Mud and sunshine

Rain all week and lots of mud. The Tremblant stop of the Canada Cup was pretty much everything racers expect for this race. We had a the same course as always and this year it was muddy with the sun shining for all of today turning the mub into the consistency of peanut butter.
Of the start there was a group of three who were riding about 15 seconds ahead of the group I was with. I probably went to hard fo the start but I was wanting to race as hard as possible for the entire time to see what would happen and not worry so much about pacing myself. So start of Lap 3 I found myself in 8th but really hurting and ended up moving back a few positions and then on the 5th and final lap being able to use the last of my energy to put in a solid effort and attack the final mud climb going to into the single track.
Finished 11th and its actually my best result ever at Tremblant. I think until now I have always been in the 20's (or lower) So although I was going for a top 5 I'll take an 11th.
Next week is Hardwood hills.

Canada Cup #1

Well today we raced the Bromont stop of the Canada Cup for the first event of the Canadian season and it was .... DRY! I think its probably been three years since I have raced here and it hasn't been raining, and three years ago I think it was still muddy. Anyways the course had two big climbs right of the start. we rode straight up the ski hill then descended straight back down under the lift and went straight back up again to start the single track. Basically two climbs per lap each with about 200ft of elevation gain over a few hundred metres. So ya it was a toughy and we did 8 laps.
The start went well for me. I was a little nervous having not raced in Canada yet this year but got a second row start and when the gun went pinned it.
The course was crazy busy since the laps were about 15min for a lap and there were the Elite Men and women plus the Jr Expert men and women so lota of passing through out the race and lapped riders.
I'm happy with my finish though and was 10th so thats my best Canada Cup result so far and I think I can improve on it.

Just got to Plymouth New Hampshire yesterday afternoon as I make my way north to Quebec to start the Canadian season. The riding in Plymouth as always is great and its nice to hang out with Ben and Onda again. Ben's a super fast retired XC racer who does a bunch of the DH now and hard rides where he pinns it for multiple hours on end. Onda is a retired DH ski racer from Romania.
Todays ride was pretty sweet, we had a road ride and we climbed for 40min on a gravel forest service road then descended down the other side of the mountain on pavement where there were still patches of snow in sections!
Monday to Quebec

Ducktown

The SERC # 4 was held at the Ocoee recreational site just outside of Ducktown Tennessee. Same place the 1996 Olympics were held for White water Kayak.

The course for the weekend was super fast with us riding 53km in 2hr 11min for an average speed of 24km/hr pretty quick for so much single track and climbing! We started off heading up a climb and we pretty much climbed for the next thirty minutes before descending on a fravel road for about a km before hitting some more downhill singletrack and finishing the lap with another km on the road. So of the start there was a group of five of us who were together for the first bit of the climb which eventually went down to three of us Matt Hadley, Charles Pendre and myself. I honestly wasn't feeling the strongest on the climbs but was going to try and hang on for as long as possible. I got dropped about 15min in when Charles upped the tempo a little and I just tried to keep them within range. on the descent I would make time and then try and hold it and on the section of road before the start of the second lap I was able to bridge up to the two of them. I probably went a little hard to bridge up to them. Once we hit the start of the climb Matt went to the front and slowly rode away and me thinking (or not thinking) that we were about to hit the single track attacked and couldn't hold it and also realized there was still another section of climbing to do before the first downhill. So no more group of us and there was also a fourth guy slowly closing the gap on me. The third lap I rode as hard as possibel to try and keep my third position and every once in a while could see Charles so was also motivated thinking if I could catch Charles and hold of the guy chasing me I could be 2nd. I didn't hold of the Robert Marrion (the guy chasing) and ended up riding on his wheel until the gravel road descent but I did catch Charles which put me into 3rd at the end of the day.

I have also been having some troubles with Allergies the past week where my throat was super sore and it made it hard to swallow food or water( I did the race on 1 bottle and no food or gels). But it is much better today and I have almost no sore throat at all. There was a flower in bloom in Georgia which I think was really bothering me.

Next race is Bromont!

Oh ya the cape is because I didn't know what else to do with a 10ft Schwalbe banner