Hardwood Canada Cup

My first Canada Cup as an Elite did not go so well, but my bike and I are not broken so it could have been worse. It was for sure an improvement on last years first lap frame snap.....

Pre-ride on Saturday went well. Flipped over the bars once while not paying attention, hitting a root and slipping off my grip with my right hand. Just a scratch on my knee, so I was fine to roll on. Atkins and McNeely from EMD came by while I was straightening my bars so I chased after and got some follow wheel experience for the rest of my second lap. They showed me how to take the downhills, and I learned some new lines. Two laps was good though was it for me... but I think starting sooner, and doing 2 slowishly, and one fastish would have been ideal.

Back to Barrie to eat some food and chill before going out for dinner. Went for Italian, it was fantastic, thanks mom and dad. We decided that it would be smart to pick up some sleep MD after learning that most of our hotel was being occupied young Lacrosse players in a tournament. They were noisy little buggers, doing sprint intervals up and down the halls, and playing scrimmage in the parking lot.

When heard running and yelling down the hall at around 10:30, my mom gave them shit, and said to got to bed. They were quiet for a bit then got worse. My dad took action. Apparently he stepped infront of a kid running and he hit my dad like a brick wall and got leveled. My dad said "WTF do you think this is...some kind of amusement park?" and they apologized.

Now unfortunately the sleep MD did not work, and I lay there wide awake while the kid who got leveled explained what happened to his parents outside our room, and tried to calculate which room we were in using some sort of running velocity equation...but failed and I was happy to not have to deal with any bullshit, but I was no longer tired at all. It took till after 1:30 and several position changes for me to fall asleep.

Well that was probably a better story than my race report but here it goes anyway.
Warm up felt decent. Heart rate was going up, legs worked.
I lined up behind the 35 called up riders, with Guthrie and Mike G just ahead of me.
The start sucked. I was pinning it but losing ground on the main pack still. They vanished into there own dust storm before the first steeper climb bit, and I was left coughing and trying to match the pace of riders who came by that where caught behind a crash. At the first singletrack entrance there was a bad bottleneck, as I expected. Benno was beside me, Tim was around, and there were still riders behind me so I figured I was in a decent place.

I kinda held my ground only losing a spot or two on the first lap. Somewhere along the way I lost some pressure in my rear wheel, but did not stop to inflate it till after the boneshaker lap 2. It was down to about 15psi, so it was ride-able tubeless, but had tones of rolling resistance. I stopped at the bottem of the big climb to inflate it, and felt way faster after and recovered some lost ground on the climb.

The rest of the lap and lap 3 was uneventful. I was feeling slow, not smooth and was breathing harder than I should have been. My legs felt like they did at Mansfield, maybe worse or maybe everyone was just faster. I was not confident starting my fourth lap, but I did and was determined to finish the race. If it wasn't for some sharp cramps that come without warning I would have. My left leg seized on the climb post boneshaker, and I was done. I spun to the feed zone to report to my parents, and then watched the elite finish before heading home.

Don't have any excuses for the weak legs. Not over trained for-sure after a solid taper week. Bad night could have have slowed me down, but I'm thinking that technique was a huge factor. Maybe to much time on the road lately has dulled my trail fluidity.

I am looking forward to Midland next week and will be MTBing a lot to get ready for it. I like this venue very much, and hope to crack the top 15 there.

Congrats J.C. on your win, very impressive. Jeff to, your right up there.

Later