Provincials 2015, lucky to be in the results at all!

It's been a bit of a roller coaster of a year; I spent the first part just trying to find my form competing against those who had been down south training all winter, missed some bottle feeds on hot days, then there was the three weeks in bed with sciatic nerve problems, a big trip to Quebec for some big races in which I floundered after the back thing, then a flat tire in the last Ontario Cup! Needless to say, I felt like I would never really get to show the strength that I had built and rebuilt this year. In my last couple of weeks of training I've felt unstoppable -  sprinting my bike up to 64km/h, training huge hours at high power outputs day after day, sleeping early and eating right. I came into provincials thinking that it would take something pretty bad to keep me outside of the top 10.

Lots of nights spent rolling into town late after big rides

I loved the course, except for when I got stung the day before by a wasp! It turns out that I'm quite allergic to wasps now - and I got stung by a yellow jacket riding the course the day before. This time of year they're out of whack, I swear. The rotten fruit falling off trees is fermenting, and they're getting drunk on the juices - and wasps are just mean drunks. That's the only logical explanation for 7 stings in the last 2 weeks right?

does anyone know how to get rid of swelling? Benadryl doesn't work for me

The closest that I'll ever get to looking like Popeye, it's still swelling two days later

Apart from that my day was pretty great, and I got to stay on course in a farm house with a bunch great friends and a great dinner. What could go wrong tomorrow, right?

I got a good warmup before the race, even though I got stung again on the chest (seriously, why do bugs hate me?), I stayed focussed and the race start went according to plan, and I was probably 7th or 8th place going into the first piece of singletrack, and I came through the first lap just outside of the top 10. I  wasn't too fluid through the trails, I was pretty stop and go and guys were catching up to me in the trails that I'd usually use to distance myself from those behind me.

Check out my arm here, all of that fluid stuck in my swollen forearm makes me like Popeye!
Thanks Mary Lynch for the photo and the support over the weekend

Going into the second lap I was still riding strong, but by mid way through the lap I was starting to cramp up in my legs. For some reason my quads were seizing and calves felt like there were being charlie-horsed. No problem, this is why I pack space food, right? I slurped back a CLIF electrolyte gel, and avoided standing and pedaling until it kicked in (usually about 15 minutes, so 2/3 of a lap). By the time I got to the same spot the next lap I was still sitting and spinning my pedals fairly easily though the trails and up the hills. I had chugged all of my drink mix (a special potion of caffeine, electrolyte powder and sometimes beta-alanine), and I was still seizing up - so I slugged back another gel and kept putting in the effort - staying seated and spinning up the hills.

Staying seated through some pretty rocky business, thanks Marta Kocemba for taking the photos! 
It's been great to have you at the last few races.

By about my fourth lap (out of five), I had some flow mojo going in the trails and was getting down the big hill quickly enough to drop some guys. I came to the feed zone at the start of the fifth lap with high hopes of "picking off the zombies", and catching the guys who were really slowing down in their last lap until something happened that made me panic a bit.

Thanks Mary Lynch for getting a photo that shows my late race determination (or desperation). 

As I came into the feed zone for my final lap (fighting persistent and increasingly painful cramps), there was a mixup, and my feeder wasn't there. I went into my last lap with nothing to drink, on a pretty humid day.

All sweaty but still somehow smiling on my fourth lap.
Thanks Hannah Clarke for taking these pictures all season long!

As I came through a steep uphill near the start/finish there were spectators everywhere and I saw Simon (the rock in our team always helping us and keeping us together at the race), I yelled for some water, which turned out to be a pretty bad idea.

The drink that had a lot of repercussions after the race (thanks Marta again)

I survived my final lap without getting passed (or doing any passing unfortunately), and rode into 14th place (my best result at an Ontario cup, and this was provincials). I sat on the ground because my legs were not in the mood to hold me up anymore and was passed some more water which drank and cooled off my swollen arm a bit.

Funny finish line face, confused about what just happened and how I just finished the race I think
(Marta Kocemba photo)

Just happy to cool off my arm a bit. (Marta Kocemba photo)

As I was sitting down nursing my wounds I was approached by the commissaire.

"Did you take some water outside of the feed zone?"

He explained to me that I was disqualified for doing so, and that as an elite racer "I didn't know" or "I wasn't thinking" is not a good enough excuse. I told him that I just wanted to finish the race, and that I was cramping, but at my level of cycling there are rules and we have to stick to them. I tried to find the penalties for breaking these rules when I got home but I couldn't..

Great. DQ'd. It's not allowed for me to receive help outside of the designated feed/tech zone. I went to the commissaires about 15 minutes later to appeal to them, and they informed me that they were wrong. Because it is a provincial championship, it falls under the regulations of any pro championship race, and I would actually be fined $200. For taking a drink less than one minute after I passed through the feed zone. After a bit more talking, they decided to drop my fine to just a warning - for that I really thanked them. But now there is a black mark on my international cycling record that says I like to accept help in the wrong spots I guess. Could be worse, right?

Apparently all of the cramping wasn't a big surprise at all either, with all of my body fluid stuck in my arm there's less to move around to my muscles. I thought that it was pretty weird to cramp like that over nothing, and I'm happy to know that there may be a reason that was outside of my control that caused it. Stupid drunk wasps.

I've still got a couple of chances to keep it together for a great result! The Ontario Marathon Championships and Canadian Marathon Championships are this weekend and the next in Kingston and Horseshoe Valley, respectively. Then it's University Cup races and the Redbull Race the Place race coming up. Still training hard, eating right, stretching, and strengthening with as much motivation as ever!

My Felt Edict 1: Bike Review

A lot of people (even strangers) have been asking me about my new bike; it's a big change that's long in the making: my first full suspension bike. Firstly, bikes these days are amazing. They've engineered them to absorb whatever you are riding over, while still being compliant when you push down on the pedals. Carbon fiber is not limited to the super high end bikes either, and it's much stiffer, stronger, and in many cases lighter than it used to be. Shocks have remotes that turn them on and off, or allow you to flip through different settings that dictate how the bike feels when you're riding it. Drivetrains (the gears and shifters and chains) are lighter, more precise, simpler, and have astounding gear ranges just in the rear cogs. New axels, wider handlebars, and the crazy ranges in tire treads, thicknesses, and rubber compounds have really given mountain bikes a new feel in the past few years.

To me, any rider who can only afford one bike should be riding a full suspension bike, they're super light, super stiff, and offer more traction in any trail than a hardtail. I also knew which bike company that offered full suspension race bikes I wanted: Felt. Ever since working at Muskoka Outfitters in the summer of 2010, I've had my eyes on these bikes. Being an employee at a bike shop gives you the inside scoop on all of the tech that the companies using, and quite frankly Felt really doesn't cut corners. Most companies use different grades of carbon fiber on their bikes, the more you pay, the more high modulus (light/stiff/durable) your bike will be. Felt is a small company <50 employees based out of California that basically got it's momentum as a 3 man company with the idea of making the best bikes, not the most bikes. The fact that most people don't know much about Felt and they they don't currently have any big teams just shows that they are a product driven company as opposed to a marketing-driven company.

My new Felt Edict 1 actually blew me away with how she rides. As a guy who's always raced a hard tail, you expect that a full suspension bike is going to bob every time that you push down on the pedals, that it will be heavy up the hills, and that the pivots will come apart. It took me a week to actually figure out which setting on my rear shock was locked out, the added traction of rear suspension has given me more confidence flying down hills, and even helped me to get up hills faster than before because the rear wheel doesn't bounce at all. Felt engineered the bike to have 100mm of travel in the rear, but kept the whole thing super stiff through the carbon linkage, and by not putting pivots in the rear. Instead the bike is engineered so that it has a certain amount of travel that's given by the rear shock, and once the rear shock is compressed, the frame flexes, resulting in smooth and stiff suspension.

Suddenly having another shock to preload has turned out to be tons of fun too, now I can preload and pivot my back wheel quickly and smoothly. This is a tough trick to do but in the right circumstances it lets me get around a corner without my brakes, it's important to have a bike that's laterally stiff enough to handle this kind of force, which the Edict does wonderfully. I can also preload before my hops now which is smooth, helpful, and fun!

The bike is a 22 inch frame with 29 inch wheels (the largest size bike you can buy really), but it whips around better than any 29er that I've ever ridden. Felt built the bike with a super steep head tube angle, which keeps the wheelbase tight, and the bike twitchy around tight corners. It also lets me lean through my corners better and keep a smaller "footprint" on the trail - letting me pedal around corners that were so tight that on other bikes I would have come to a stop to get through.

It's pretty rare that a bike looks better in person than it does on the internet, but I couldn't stop smiling when I unboxed this beauty. The pictures on the Felt site don't do the bright blue justice, and the Textreme carbon fiber is lighter, stiffer, and prettier than anything else I've seen. I love that checkerboard sheen that my bike has. It's an incredibly thin carbon fiber that is tougher because the wider strands laced at 90 degrees. Felt imports their carbon from Sweden, and though it's a crazy expensive carbon layup, you can get it on $6000 mountain bikes.

They kept the price very competitive on the bike by using the less expensive parts where it makes sense; wheels, shifter, and lockouts for the front and rear. All things considered however, this bike was 24. pounds with my pedals out of the box. The extra 2 pounds would cost around $4000 to lose, and since I got the bike I've put carbon wheels on it, and changed the stock mechanical lockout (which was warrantied anyways). Racers typically have two sets of wheels anyways (I know that I always have), and with such a stiff rear end I haven't found the need to put a remote lockout version of the shock on. I've raced everything from super technical courses like the Pan American course, to the fast and hilly Ontario courses like Albion Hills. I've found a new and reliable sidekick in all of my bike adventures, and am riding with more confidence and control than I have in the past.

Nationals 2015, Saint Felicien

It's been a while since my first elite national championship race in 2012, which was at St. Félicien as well. I'm happy to say that my blog writing has improved at least!

My last blog post alluded to the fact that I wasn't feeling strong yet, and that the blown disk/sciatic nerve problems were over - but all of that time stuck in bed had a real toll on my body as well. I had most of the week to prepare on the course, and I was feeling quite confident in my technical skills/speed and control through some pretty gnarly sections of the course. The course itself was amazing; it started with a steep gravel climb up to the top of a ski hill, then we descended through berms, over rollers, and over a bridge that crosses the course into a big rock garden. Next we climbed back up a bit, went through a big rocky feature, then over a drop that shot into a berm. After this was a climb that brought us to a flat section of fast trail then tons of man-made rocky features with spectators everywhere. Next was a steep, technical climb back to the top of the hill, and some fast trail before a totally steep and technical descent, more climbing, descending another total steep chute, and that was the lap (repeat 6 times if you are racing the elite men's category). 

Thanks Eric Barnabe for taking these photos

I was really happy with my tires for the course, and got to practice on consistent conditions all week - which made it all the more annoying when it poured torrentially the night before the race and rained all morning. This made the course a lot tougher, and watching the women's race was somewhere between funny and worrying, as you could see people falling everywhere. I switched my tires the day before the race so that I would have grip in the muck, and convinced myself that a race in such tough conditions may help to slow the other, fitter guys down a bit. 

All of that mud didn't stop my charm (Hannah Clarke photo)

The race start line was one of the most tense that I had ever been on, nobody was talking (french or english), the crowds were all completely silent, and I don't even think that there was any music playing over the PA system. Maybe it's because we had all seen how much the women were falling in their race, and were all a bit scared, but nobody was even looking at each other, everyone was just staring at the steep hill that we were about to climb, probably wondering if they'd have some sort of cardiac arrest induced by chasing the Pan Am champion up hills and through the bush for close to two hours. Finally the silence was broken "30 seconds until start", said the PA system, and then about a quarter of the guys started praying. 

The back of the race start, check out the focus on my face (André Chevrier photo)

The start was eventful, something happened probably 5 seconds into the race that almost caused a 12 person pile up, but we managed to stay on our bikes, and I felt strong as we shot up the hill - for the first 10 seconds, then I was just trying to move forward and not be last up the hill. As one may expect, it didn't matter anyways because there was a bit of a traffic jam going on anyways, so the leaders were already pretty much down the hill by the time that I could move at my own speed.

Pan Am champion still in good form leading the race, I'm in the traffic jam by the trees (André Chevrier photo)

I got into a groove, and made some passes in the upcoming section, aggressively moving my way into the top 20 (probably my favourite part of the entire race was when the trail widened up and I passed 3 guys at once as spectators were cheering and yelling). My speed was short lived however, as I opted not to wear glasses for the race, and I got a ton of mud stuck in my eye. Racing with the pros in the mud on a technical course with one eye closed is not ideal, so I slowed down and kept moving until the feed zone, unable to blink the much out of my eyes (contact lenses were also a concern). I came through the feed zone on the first lap looking for a neutral water feed, but the neutral feeds weren't ready for me (nobody gets a feed in the first 10 minutes of a race). I had a quick stop to rinse my eye and got going again, but by this point I had lost probably 5 positions. 

Chasing wheels early in the race, still clean and ready to put my surprise attack on these guys
(Eric Barnabe photo)

It's tough losing ground so quickly for a few reasons; firstly there's the obvious one that while everyone is going super fast and jostling for positions early in the race I was just trying to be able to see again. Secondly I was riding with guys that push me, meaning that I would ride harder because they are so close to my ability (if not a bit better). By the time I was moving again I was being caught by the last few guys (who are still incredible athletes - it takes real commitment just to make it to the elite category), but it's not the same as racing right beside the faster guys who I had worked hard to pass and to stay with. 

The paparazzi were sneaky in this race, hiding in the bushes (Hannah Clarke photo)

The rest of the race I worked on consistency and keeping the rubber side down. It was a tough race, but I was riding all the features, and apart from a bit of a pile up in a steep, muddy chute it was pretty incident free. I felt way better than the week before at Baie St. Paul, and my legs were strong - I just didn't have the lungs to support racing fast. I could push at about 85% of my normal self I think, but technically I was riding well, and I was stronger than the week before!

The picture quality isn't great, but watching this moment of racing is going to always stick with me, Quinton, you rock man.

It was great to race in Quebec, I met some pretty fantastic people, and they treat their athletes properly - free beer for elite athletes after the race. Because most of the elite athletes don't really drink, I was able to wrangle up some extra free drinks and had a good post-race social with my friends Dylan and Emily. None of us were overly thrilled with our race, but there was a second chance - the team relay is always the next day. The course would be the same as the elite course minus one of the super technical descents and some climbing. We decided to put a team in and give it a go. After a few beers I thought that the reason that I didn't go fast was simply because I didn't try hard enough, and was set on kicking ass in the relay to prove to myself that I was really fast.

A lot cleaner without that rain (Scott Lynch photo)

I did get blown out of the water, which makes sense because while the other athletes were still training 10-20 hours per week, I was sitting in bed. I'm happy to say I have power back in my legs, and the lungs will come back with time. At least I know where I stand, and the team had fun anyways!

What a buff team! (Sylvie Chénier photo)

I may only have a few big races left this season, but I've been training very hard again, I'm just as focused and motivated as ever, and with the support that I've got, I'll be flying at the Ontario Cup in 2 weeks in Muskoka.

Baie St. Paul Canada Cup, travels through the Quebec countryside

We're coming up on a week into our trip to Baie St Paul and St-Félicien for a Canada Cup and National Championships and I've been to a lot of cool places and done cool things! I'd love to be publishing some sort of hero post about how I was magically fit again, back problems didn't slow me down for long, and how I'm going to crush it at Nationals because I'm back to my regular season fitness. But things don't work out that way for me usually, so I just keep pushing through and enjoying the places that I get to be!

Baie St. Paul was a very tough course; it wasn't so technical that I was worried about any particular section, but the entire course was either uphill or downhill (nothing flat), and it was all very gnarly rooty, rocky. A super fun course that keeps you on your toes, but if you falter and lose focus - it was very hard to regain your momentum. The day was above 30 degrees and we were racing at 3:15, which is almost 2 hours later than my usual races.

The following is a video of basically the same course a few years ago, flip through it to see some of what we ride!

I honestly fell off the pace right from the start, unable to keep the pace going even in the uphill single track, I tried to push the negative thoughts out of my head, thinking that surely nobody could keep this pace in this weather on this course; unfortunately I don't think that I could either. It became a game of attrition, just trying to keep grinding at it until other riders wore down to the point that I could catch them. I was confused about where I was on course, messing up my lines through the technical sections, and even so weak that I couldn't shift my gears at points! But I finished. There was only 1 finisher behind me, but 5 guys didn't finish (that's a pretty large amount for the pro field in a Canada Cup that we all traveled a long way to get to), so I'm proud of just finishing given my health and recent setbacks!

Trying to maintain composure in this race was tough (thanks Scott Lynch for the photo)

The days following the race were spent watching other spectacular races like the Mountain Bike Criterium, which is mayhem! It's a lap that takes about 2 minutes to do, raced for 20 minutes or so with big groups. My favourite was watching the small kids ripping the course.

My buddy Dylan and I were making bets on these guys - I could totally be a bookie

We headed off to Mt. St. Anne that day, and I got some great riding alone in the forest, not worrying about race courses, or stopping for other riders, or where I was in the world. Turns out you can find some pretty neat places.

Not my usual worn out race face :)

I also love camping, which is how we got by from Thursday till Monday.

Our site at Mt. St. Anne was right by the trails (thanks Scott for the photo again)

Road tripping through the Quebec countryside has been fun, I'm bilingual so it's nice to have a chance to practice my french, and now we're in St-Félicien, Nationals is in two days, and I'm hoping to have my fitness back to how it was before my back disk/nerve issues. I'm loving the courses in Quebec, and the break from university, so good results would just be a bonus I guess!

Road tripping through Quebec and watching out for the bears that we saw

Some of the coldest water I've swam in in the summer (Scott Lynch photo)

On hot days, I don't discriminate where I get my water (Scott Lynch photo)

Coming back at the provincial circuit

All things considered, this past weekend was pretty much the perfect weekend - I mean what more can a guy ask for? Good health, great support, camping, and fantastic weather. Oh, and giant inflatable pretzels, they're important too. As my last blog post says, I was off the bike for 2 weeks, stuck in bed due to a disk problem in my back pinching on my sciatic nerve. Luckily I bounced back so quickly that it alarmed the physiotherapist that I was seeing, who didn't look like he believed me when I told him that I had got back on my bike. This means that in the 3 weeks leading up to the race, I rode my bike 4 or 5 times. I wasn't really going for a good result; I would just be happy to finish the race, to support my friends, and to have a good time camping!

The race was at Albion Hills Conservation Area near Bolton, Ontario - which is a sweet course that hasn't been in the Ontario Cup circuit for 3 or 4 years. Another perk of racing at Albion is that the trails area awesome, and it is attached to a campground. I camped out with the Wolfpak crew, Sarah from Two Wheel Racing, as well as Davis and Hannah from AWI racing - couldn't have asked for a better crew!

I'm the lucky guy on the left, getting my legs stretched out

If we weren't joking by the fire or eating, we had the luxury of swimming to cool off (it was so hot this weekend that I was melting, but maybe that's because I'm used to days like these.

Alex and I are sharing the most buoyant pretzel in the world (thanks Mary Lynch for the photo)

The race course for the elite race was tough! There were two outstandingly unforgiving hills (the Green Monster and the Wall of Pain), as well as a bunch more hills, and insane sun that I just couldn't get away from - but at least there were gnarly features to huck off of in front of the crowds!

On the race start I was thinking mostly of how badly I just wanted to finish such a tough race, especially after being in bed for 3 out of the last 4 weeks or so. Once the gun went off, I was't too aggressive, and filed in near the back of the pack - waiting to see how the long, hot race would unfold.

I had a couple of pretty good laps, with a big collision with a tree, and fell into "no man's land"after that. "No man's land" is that part in the race where the guys behind you aren't fast enough to catch you, but you have lost enough ground on the guys ahead. It's a tough place to be, especially when you're not feeling good and you know that these guys have trained 30+more hours than you over the last 4 weeks.

I kept confident however, and really enjoyed having a cheering section at most places in the course! The tech features were a positive as well, and though there are no photos of me, this is what doing them looked like.

Big shout out to Andrew, who trusted me with his super expensive wheels not to do exactly what Sarah does in this video. It wasn't completely misplaced trust, I landed smoothly and a little closer to the rocks - his wheels are fine.

Currently I'm on the course for the Baie St. Paul Canada Cup bike race, staying at a campground with wifi...weird right? So I'm sitting in the shade by my tent, waiting for the race to start in like 4 hours - hoping to have my legs back to how I was feeling before this back problem!

Big shout out to CLIF bar for fueling this 2 week trip, and Thule for making me able to pack so well!

Canadian National Championships

The past week and a half I've been travelling around with my lovely girlfriend and our bikes, with the goal of finishing inside the top 20 at Nationals. First we set off for Sudbury, which is close to 8 hours drive from where we live in Kingston. The visit to Sudbury was great, I got to hang with some of my all time best buds and the trails were phenomenal, my racing however left something to be desired. I was super strong in flat and uphill sections, but for some reason, I couldn't find my mojo in the rest of the course. Friends said that I looked strong technically through the descents and spectator sections, but I just wasn't going fast enough. To me, the bad race didn't really matter - I was having problems gripping my bars without my gloves, I had to get off and fix my bike once, and most of all, I felt strong again. Any uphill or flat section where I could lay down some good effort I accelerated away from riders nearby, this means that I was in good shape for Nationals 6 days later.
I got down south and practiced the nationals course until I had it pretty well dialed in. I would be racing the elite, 6 lap race at Hardwood Ski and Bike on what will be the Pan American course for the upcoming competitions in 2015. The course had a lot of really cool and intimidating features, and plenty of places to hurt yourself...

This may seem over the top, but it's great!

Unfortunately, Thursday night just before Tori was participating in the Eliminator race, I took a bit of a spill. I came at a feature called "Endo Rock" at a way higher speed than I should have and got off balance mid air. I crashed down about 20 feet after I took off, smashing my chest on my handlebars, and skidding my head along the ground until I hit a log. This left me gasping for air for what seemed like an eternity, and my helmet was cracked in 14 places. I managed to get back on my bike and ride it down the jump track somehow, to make sure that I wouldn't miss Tori's race. When I got there everybody could see that something was wrong; I had blood down the side of my face, my eye was swollen almost shut, I couldn't stand up straight, and breathing pained me a lot. I had the medics on my case right away, checking to see if I had broken my neck, and trying to get me somewhere more stable. I had to watch Tori's race, however so I was a bit of a pain for these guys. I agreed to get out of my spandex, sit down and ice my ribs, but I was not leaving the action until all of my friends had finished racing.
After the racing had finished, my girlfriend and her mother took me in to the big hospital in Barrie (about 20 minutes away), and this was an ordeal. They rushed me straight to the trauma unit, and took 3 vials of blood, got a urine sample, and hooked me up to IV. This was all even more complicated that it should have been because I was quite dehydrated, and the nurses had to work hard to get the needles and tubes into my small blood veins. But I was not allowed food or drink, so that's just that. I was like a child in the hospital, arguing a bit over the IV especially (I don't like morphine), but I've learned that nurses, no matter what, get things their way. This massive intrusion was because they were pretty sure that by the sounds of things I could have damaged my liver or other organs in the area.

All smiles all of the time

The doctor finally got me X-rayed and decided that my organs were fine. Upon looking at the X-rays he showed me what looked like a cracked rib, and explained that the x-rays that he used weren't the highest quality, so we can't really tell what's broken or not but he figured that I'd cracked a couple of ribs and done lots of damage to my cartilage and musculature in the area too. Turns out that they don't really treat cracked ribs anyway, so I just had to wait for a nurse to take my IV out and I would be on my way. The nurse was a no nonsense kind of girl, and when I made mention of the size of my IV tube, she admitted that they put the biggest one in me and pulled it out quickly.
I got talked out of competing in the Nationals race by some good friends, but was pretty bummed to miss my chance, and to come so far and train so much without racing, but at least I could still support my friends while they raced! I'm just really bummed that it shoes a big DNF for "Did Not Finish" beside my name on the results, I hate those..
The next day I was actually recruited to help Pedal Mag with live feed of the race to their website, and got VIP media treatment for the weekend! It was nice to have something to do, and great to be involved, this way I could cheer (though yelling hurt), and do help the magazine all at the same time!

Hard training can make for a hard time racing!

Much has been happening this summer, life is a little different now, during my first summer as a grad student at Queen’s (taking a two year master’s program in Civil Engineering). Of course I’m finding the time still to train on my bike, and this year I’m training with a power meter every day, which helped me to train this winter and get the speed that I had found in my legs for the first O-Cup. The downside however of being a super motivated guy with a few good results in the bank is that I was pretty sure that I knew everything: I knew that I was fast, I knew how to train really hard, and I knew that I was invincible. Looking back on my training I’m not sure how I did do so well in the first Ontario Cup of the season, but with my boosted confidence I began to train like a madman, pushing myself to my max sometimes four days in a row watching my power output and designing workouts to push myself. I adopted the attitude that if I wasn’t getting to the power I needed, I simply needed to push harder through the pain and keep training, I was on the cusp of racing at pro speed after all, right?

Pretty soon I'll be simulating rivers in this flume!

Tremblant Canada Cup

This attitude led me to some rough racing. There was the Tremblant Canada Cup, a mudslide of an event – and the race to end all bikes. The weekend was fantastic; I rented 3 condos for all of my buddies and I and we had a great long weekend. My nervousness/sore legs showed the night before the race as I was doing an ice bath, I didn’t ride a fast lap (which I always do the day before any race), and I wanted to go to bed early.

I wanted some company in the bathroom to keep my mind off the cold water, then this happened. Good thing I'm the best man at his weeding, right?

On race morning I pushed myself and stayed in the race for two laps, but my fork was totally seized (I was riding an incredibly technical and demanding course with no suspension), making my bike hard and dangerous to race, and I didn’t see the point in racing the whole race because I was damaging my bike, I was letting people pass me in any technical section because it wasn’t fair to slow them down, and one simply can’t race properly if they’re only treating 1/3 of each lap like it’s a race. I dropped out after 2 of 4 laps, and didn’t think much of it. I did however write in my training diary “Not on point” and that was all.

"Racing" up through the village, sometimes a facial expression speaks volumes!
Thanks Joe Bailey for the photo

Check this video my buddy Kelsey put together of the Tremblant descent last year (imagine this with more mud and no suspension)

Mansfield Ontario Cup

The following weekend was the Mansfield Ontario Cup. Historically this has been a fast course for me (it was my top result last year – 18^th place with two flat tires), and I had 4^th call up (meaning that of the racers at this O-Cup only 3 had beaten me in the first one). I had a great day with my buddies the day before, and was very sure of myself in my ability to handle the course at speed. I had a freshly rebuilt fork (thanks Trek Toronto), and loved being called the 4^th fastest guy of the day (before the race). The race begins with a long hill, which I made sure that by the top of I was 4^th, and by the time we came through for a spectator section of tough drops and turns, I was sitting in 3^rd position – ready for my time in the spotlight. I was racing one of my favorite sets of tires, the Bontrager XR0 tires – they have minimal tread but work well and roll fast if you know what you’re doing with them even though my friends thought that it was a bit bold to use them on the sandy course. Anyway, after making it though the intimidating drops and smiling for the cameras, I totally slid out on the corner right afterwards (still in the middle of spectators), and lost 4-5 positions just like that.

Droppin like it's hot (thanks Hannah Clarke for this one)

 I got back on my bike and tried to bridge the gap back to the leaders, and just couldn’t gain any momentum. I watched my power as I was pushing hard, and even my best efforts up the big hills were about 30% below where I should be. I was pretty disheartened the next lap, and even considered dropping out of the race as people kept passing me who I knew I could beat. By third lap I knew I wouldn’t drop out (rather Dead F****g Last than Did Not Finish show up on the results), and in the 4^th lap I began to have fun again, and found my pace for the day. Ironically a spectator can tell my mood during a race by how done up my jersey zipper is. I rode into a 16^th place finish, a far cry from my 4^th place expectations, but still a very good result.

Undone jersey, unimpressed look on my face (Scotty Toucanlife photo)

After I pulled myself together and deciding that I'd better look presentable (Scotty Toucanlife photo)

There was this beautiful surprise though, and she even took me out to dinner with her race winnings!

That's my girl in 2nd place!

Sir Sam's Ontario Cup and Eliminator

Fast forward a few weeks, I’ve had bloodwork done, I’ve been on my own in Kingston (Tori had been at conferences in Halfiax and Portland, Oregon), I’ve been not training much (but also not sleeping much without Tori), and was hopefully fresh ready to race again. I had even practiced the course, on a special weekend training camp with the Mansfield Ontario Cup champion Kelsey Krushel, shredding the course and camping and swimming.

Sir Sam's Jamming

 It was a great course at Sir Sam’s in Haliburton, and though I knew I wouldn’t be close to riding my fastest yet, I was ready for a weekend of fun, camping and swimming, and maybe some racing, including the eliminator.

Good times on the beach with the crew, next OCA calendar cover photo for sure!

Eliminator racing is a short course and it’s a knockout style of race: 4 go into each heat, and two move on until there is one final heat and one final champion. There’s a qualifying round where everyone rides the course (about 2 minutes long) and then we are assigned our heats accordingly. I was somehow ranked 5^th after the qualifier (which surprised me because I didn’t go quite as fast as I could), and was in a great heat with my nemesis for the year Scott L., good buddy from Guelph Will C. and the up-and-coming Theo (who is about 10 years old and half my size). 

Qualifier over the rocks Jim Cassel photo

The eliminator course started in a small straight section then turned 3 times into a pump-track with rocks, then led us out and back in some fast open trail. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t quite get my shoe clipped into my pedal quick enough, and Theo got the holeshot on me! I could have bowled him over to get into the race with the other guys, but really, I’m not about to ruin some kid’s first ever race with some big fast guys. I bided my time and waited until it was safe (by which point the other guys had close to a 100m lead on me (in a 900m course), and called a pass to Theo once the course straightened out. I shot off with an acceleration that even surprised me, and actually caught the other guys pretty quickly. The problem is that I used my “race winning effort” at the start of the race, where Scott and Will both had some gas left in the tank, and handily beat me when it came to the point that mattered; the finish. I had a great time regardless watching the heats go by and I gave Theo a high five, told him good job, and even stuck around to watch his race and podium the next day. Is there any point in being good at a sport if you can’t be a good sport? I don’t really think so.

Bringing up the caboose in the eliminator Jim Cassel photo

The race started with a bit of a mess, and I was not in good position to climb the hill (well all look like ants climbing up it). The hill is about a 5 minute ordeal of zig-zagging up, which was a good opportunity for me to do some hard work and make my way up toward the front of the pack. I had a great first lap jamming with long-time friend Alex Lefebvre (you really impressed me on the downhill buddy!), and bridged away from him up to the next group on lap 2. Lap 3 I spent my time riding with Robin W. and it took me most of the hill on lap 4 to pull  far enough away from him, but then I rode most of the lap on my own. By midway through lap 4 I was beginning to feel the heat, and I was completely aware that I had not had enough to drink (shivers mid-race is usually a great indicator of dehydration/heat exhaustion), but I had no idea what was how bad this was going to get. By the end of the climb on my 5^th lap I figured that I had a good distance on the next guy back, and as long as I rode clean and safe and didn’t fall I’d have 16^th position in the race secured for another week.

It can be a lonely ride up sometimes! (Hannah Clarke photo)

On the technical descent however, I realized what dehydration on such a technical course could mean. The backs of my arms were seizing somehow, along with my quads. Ever get a footcramp? Picture that in your triceps and quads in the middle of a technical race – I’ve had more fun on a bike that’s for sure!

At the end of the downhill I was shocked to see that Mike H., the Norco XC/Downhill rider had ridden like a bat out of hell to catch me, and that I wasn’t so guaranteed that nice 16^th position after all. I had two notable sections to keep him away; a few minutes of technical twisting uphill section, and then the long downhill into the finish area. I picked up my pace as fast as I could through the uphill, and kept him at bay, but once we had gone down a bit of downhill, he was right on my tail again. I shut the door on him a bunch of times, being as wide as I could in the trail so he couldn’t get by, and right before the last technical downhill by the finish I yelled

“NOTHING STUPID, OKAY? WE’LL SPRINT THIS OUT.”

Signifying that passing me on the downhill would get us both hurt and that we had enough flat space down at the bottom to sprint to the finish though the crowds.

No shennanigans on this hill, thanks Hannah Clarke for making my legs look so great in this photo!

Just as I was about to lay down all my force on my pedals to sprint the finish, my chain popped off. It was as simple as that, no sprint for me. I yelled “awwwwwww!” Mike yelled “awwww!” clearly he was looking forward to the sprint finish too, but not enough to wait for me.

Running her through, bike held high and proudly! Jim Cassel photo