Saturday) I went to ride the course. I was ecstatic with the weight of my bike (I know it seems like a petty thing to worry about, but it’s nice to have a light bike!). The only change I did from the stock build on the bike was to add bar ends, and white bar tape as grips, then put my old super light race wheels on the bike.

According to my housemate's luggage scale, my bike is just over 22 lbs!

My bike is ready, it’s clean, works well, and likes to go fast. Now, time to check out the course! Mansfield is an outdoor center on the side of a massive hill, so naturally there is a lot of climbing in the course. I have to say I love it (the course, not the uphills!) though! The course caters to speed demons, and there are almost no sections that are very technical. The hardest thing to do on this course is decide exactly how fast you want to throw your bike into the corners (and my new Trek Superfly Elite is a fast bike, it likes to go fast, and it takes me through those corners at alarming speeds). Last year I somehow managed to top out at 66 km/h during the race (if cycling computers are to be believed).

If computers are to be believed, I was going VERY fast in those trails

An alarmingly hilly profile with (unbelievable?) speeds

You can see from the course profile that I did 3 laps today and there are some monster up and downhills! I did the math, and we will be climbing more than 900m over 5 laps…Not bad at all for an Ontario Cup!

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow, I’m sure it will be a great race to build up from, and I look forward to the challenge!