24hrs of light

Chris Clark Riding the single track at 4am


Eating breakfast

24 hrs of Light was last weekend and it was a great event! I did it as a 2 person team with Jonah Clark who I will be riding Trans Rockies with in August. The idea was that i would ride the first 6hrs and then he would ride about 12 and I would ride the last 6. The first six hrs were tough I pretty much did it at an all out race pace for the entire time and when i was finished it was hard to walk and apparently I looked pasty white...but I had the lead for the first 6 hrs over all the teams including the 8person who were sending out fresh riders every lap!
The next mornign I decided after no sleep and still feeling it from the effort 12hrs before to just ride for 2hrs which was probably a good idea.

Went for a ride today with my younger sister. She hasn't really mountain biked much in the last few years but it was still a good time and she can still turn the big ring.
24hr mtb race is this weekend in Whitehorse and I'm riding as a 2 person team with Jonah Clark my partner for the Trans Rockies. Should be good I'm starting off with the first 6 hours. and fast laps will be about 32-33min.

Hardwood Hills Fiasco

Ok well its kinda like this, Hardwood hills was both good and bad. But not really bad bad just more of a this is a not ideal situation.
To start things off I was feeling super good and lookign forward to the race! I went back to my brothers place and had a good sleep the night before after pre-riding the course and the next morning woke up ready to race and feelign great. The drive to Hardwood is where it all began.
Just before Barrie on the 400 we get into some heavy traffic and we're thinking (my brother was driving and his wife was with us) this doesn't look good but hey its probably just cottage traffic and we'll be allright! Well it turns out there was a major accident on the highway ahead of us and were stuck behind as the highway was closed for 6hrs. So we do the de-tour which take san extra hour of driving and end up at Hardwood hills 10min late for the start of the Elite race...I found a commissaire and explained what happened and asked if I could race anyways and he said "you better get going" I didn't need to be told a second time I was outta there!
I pinned it for the first three laps (even had a bee sting on the first lap) and then on the fourth lap I finally caught 2 guys who dropped out after that. I went around for the fifth lap but still finished dead last in 50th position. Either way I finished the race and although my result wasn't great and I blew up in the fifth lap I still got in a good intensity workout. Oh and I learnt that its always best to sleep as close as possible to the race course as possible...

New Brunswick

Ok so with 2 weekends off between Canada Cups I decided the best thing to do would be stay out east, go to New Brunswick and get in some good quality training with Matt Hadley.
The riding here has been awesome with lots of good roads, fast group rides and enough technical single track to keep me occupied!
The 3rd of ùjune there was a 5hr mtb race in Woolastock NB where pretty much the idea is to see how many laps someone could do in that amount of time. Matt and I decided to enter as a team as this would be the most similar to our actual races. It was a good time and my race plan was to keep it pinned for as long as possible till either I ran out of time or just ran out of energy. The plan worked with me putting in laps 1min faster than anyone else and Matt and I going ont to win with a total of 11laps over second team who had 10 laps.
This past Friday we headed down to the Bay of Fundy to ride in the Fundy Park on some crazy technical single track! after that we went to see the flower pot rocks and then finished the day off with some caving.
My first time ont he east coast is definetly a good experience!
Hardwood on Sunday!!

Tremblant

Tremblant, well for the first time that almost any of the athletes can remember there was no rain preceding or during the race to make things muddy! The course was super fast and dry otherwise the same as always.
My race didn't go so well in terms of climbing fast but I was descending and riding the technical really well today. Unfortunately I also would have had to be on top of my climbing to have been higher in the results. I finished in 32nd position of a filed around 80, not my best result ever so I guess what I need to work on is putting everything together on race day!
So thats the plan for Hardwood, put everything together for a great result.

I had my first Canada Cup on May 13th in Baie St Paul, Quebec. I had a great start and was feeling strong but for some reason everytime I tried to put the power to the pedals my chain would skip. kinda frustrating but I finished in 28th position. The next weekend we raced in Bromont Quebec but before headign down there I travelled with a couple of friends to Plymouth New Hampshire to ride some amazing single track and for me to work on my technical riding skills. Bromont went well and I am definetly in shape and riding strong just still needing to improve those technical skills. Basically I would make time on the uphills and flat but then loose just a little bit more time than I gained on the technical descents. At least I know what I need to work on! I finished 20th in Bromont which was an improvement but with working on the technical skills over the next week will hopefully be able to move up in rankings again at Tremblant on the 26th.
There was this huge chocolate festival going on in Bromont so we went to check that out and the truffles were by far rthe best!
Tremblant is a good course and as of right now its dry and 30! its suppose to be 20 on weekend but thats still nice riding weather!

Toronto

Its the start of the bike racing season for me and I am spending some time in Toronto hanging out with my brother, sister in law and their 18month girl Kaitlyn before going to Quebec to begin the Canada Cup Series!
While a lot of the guys I will be racing against have already been to quite a few races this year Baie St Paul will be my first.
Its going to be a good race and I have heard there is still a ton of snow up there so its going to interesting. Probably another mud fest just like the majority of races in Quebec.

Check out the new bike I will be racing on at www.evertibikes.com/tirant.htm