Monday, June 18, 2007

Test of Metal



The Squamish Test of Metal took place this last weekend on a soggy west coast afternoon. For the first part it felt like my legs were made of burnt jello as I slipped to 40th before finding a little metal in my blood and coming through for a 14th finish. The day reminded me of hockey games where your down 5-0 before you figure out were you are and then trying to make a game of it from there. Overall the race was pretty cool as we constantly swung up into the mountains then back down into the hoards of fans in dt squamish. This event proved once again, apart from Jasper, squamish might be the next best place to mtb in the world. Endless singletrack, big mountains, clean air and a vibrant small community. Off to iron out the legs before the real season starts with Provincials in two weeks and then off with the Alberta Team to Nationals in Mt Washington.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Back from the woods

Hear I am crawling out of the bush, a few pounds lighter, a much heavier wallet, and ready to tear it up in the coming months. The last two weeks have been spent out in the Robson Valley running around in the mtns planting little trees into there homes for the next 90 yrs. Finishing with my greenpeace work for the summer I headed down to kamloops with my parents for my first bc cup xc in 4 yrs. Things were going pretty good as I sat in 2nd place after 7 of the 9 laps before my bike got tired and decided she was done racing for the day. Two flats, three blown co2s, and a long walk back to the start line. Turns out 4 of us elites double flatted and 3 others single flatted. Cactus are not friends. After that I hopped in with friend Simon Tremblay(watch this name climb the leader board in the coming yrs) and we drove to the coast for the BC Cup RR # 4. After a short rest at friends in Maple Ridge we arose at 5:30 am to a torrential downpour and paddled our way over to abbotsford for Simons start at 8am. After the flash flood, the rain cowarded down and the racing began. After watching Simon finish 10th in his race I set up for my first road race in over 2 months. Doing 12 laps of a 10 km rolling course with a 2 min climb each lap proved to be a rude awakening to my legs which have come accustomed to carrying 400 trees around the bush not chasing skinny tires around the block all day. After getting dropped on the 2nd lap, chasing back on, getting dropped, chasing on again, I finally found something left in my legs and managed to stay in the pack for a 18th place out of 50 or so starters. Never knew 18th place could feel so good. After the race we started another race to catch the 5 pm ferry over to victoria. Finishing 129th we caught the ferry and were now in the BC Capital hangin with my bro and startin the wind ourselves up for the big races in July. First off is the Test of Metal this weekend in Squamish, 800 racers, 67 km, 2 mtns and then Faith Hill and Tim Mcgraw at BC stadium for the wind down party......