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04-25-06, 02:44 PM
Provincial level XC racing in Saskatchewan doesn’t start until mid May this year so myself and some friends decided to make the trip one province east to participate in the first Manitoba Cup race of the year at Grand Beach. Two of my buddies, D and J, were racing in Senior Expert so they were my *real* competition. Going into the race I felt only about 90%, as I’ve been suffering with a cold that will not go away. On race day I was unable to breath through my nose at all and will somewhat congested in the lungs.
We made it out on Saturday, after about 7 hours in the car, with enough time to get in a good pre-ride. Although the course was not completely marked we were able to ride the entire course, with a couple of detours. I had a mild crash on a fallen tree that was higher than I thought. My weight wasn’t far enough back as my big ring hit the tree sending me flying over the bars. I feel the pain in my upper body today, but was fine for the race. The course itself was phenomenal. It was a mix of 50/50 single and double track, some sections were sandy, others were black soil with an overcoat of pine needles, others were complete rock gardens, more on them later. Going into the race I thought I would have to make up ground on the double tracks as I believed I would lose time in the technical rock gardens due to not being as familiar with the course as the local Manitobans.
Fast forward to Sunday race day. The temperature was much higher than I thought it would be going in, I think it was around 20C on the course. Turnout was excellent with 120 participants, including 10 in my category. At the start I was lined up in the middle of the second row, feeling the typical pre race nerves. “One minute to start!”, better start loading up with O2. “Thirty seconds to start!”, clip in. “Ten seconds to start!” “Go!”
I was feeling good of the start, jockeying for position for the first ~3kms which were on double track climbs and descents. I made up a few positions going into the first singletrack and was sitting in about 10th overall when I made a wrong turn, going straight when I should have followed an arrow to turn, loosing about 10 positions in the process. Oh well, time to focus and hammer. I started making up the positions I lost though the next several km, including overtaking my friend D who was suffering the “lung burn”. I was able climb to two positions behind J, where I wanted to stay for a while. Going into a very technical rock garden climb followed by a rough, technical rock garden descent (as mentioned above) I ran into problems. The two riders, Discovery Jersey and Yellow Shirt, between me and J were not very good in the rocks. Forcing me to walk the climb behind them and have to stop several times as they dabbed on the downhill. When I got to the bottom I was way back of J, never to see him again, bummer. Discovery Jersey motored away from me and Yellow Shirt going into lap two. I was also passed by my friend D, who later passed both Discovery Jersey and Yellow Shirt.
Remember me saying it was warmer than I expected? On lap two the relative heat, I’ve been training in winter in Saskatchewan, started to effect me. I drank 60% of bottle one, of two, on lap one. I decided to grab bottle two from our volunteer feeder telling him that I may need bottle one back for lap three. Lap two was a recovery lap for me. I wanted to consolidate my position before making a charge to catch J on lap three. I rode clean together with Yellow Shirt up until the afore mentioned rock garden when I passed Yellow Shirt and dropped him. On this lap I drained my second bottle, and was looking forward to the remainder of bottle one.
Lap three, time to put the hammer down. I blazed into the start finish area, made the turn to climb back into the hills and looked forward to the feed zone. As I passed my feeder he was not ready with my bottle! I contemplated stopping and grabbing it, the desire to keep peddling kept me on my bike. Now I’d have to ride a 10km lap with no water, ouch. I did my best to ride through the thirst but it made my lap three charge much more difficult, and less effective. I was able to catch up to Discovery Jersey though some twisty single track. I followed him up until the rock garden when he, graciously, pulled aside and let me pass. Another competitor down, time to reel in D! I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or not but I started to see flashes though the trees which may have been D. After the race he said he could see me coming up on him. Alas I could not catch him, but another rider caught me. I was riding through a twisty slight uphill singletrack trail when I heard SINGING behind me! I look back and see a fellow on a Blur LT with a Zoke Z1 rocking out on the trail. I quickly realize that there is no point trying to fend this competitor off. He chats me up for a minute or two before blowing past me on a doubletrack climb, and reeling in and passing D.
I cruised in feeling slightly let down with my performance, but knowing I left it all out on the trails that day. In the final standings it was J 4th, D 5th and myself 6th out of the 10 in our category. On the bright side I was but one minute behind D, whereas he beat me by about four minutes every race last year. All in all it was an OK race results wise, but a super race in terms of fun factor. The trails were fabulous, the race well organized, the competitors friendly, the weather great and the atmosphere was fun. I look forward to racing it again next year.
Next race is May 14th just outside of my home town, between now and then I have some work to do and a couple of pounds to loose.
Regards,
Kris
We made it out on Saturday, after about 7 hours in the car, with enough time to get in a good pre-ride. Although the course was not completely marked we were able to ride the entire course, with a couple of detours. I had a mild crash on a fallen tree that was higher than I thought. My weight wasn’t far enough back as my big ring hit the tree sending me flying over the bars. I feel the pain in my upper body today, but was fine for the race. The course itself was phenomenal. It was a mix of 50/50 single and double track, some sections were sandy, others were black soil with an overcoat of pine needles, others were complete rock gardens, more on them later. Going into the race I thought I would have to make up ground on the double tracks as I believed I would lose time in the technical rock gardens due to not being as familiar with the course as the local Manitobans.
Fast forward to Sunday race day. The temperature was much higher than I thought it would be going in, I think it was around 20C on the course. Turnout was excellent with 120 participants, including 10 in my category. At the start I was lined up in the middle of the second row, feeling the typical pre race nerves. “One minute to start!”, better start loading up with O2. “Thirty seconds to start!”, clip in. “Ten seconds to start!” “Go!”
I was feeling good of the start, jockeying for position for the first ~3kms which were on double track climbs and descents. I made up a few positions going into the first singletrack and was sitting in about 10th overall when I made a wrong turn, going straight when I should have followed an arrow to turn, loosing about 10 positions in the process. Oh well, time to focus and hammer. I started making up the positions I lost though the next several km, including overtaking my friend D who was suffering the “lung burn”. I was able climb to two positions behind J, where I wanted to stay for a while. Going into a very technical rock garden climb followed by a rough, technical rock garden descent (as mentioned above) I ran into problems. The two riders, Discovery Jersey and Yellow Shirt, between me and J were not very good in the rocks. Forcing me to walk the climb behind them and have to stop several times as they dabbed on the downhill. When I got to the bottom I was way back of J, never to see him again, bummer. Discovery Jersey motored away from me and Yellow Shirt going into lap two. I was also passed by my friend D, who later passed both Discovery Jersey and Yellow Shirt.
Remember me saying it was warmer than I expected? On lap two the relative heat, I’ve been training in winter in Saskatchewan, started to effect me. I drank 60% of bottle one, of two, on lap one. I decided to grab bottle two from our volunteer feeder telling him that I may need bottle one back for lap three. Lap two was a recovery lap for me. I wanted to consolidate my position before making a charge to catch J on lap three. I rode clean together with Yellow Shirt up until the afore mentioned rock garden when I passed Yellow Shirt and dropped him. On this lap I drained my second bottle, and was looking forward to the remainder of bottle one.
Lap three, time to put the hammer down. I blazed into the start finish area, made the turn to climb back into the hills and looked forward to the feed zone. As I passed my feeder he was not ready with my bottle! I contemplated stopping and grabbing it, the desire to keep peddling kept me on my bike. Now I’d have to ride a 10km lap with no water, ouch. I did my best to ride through the thirst but it made my lap three charge much more difficult, and less effective. I was able to catch up to Discovery Jersey though some twisty single track. I followed him up until the rock garden when he, graciously, pulled aside and let me pass. Another competitor down, time to reel in D! I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or not but I started to see flashes though the trees which may have been D. After the race he said he could see me coming up on him. Alas I could not catch him, but another rider caught me. I was riding through a twisty slight uphill singletrack trail when I heard SINGING behind me! I look back and see a fellow on a Blur LT with a Zoke Z1 rocking out on the trail. I quickly realize that there is no point trying to fend this competitor off. He chats me up for a minute or two before blowing past me on a doubletrack climb, and reeling in and passing D.
I cruised in feeling slightly let down with my performance, but knowing I left it all out on the trails that day. In the final standings it was J 4th, D 5th and myself 6th out of the 10 in our category. On the bright side I was but one minute behind D, whereas he beat me by about four minutes every race last year. All in all it was an OK race results wise, but a super race in terms of fun factor. The trails were fabulous, the race well organized, the competitors friendly, the weather great and the atmosphere was fun. I look forward to racing it again next year.
Next race is May 14th just outside of my home town, between now and then I have some work to do and a couple of pounds to loose.
Regards,
Kris