madbiker555

Anyone from Ontario Canada here? If so have you been in the 30-60 km Paris-Ancaster race? I was thinking about entering it this year but i hear its brutal. Also arent road bikes are better for this race but mountain bikes are better for the nasty muddy parts.

https://www.parisancaster.com/

DonCooper

Hi, yes I did the 60K last year. The fastest bike for this event is actually a cyclocross bike. hahaha! but I rode my commuter bike, a Norco Storm hardtail. If you use off-road mud tires you will be slow overall, since usually in the off-road sections you are held back by slower riders anyways, the only place to make time is on the road sections. Semi-slicks are a good bet, but I know people who ride it every year on MTB's with slicks. Disk brakes are an advantage, clipless pedals are helpful assuming they are a type they can handle a lot of mud without problems. I saw dozens of people who couldn't clip in, or couldn't clip out and fell over. The mud and slop really gets into everything.
It IS kind of a cool event and I'm looking forward to doing it again.

madbiker555

Thanks I was just curious about this and I might enter if I feel upto it.

P.S: You're the only one to respond to this thread since I started it in January.

DonCooper

Well, I just came across this forum recently. I would have thought a question on a large event like the P2A would have brought more replies, though.
There's another event the weekend before the P2A, the All Weather Challenge in Hilton Falls. I haven't done that one before but I am thinking I might give it a try.

troie

Unfortunately, most of us dont live in Canada Ill get there someday...someday.

turtlegirl

I might try the All Weather Challenge, lots of rocks sounds like lots of fun

I don't think the P2A is for me, a few friends are riding in it this year though.

ghettocruiser

Pre-registered as always. Last years p2A was pretty much a meterological disaster. We had one of the most intense thunderstorms while we were at the start line, I have never seen it that dark before during the daytime... and of course the track got drenched. I usually run slicks in the race but put a semislick on the front at the last minute, and one on the back would have been a better idea. The entire race was a mud bath, needless to say. I had a pretty good finish, but I had a record $100+ in follow-up equipment repairs.

Its not always wet. The year before it was so dry that everyone outside of the lead group couldn't see through the dust at the start. Go figure.

And they have moved the event back in the year a bit. The first few years that I was in it, they had the race timed to coincide with the finish of Paris-Nice (hence the name) so it was the FIRST weekend in April.

They changed the date after a snowstorm started during the race and buried the course with the last half of the field still out there. Man was I glad I was finished when I saw that happening. They had to use buses to recover all the potential hypothermia victims.

Nowdays, there like a thousand people when the weather is nice. It's getting pretty insane, and almost has me hoping for another snowstorm to thin out the event's popularity.

madbiker555

Trust me the weather sucks were I live. It's all cold and snowy right now but in another 15-30 days I might just be able to ride.

DonCooper

There was, actually, 1300 riders last year with 1000 of those doing the 60K distance. Races like the Squeezer or the Lake to Lake Classic get similar numbers of riders. The difference being that those events take place in a lot nicer weather, and also that they use staged starts. The Squeezer had , what, a dozen seperate start times...so mostly you ride with similar level riders there. But except for a special start for the first 300 riders the P2A 60K is a mass start -- which just adds to the nuttiness of the thing. The variety of riders is extreme : uni-cycles, tandems, pros, newbies, young, old, male, female, big, small; it's like an emergency evacuation of "cycling world" in progress and all heading for the hills of Ancaster. Bikes range from factory prototypes to antiques, freeride to XC to cyclocross. And naturally the course also varies -- paved road, gravel road, farmer's field, singletrack, rail trail; some of the "roads" being far worse than the trails.

Maelstrom 

Ya...where you live

madbiker555

Don't rub it in.

madbiker555

It's $60 to enter and it doesn't look like the weather is going to get any better any time soon. I might stay out of this race just because my bike isn't really meant for it and for $60 I could get some new tires.

ghettocruiser

Don's description of the start strikes me as pretty accuracte. The logistics of the race last year also left a bit to be desired. The "top 300" group had a fair number of riders that lined up in the first row, and promptly blew up on the first climb (there were literally guys bent over in the ditch 2 km into a 60 km race). A lot of people that were in the second start group closed the five-minute gap on the lead pack before the halfway point... picking up five minutes on riders that were supposed to be faster than them.

And since the five-minute gap was timed into the leg band chips, a bunch of guys who jumped the line and took off with the lead group then had five minutes deducted from their time by the clock when they finished. As a result, a riders who finished in 70th or 80th place ended up being in the top 20. And since no one understood the timing system, they didn't even realize they had cheated.

Way after the fact, they had some placing corrections based on people admitting they had left early. The organizers weren't really to blame, it was just a bunch of riders doing dumb things and messing things up.

Then there was the year that I was near the front, following what was supposed to be the lead motorcycle, and he lead us off the course into a random farmers field. While most of the pack passed us. That was a bit of a bummer. Fortunately the "lead motorcycle" experiment was not repeated.

I still thing the race is a ton of fun, in a somewhat demented way.

madbiker555

I thought that this race was supposed to be somewhat of a "fun" race but I guess not if you're puking in a ditch at the side of the road, or you have people cheating, (which is no good). In a demented way, definitely.

Maelstrom 

Hahaha all this time and I just noticed GhettoCruiser is from TO area as well. We have quite an Ontario contigent now.

Hey Ghetto (not to derail) have you spent time on ridemonkey or dropmachine. I recognize the pic under your name.

Maelstrom 

Fun races exist on paper. Hang out at the front of the pack at a 'fun' race and see how much fun they have. They still haul ass. We have a loonie race here every thursday. Monday to raise for advocacy etc....the top 20 are always hauling ass, fun or not, they still wanna be first.

ghettocruiser

Yup, anytime there is a clock running and someone is noting the order in which you finish, I'll be in a lactose-acid haze the entire ride. I am a hapless victim of my own ego, apparently. Is it fun? Well it's a whole lot of pain, my crashes in past years have been quite dramatic, and as I mentioned there is the $$$ for replacing my damaged gear almost every year. Yes, it's great fun.

Mael, I do a lot more lurking than posting. I have a few posts on DM, but most of those guys are a little too much into the urban riding scene for me to contribute much. Ridemonkey is a bit too SoCal. Our riding pics, which are few, get posted to ECMTB.com, since my freeride buddy is from the east coast (Nova Scotia). And of course there is pink, which I read more often than I care to admit but will probably never post on.

This thread should really be in the XC racing forum. Its been around since Jan and I didn't notice. Or maybe a more descriptive title would help.

Maelstrom 

Weird...I must have just caught your name somewhere then cause I do remember you. Ecmtb I go to periodically but they get new info so infrequently. DM I stopped going to ages ago, very TO point of view on everything, pinkbike I don't go to and hcor/ridemonkey kind of drives me nuts.

I will move to the racing forums.

madbiker555

I think I should have put it under mountain bike racing in the first place but Im lazy

ghettocruiser

I'll bring this thread back from the dead to mention photos of p2A are at

wowmtb.com/photos.html

and

https://photo.specimage.com/race/

Props to the 915 finishers in the 60k ride and the 361 riders doing the half-course. Big turn out as always.

Ride a Bike

First time I did this race. I always heard it was quite boring, but I was really surprised how much fun it was. Now I have to figure out how to close the 27 minute gap with the winner.

DonCooper

Yeah, if you want to see a goofy old guy "racing" look up my plate #450. But I have to admit it was a fun, fast ride this year -- dry, perfect conditions. The All Weather Challenge the week before had great conditions too, I actually got a bit sunburned. Nice to be worried about sunscreen rather than sleet ;-)

madbiker555

Wow... I watched a bit of the race and this was one of the only years that actually had good weather. Usually its snowing or raining....or just plain cold.