Zach Tatem

Canmore Day 1 and 2

2011-07-16T17:28:00.001-07:00

Arrived in Canmore, Alberta for the Canada Cup XC Nationals after a solid two and a half days of driving with Taylor Near. We arrived early evening and were welcomed by rain and cool temperatures, which later that evening switched to sun and warmer temps. We unpacked the truck, grabbed some groceries in town, ate and hit the hay.

We awoke the next morning to go do some practice laps with Peter Glassford. I led him out to show him some lines that I may choose on course, it was a good ride until... I came over a wood bridge a bit too hot, over shot and compressed hard, which caused my back end to flex or something, which ended up grabbing my derailleur in the wheel and ripping it off the bike, wiping out 7 spokes while at it, bummer. I stopped, assessed the situation and felt sort of weird, maybe a combination of a long drive, high altitudes, adrenaline, not too sure, but I reached for my bottle on my bike and continued to topple into my bike as I passed out, weird. I hydrated like mad and felt fine, but my bike was in rough shape. I managed to hit up CAFE, the local bike shop in town, to grab some spokes to rebuild my wheel. Luckily my derailleur was fine and I had a spare hanger, so I got my bike rolling once the team bikes were all checked over and race ready.

Taylor and I headed to the Nordic Center early afternoon to get all of the wheels set up in the tech zone, and take the teams water bottles up with us in the cooler. Cayley Brooks was the first of our riders to race in the U23 women's category. She came around on her second lap with a rear flat, which we changed out with lightning fast speed, and got her running again, she ended up in 8th. As the sun came out behind the mountain and clouds the temperature increased, just in time for the men to race. All of our Elite riders had a good start and pushed hard. Adam had a good clean race and ended up in 5th! Peter Glassford had a crash on his third lap, burped his tire on his fourth and still came in across the line in 7th, after fighting his way back up to pass Norco Factory team rider Andrew Watson. Eric Batty had some unfortunate mechanical issues causing him to loose a bunch of time and got pulled on his last lap, he was riding well too. In the U23 men's category, young gun Mitch Bailey rode an awesome race and was looking great but just couldn't hold the win, he finished up in 2nd. All in all, it was an awesome race, the entire team rode really well and did a fantastic job! Tomorrow Peter and Adam are riding in a team relay so that will be cool. I also look forward to riding the other trails around here and having some fun! Check back for pictures and other updates soon!

Happy Trails!

Buckwallow XC #4

2011-07-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

Buckwallow, around Gravenhurst area, was host to the last O Cup XC race this past weekend. I had never ridden there before and was told I would absolutely love the trails, and I definitely did! It's pretty much flat, a few small climbs but nothing serious, with tons of flat open double track and super technical single track at times, lots of fun!

I went up Saturday morning to get in some practice laps. There was a new section they had added just for the 1:30 start times which was interesting to say the least. It was all rock, quick uphills and some drop offs and other rocky bits, it was slow and hard on the body. I did 4 laps, 2 a little slower and 2 race laps and felt pretty good. I got to bed at a decent hour and felt good the next morning for the race.

One of the rock sections
www.racedayrush.com

I got to Buckwallow nice and early and fed my friend Mike who came up with me during his 11:30 am sport race. His race finished and I started my warm up. I got to the line a bit late and ended up lining up at the back of the pack. My first three laps felt pretty good, then on the 4th lap I bonked hard (meaning my body was on the verge of shutting down). Luckily Barry Near of the Trek store was there for the race and kept me going with his comments. I picked up the pace a touch for my fifth lap and ended up crossing the line in 7th. I was happy with my result, but not too happy with the way I performed, so definitely some work to be done there! I may also add that the top elite guys were off at the world cup at Windham, so it let the rest of the elite field battle it out. Overall I am pleased with how it went and will definitely be getting back up to Buckwallow to ride again, the trails are amazing.

I just arrived in Canmore AB for the Canadian National XC race, so I will keep you posted as things unroll.

Happy Trails!

Blue Mountain DH #4

2011-07-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

Canada Day long weekend at blue mountain, blue skies, perfect weather and riding bikes, what a great time! Aside from the 4.5 hour drive Friday a.m to get to Collingwood. We opted to enjoy Canada Day and save the riding for Saturday and Sunday. A friend of mine brought over a little 50cc dirt bike to play around on, and I had a GoPro, things got loose! check back for some hilarious footage soon.

In the woods off a small feature

Practice day went well, I was feeling good and riding well, my new POC helmet was feeling great too, and the POC goggles I had to match kept my line of sight clear! There were a few new sections on the course from last year, which made the track a little more interesting. A couple of rock gardens were built up, a new berm and little step down jump were added, and near the bottom of the course they added in some "steps" made of about 15-20 logs laid across the trail filled between with slabs of stone and some dirt, it could get rough if your speed wasn't up. Then right before the finish line they added in a take off ramp but also left the option to go beside it, faster? maybe, the outside line around it was loose and felt slow, and the inside line beside the jump was tight, I opted to hit the jump and just stay nice and low.

Squatting one of the final jumps

Race day came around and I was stoked to be riding Blue Mountain. After a few race course practice runs the course was closed for lunch. I just wanted to keep riding so I rode the other trails that Blue had to offer until it was race time. It kept me warmed up and loose, but probably tired me out too, but I was just having too much fun. Race time rolled around, I dropped in and was riding rather "hack" for the top quarter then finally got into a groove and started feeling good. I came through the finish line in 5th (0.5 seconds behind Terry Leimonis who I had been riding with all weekend) then ended up finishing in 7th again. Mike Hermo form Silent Norco Racing took the win by a good margin, followed by local and young ripper James Frost with Brad Zdrillluk in third. Another awesome event, and another great weekend at Blue, it was an amazing time, thanks to Harry for the place to stay, SirBikealot Racing and all of the Volunteers, Buckwallow report coming next!

Race Run, mid scrub

Happy Trails!

Dylonn's bike is done!

2011-06-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

So here is a sweet Session 88 that has been a few weeks in the making. New employee Dylon, bought Rob Fraser's session 88 from last season, it was a used bike when we started, now its close to mint and ready to roll. So, we replaced all the bearings, got the main frame re painted matte black, and got all of the hardware anodized cherry red, look s sweet. Check it out! May I add its 37.75lbs with nothing too ridiculous!

Fresh Session 88

Red anodized parts... Smart!

On to Blue Mountain this weekend for the DH O-Cup, might try a Super D! Check back to see how it goes!

Happy Trails!

What a Weekend!

2011-06-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was one of the busiest I have had in a while. During the day Saturday I provided Tech support for the 2011 Cycle For Sight bicycle tour, then packed up and headed to Albion Hills for the 24 hours of summer solstice.

Glorious!

My day began bright and early with an unpleasant alarm clock waking me up at 5:15am. I sluggishly got myself out of bed, jumped in the truck and headed to the Trek Store to grab the Trailer which I had packed the night before. 6:30am, Starbucks opened, glorious! By 6:45 I as set up at Downsview station awaiting the 150+ riders that would be doing the grueling 141 km ride to Collingwood. My job was to assist any riders with last minute tune ups, which primarily was just inflating tires and lubing chains. Several thanks and inflated tires later, and I was off to the first rest stop of the ride, a descent 30km away.

The set up

Go Time!

I arrived at the King City Lions Club where the group had started to seriously break up into small packs. Several riders were already on the way out while I was just pulling in. I hung around for a bit but every one's bikes were functioning just fine. So after some much needed refueling from the thousands of calories I had burned while driving, I grabbed a bunch of cookies and headed off to the next stop trailing the medium paced group of riders on to the next stop. Once again, no issues to report along the way.

King City Lions Club

We had one more quick stop along the way before pulling into the main lunch stop in Alliston. There were a few people that required some assistance at this point. It had been raining on and off a little bit during the past stage, and a few people had crashed as a result of the slick roads. A straightened derailleur and a couple of other adjustments, lube, air in some tires and it was off to Stayner, the second last stop of the ride.

Alliston lunch stop

This leg of the trip actually got interesting, I picked up a rider who was having some back issues and said I would give him lift back to Toronto. On the way to Stayner I got to change a flat on the side of the road, true a wheel and adjust a derailleur, cool. Then about 100 ft up the road from where I did this there was another issue, this one a little bit more labour intensive. These two riders (on a tandem) had had their rear wheel completely de-tension, causing it to flex so badly that it grabbed the rear derailleur, ripped it in half and off the bike, and also broke the chain. Hmmm, after about 30 minutes of work, their wheel was tensioned and fairly true, and they would have to push on with only one gear as I had abandoned hope of salvaging the shifting and cut the chain to run only one gear. But, there were two of them riding, and I assured them there were less hills to come (but really I had no idea), but they were able to finish which made them quite happy. Onwards to Stayner! This was the last stop for me as they had arranged for another mechanic to be at the finish line in Collingwood. After hanging around for bit it was back to Toronto.

I arrived back at the Trek Store around 6pm, grabbed my weapon of choice for what I thought was going to be a relaxing night of riding, a slightly modified Trek Remedy 9. I met up for dinner with Candice, picked up another rider and headed up to Albion Hills, arriving at around 8pm. I was riding with the Norco team (bike manufacturer and one of our major distributors), which consisted of Silent Norco Racing's DH team (Jeff Faulds, Tom Kakamousias, Dave Klaver, and Michael Hermanovsky), also joining them was Pat Dennis of Norco, and Mark Sommers of Joyride 150, and of course me.

The 24 hour race starts at 12pm on Saturday and runs throughout the night until 12pm Sunday, which can get very tough on your body as well as disorientating. I was a little disappointed when I arrived and was told, "Zach, we're in the lead, we need you to put in some fast laps", aw man! I was looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend of night riding, but cest la vie, it was go time! The remedy is not exactly a cross country race bike, having 6" of travel and 2.4" wide tires, but it was still a whole lot of fun. I set off at around 10:30pm for my first lap. The course was a lot of fun, but on the remedy it was tough! Well, at least the descents were fun, which made my first lap a 44:51, which was pretty god for a night lap.

Remedy 9 (The one I was on had a single front ring and some other switched out parts,
amazing bike!)

I refueled, sat around, and with no luck at all, tried to get some sleep. Trying to get yourself ready to do a race lap at 3:30am is tough to say the least, but to stay ahead we had to put out consistent laps throughout the night. On a borrowed XC bike I finished my second lap with a 44:58. We were battling it out with the Lap Dogs team that was managing to stay very close to us. But, with my two night laps on fresh legs, and the rest of the team holding it down, we put a 10 minute gap on them throughout the night.

Norco set up, 2:00am

Daylight came around and it was again my turn to go. After much whining and protest (See picture below) Tom K took my turn. I was finally able to go for a lap at 9:00 am. I took out Pat Dennis' bike for this lap and put down the hammer. I came to the end of the lap where they had opened the mud bog, a large mud bog with a very skinny bridge running through the middle of it, covered in mud. As if that's not enough, one of the Rupel's from Chico Racing was nice enough to hose you off, in the face, before you fell into the bog (I speak from experience). So, after climbing my way out of the knee deep mud quicksand, I jumped on the bike, and sprinted to the finish line for a 41:41 lap, pretty sweet, oh and a mud bog champion tee shirt for attempting to ride the bog. I handed the time card over to ringer Andrew Watson who took the last three laps to the finish. We ended up taking the win in the Corporate 6-10 person team, a category of 81 teams!

A little tired, stylish too!
(Thanks Pat)

We packed up and headed back to the city for lots of food, and about 14 hours of sleep, but what an awesome weekend. Thanks to Norco for letting me ride for them, Robert at Trek for letting me use his Remedy, Chico Racing for another amazing event, and of course Trek Store for the transportation. See you ate the next one!

Happy Trails!

O Cup Dh #3, Kelso 2

2011-06-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the third round of the Ontario Cup Downhill series which took place on the Kelso 2 course. There were a few small change from the previous years, a couple of extra jumps, which were also a bit bigger, and also a new option in the rock chute which was better until a decision was made to remove it because its easy entry allowed some of the groms to get into it, only to find that the line was actually pretty tough, so to avoid unnecessary injuries the line was removed, which meant it was back to the old line, which was now a small river.

Into the rock chute, race run
(Photo: trailburn.ca)

Practice runs were good, I was riding well until I did my last practice run where I messed up the first corner, then entering the chute I hit a wet root and some rocks which shot me quickly off line and in to the woods. So with no more practice time left I grabbed some lunch and tried to relax a bit. Race time came around, I was feeling pretty good, got to the top, did a good long warm up, as I've learned to do for cross country racing now, and got into the start gate. I had a god start, pedaled hard through the flat sections but unfortunately went a little bit too conservative into the rock chute, hesitated too much on the entry, but came out with descent speed and pedaled to the finish. I was sitting in 3rd when I crossed the line with Taylor rowlands in the lead (finally held a run together), Matt Z came down and took the lead, followed by teammate Rob Fraser who edged Matt out by 0.4 seconds. I was still in podium position until just like at Horseshoe, Brad Z came down and knocked me out of my spot, this kid is quick! Mike Hermo (Silent Norco Racing) also came down ahead of me so I ended up finishing 7th which I was pretty happy with. It was another great weekend of downhill racing, probably the most fun you can have on a bike, Shane and his crew of slaves once again did a fantastic job on the course. Now comes a bit of a break in the season, next XC is buckwallow, and the next DH is at Blue Mountain, have some time to get some training in.

Happy Trails!

Kelso 2, O Cup DH #3 Preview

2011-06-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

Headed up to Kelso yesterday to get in some practice runs for the DH O Cup on Sunday and put a little video together with my GoPro. Kyle Lockyer (Silent Norco Racing) and I went up together in the afternoon and got in some good runs until Kyle decided to crash near the end of the day, he's alright though, and unfortunately he was behind me so there was no footage of the crash, his bike took most of the impact.
Anyways, it was a god day of riding and hiking, check out the course.

Looking forward to Sunday, weather is supposed to be good which is exciting.

Happy Trails!

Hardwood Hills Canada Cup

2011-06-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

Hardwood Hills Ski and Bike was host to the 2011 Trek Store Canada Cup, the third race in the National series. Taylor and Barry set up the 9 tent pit area on Friday, which was great to have for the rainy pre ride day on Saturday. I arrived early Saturday, helped unpack the trailer then hung around and waited for the rain to stop so the team could get out and do some laps with the kids.

While the team was out with the kids I decided to register, where I may have made a slight mistake. For National races you have to pre register, which I did not, so if I wanted to race I would have to pay a fine to the UCI which would have cost me extra cash, which I didn't really feel like doing. So, I thought of my options and decided to race in the single speed category, and had a friend of mine bring up my bike the following day, problem solved!

That night we went out for a team dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Orillia, next to the hotel we were staying in with the team. Hotel was nice, and the breakfast the next morning was pretty good too. I headed off to Hardwood fairly early to help set up and keep an eye on things while Barry and Taylor were doing there race at 9:00 am. Because I wasn't racing with the Elite's, I was able to lend a hand to Taylor in the tech zone in case a team rider had a mechanical issue. By the time the Elite race started, the sun was high and it was hot! But, being the super smart people we are, we had already set up a tent earlier in the day, which kept it a bit cool. I watched the Elite race unfold, and by the 4th lap the riders were being effected by the heat in a big way. We were handing out water to our racers to drench themselves with as a means to cool down a bit. The pace was also extremely fast, and I was actually a little relieved I didn't have to race, not quite ready for that level of Elite racing yet. The race ended, Derek Zandstra of 3 Rox took the win, followed by teammate Cameron Jette, Eric Batty had a solid finish for 3rd place, with Peter Glassford on the podium in 5th, followed closely by Mitch Bailey in 6th, Adam Morka had a mechanical but still managed to finish up in 8th! Emily Batty took the win for the women, and Trek Canada Racer Cayley Brooks finished up in 13th, a great race for the team.

1:30 came around and it was time for my race as well as John Barnes, who won, again. My race was pretty good, my single speed was not the ideal set up for any race, the gearing was too hard and I was running cyclocross tires at about 60 psi. I lined up near the back of the pack as I was a bit unsure of the pace the single speed guys would set. We took off, I rode with a few guys for a bit then decided to just sort of go for it. Some of the climbs in the back section I had to run up because my gear selection wouldn't let me ride it, which hurt my legs more. After 2 laps my back was starting to hurt because of the lack of suspension, as well I lost my water bottle on a jump coming down the four cross track, but a fellow Downhill and recent XC racing friend was kind enough to return it to Taylor in the feed zone for my next pass through. I was gradually catching people and working my way up which felt great, I crossed the line ended up finishing in 3rd which I was pretty stoked on! My back was killing me from the rough course, and my legs were burnt out, it was actually a pretty tough race, but a whole lot of fun too!

Coming through the boneshaker
(Photo: Marc Landry)

Podium
(photo: Mitch Bailey)

Thanks to Barry and the Trek Store, and for Taylor for hooking me up in the feed zone, Glenn for organizing, and everyone for coming out. For a great write up and lots of pictures of the event, check out Marc Landry's website at: http://www.fasttimesinc.com/blog/?p=3924

Happy Trails!

Woodnewton XC O-Cup.... finally

2011-06-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

So... A little while since my last post, but still better late then never I suppose, I spent the last couple of weeks moving so I have been pretty unorganized recently. Anyways...
This was the second O-Cup XC of the season and the course was great, several improvements over last years already great course, and was also my first ever Elite race, 5 laps instead of 4 which was a lot harder than anticipated. My training over the off season was pretty minimal with the start of school, I suppose I underestimated my work load , any ways, I was still on the trainer quite a lot. So, with a fresh course, and a good pre ride the day before, I was feeling pretty good and excited to get back into the racing, especially with the added challenge of being in a new category.

Short video of pre ride from the 1km to go sign, and through the super fun roller coaster section
(not sure the actual name)

For race day the rain joined us, which things a lot slower then in pre ride the day before. My race went well, I started off sort of mid pack, closer to the back, my goal was to finish the race and get a sense of what I would have to work towards to be competitive. I got into a good rhythm and was pacing myself well. By the fifth lap my legs were starting to go, whenever I wanted to push harder up a climb my legs would be on the verge of locking, lets just say my granny ring on the new SRAM XO 2x10 got a lot of love! I battled it out with another racer for about a lap before he dropped the hammer on a long climb and left me behind to die, but I was alright in the end. Came through the rock garden one last time and had just enough left to give a little sprint through the finish line to a 19th place finish, pretty stoked on that!

The rest of the team did really well, Peter was out doing a tempo ride on the course because of the upcoming Canada Cup, but he was still in the top ten! Mitchell Bailey took second as well, the kid is quick! In the female Elite category Cayley Brooks took 7th. Eric and Adam opted to sit this one out to save their legs for Tremblant.

Big thanks to the volunteers, trail builders, Chico Racing, and all of the support. Taylor Near was doing my feeds for me which was great, big help!

Hardwood Report Coming soon,

Happy Trails!

Racing 2011

2011-05-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

So here is a short brake down of what has gone down with me and racing so far this year.

Mansfield XC #1 and Kelso DH #1 were both missed due to some covert training in South Africa, with Leopards, Zebra's, and Lions, seriously.

That could have been me!

After my intense 10 day pre season training excursion I returned home and got back out on the bike for some good trail rides. The next race to come up was DH#2 at Heights of Horseshoe the following weekend. For downhill this year I was not able to acquire a recent bike, so I had built up my Santa Cruz Bullit which I used to race back in 2003, in hopes it would get me through the season. After riding it a couple of times and seeing some helmet cam footage from Rob Fraser, I decided that this bike would probably lead to my demise. So, after a few calls around, Kyle Lockyer (Silent Norco Racing) let me borrow a more substantial bike to use for the season, a Santa Cruz v10 circa 2005, a little bit more modern, and much more safe.

Off of the second step down gap

Shane and his trusty crew of volunteers had done an amazing job with this brand new course. Out of the gate riders had to snake through a set of switchback turns in the open grass before pedelling across the hill where they were met with a man sized step down into the woods. After a quick pedal and some more descending around a fast corner, there was another sweet step down which was followed by two line options, an inside loose corner line, or a good 'ol trusty outside berm line (which I opted for), which was then followed by another step down. A couple more grass corners, rock drop into the woods, tight berm into a rock garden, through another corner then exit onto the bottom field to sprint for the finish. The course lasted only 54 seconds, but it was amazing! And to build a course like that with terrain provided to us here in Ontario takes some serious skill!

Railing the berm after the second step down

My race run went really well after a good year off of the DH bike. I made a mistake in the very last corner of the course which is all it took on such a short fast course. I managed to get 6th place which I was really happy with. Young ripper Brad Zdriluk knocked me off of the podium by .014 seconds, which shows just how close it was. Michael Hermanovsky took his first Elite win followed closely by BC transplant Harold Woolnough repping the Cove factory team, followed by Sidney Slotegraaf, and Rob Fraser. The course was amazing and it felt great to get back out on the big bike again, many thanks to Shane and the trail crew, and Kyle and Tom for helping me get a bike together to race on.

Just on the weekend I debuted my new Superfly 100 Elite in my first Elite XC race, it was tough to say the least! Check back for a full report in the next couple of days.

Happy Trails!

Riding Bikes is Fun!

2011-04-10T13:01:00.001-07:00

The Don, taken a toll on my sweet single speed winter bike, prototype Trek? Sadly No, but its sweet for winter training

Went for my second outdoor mountain bike ride of the season (i've been out on the road bike all winter) and it was awesome! I went for the first time several weeks ago when there was still a ton of snow, and ice, which led to crashes and a muddy ride, but yesterday the conditions were perfect! Planned to go again today, but due to thundershowers and more rain, I opted to stay in, especially with final exams coming soon.

What my life has become, AutoCAD, The Ontario Building Code, and the occasional Pint of Steam Whistle

School is nearing the end, yay! Then bike riding can resume full tilt! Beyond stoked for that, cant wait to focus on riding again after a somewhat dismal off season. The Superfly was amazing, 2 x 10 set up is super smooth and all of the gears are perfect, there are good transitions in between and there are few times that the small ring even needs to be used. The new XO brakes from SRAM are fantastic, they feel great, shed mud really well, and stop on a dime. The Bontrager tires are surprisingly very very good, places where I was expecting to slip out i didn't, the tires just tracked, through everything!
One more week of school then its back on the bike, for even more hours than actually exist in a day, and more days that exist in a week, something to the tune of 26 hours a day, 8 days a week, and 380 days a year, impossible? Perhaps...

Happy Trails!

Shiny Things!

2011-01-06T19:57:00.000-08:00

So here's a sneak peak of my new ride for this years race season, a few things to change to suit my likings, stem, bar, grips, and switch the tires over to tubeless, nothing too crazy. Out of the box it weighs in at 24 lbs which is pretty solid, will be lighter once I'm done switching stuff around, but boy does it look sweet! Here's a pic, more to come when she's finished.

Happy Trails!

It's a New Year!

2011-01-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a great holiday, as it's back to work, school, and training.
I have started riding again now since my accident, and the shoulder is feeling pretty good. I was doing some physio at home getting it a little better, but still haven't seen my surgeon, so not sure if it is 100%, but it feels stable. Joyride 150 is the best way to stay sharp over the winter, of course combined with the always fun indoor trainer rides. Unfortunately in our climate staying inside and sitting on the trainer is necessary, unless of course you are able to travel to a warmer climate as many do. But, what time on the trainer lacks is the ability to keep your bike handling skills tuned and sharp, ahhhh Joyride! If you haven't been, hop in the car, even the GO bus, as I have done before, and head up there. Take your xc bike and do laps, rent a dirt jumper or a bmx while your there, it doesn't matter, staying sharp over the winter months results in no catching up when the racing resumes, oh and its also a crap load of fun!

Happy Trails

Well, I'm back

2010-11-25T02:58:00.000-08:00

Not too sure where I went, but either way its been a long while since my last post. So, lets see if I can sum things up.

Made it back from Saint Anne with no problems, started school the day after I returned, also moved into my new place not long before, rode at Joyride 150 a few times, picked up a road bike and started going for some good rides, rode from Alliston to Joyride then Toronto, was hit by a car about 2 weeks ago, dislocated the shoulder I had surgery on and have a wicked hematoma on my side, physio should start soon and that brings us up to current time, in a nut shell.

S o, with the cold and wet weather, and in inoperable shoulder, the trainer is calling my name. Because I cannot ride these days, I have opted to walk to school as I greatly detest taking the TTC, so I am still able to get in a little bit of exercise (about 15km a day), but the trainer is set up now and I will start to dabble with it this week. 3 weeks of school left and I'll be off for a while, so I should be able to log some decent hours, good times.

Anyways, I'm still here, just went MIA for a little bit, so check back and I will try to update this thing a couple times a week, and I'm going to start including more than just bike stuff, insights on life, favourite music of the week, good for training too, and other things of interest.

My session 88 and 4X/play bike bike at Canmore (this rain turned into snow!)

Happy Trails!

Got Some That Internet! Here Are Some Videos

2010-09-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

I recently moved and have been without the internet at home for about a month now, but as of today, I'm online! And it feels good.
Anyways, here are a couple videos from Mont Saint Anne World Championships I have been wanting to post, enjoy!

Happy Trails!

Saint Anne, Part Trois

2010-09-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

XC is over now, Rained last night so the course was, in my opinion better. There was no more sand, just good tacky dirt, although the rocks were a little more slick due to it. I watched womens elite in the morning, and mens elite in the afternoon, those guys are fast! Derek Zandstra had a great ride, looked really strong. Geoff Kabush had a great day ending up in 8th! Lets see, what else, went to the Sram tent to watch Boxxer world champs, where a select bunch of trade mechanics have to overhaul a Boxxer, after taking a few shots of jager or something, then chug a beer once completed, fastest one wins, it was entertaining! Then we went out for dinner, and now back at the place, very cold, hurricane earl hit us earlier, fairly lightly, but there was still hail, oh I scored a sweet Sram poncho, pretty cool.

The other day I crashed in the pump track and removed a good portion of the skin on my knee. It wasn't too sore, it was just stiff and bleeding a bit, until yesterday. I went for a ride up to the summit once again, with Taylor this time to ride the trails back down. Halfway up I started to sprint, and being a mechanics bike it is the least cared for bike on the team, and my drivetrain is pretty worn. So, my chain slipped and over the bars I went! Luckily however, I landed only on my left knee, which is the one I wrecked in the pump track, yes! I think I am up to smashing the same knee 8 or so times this year, not too bad, what's your record? Anyways, here's a picture, luckily it was bandaged! But it still looks gross, check it out, it looks pretty nasty though

Happy Trails!

Saint Anne Part Deux

2010-09-03T05:30:00.000-07:00

DH seeding was yesterday, didn't get a chance to watch, too busy relaxing. I did go for a ride up the fire roads to the summit before descending one of the intermediate downhill trails, it was wicked! It was a 6km climb, and Saint Anne is pretty steep, followed by a 7km descent, it was wicked good fun! Oh, and I also crashed on the pumptrack, good times. I attacked a corner a bit too hard, my back wheel slid up over the top of one of the berms and a went down, dragging my knee through the rock hard dirt removing most of the skin off of my left knee, pretty cool.

Here's a link to a video of Emily Batty, Adam Morka, and the official Emily Batty Fan Club.

http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100902/mtl_batty_100902/20100902/?hub=MontrealHome

And here are a few pics of Emily's World Champs bike, lots of new cool stuff going on, and it looks hella sweet!

Carbon Chainstays!

Internal Cable Routing

Dual Remote lock Outs and New XTR, and One Piece Bar and Stem

Check Out The New Hub, Flangeless Hub, Straight Pull Spokes!

Mont Saint Anne

2010-09-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

Mont Saint Anne, so hot! The sun has been out the entire time, and it is rediculous! I must add however that I have an astonishing farmers tan, its quite something actually. So, the other day I walked the DH course with Kye Walstrom on the 4x team for Canada, and here is a little video I made of the walk!

Today was the Women's U23 XC Finals with Emily Batty of Trek World Racing representing Canada. She started off and finished super strong! She had a really good race and ended up finishing in 5th. Her final lap was amazing, she closed quite a gap on 4th and rode very well. Here is a little video of her race from different perspectives throughout the course.

Oh, and I was interviewed yesterday while riding the pump track by local newspaper, Le Soleil, and they put a small article about the event and a picture in the paper, very cool!

Windham Done, off to Saint Anne

2010-08-31T13:16:00.000-07:00

The top DH guys in the world are borderline insane. The speed they are able to carry through the course is rediculous, its like they are just riding down a flat paved trail. Their reaction time and ability to see so far ahead and visualize exactly where they are going to is remarkable. Anyways, we watched the downhill, Gee Atherton won, and took the overall win for the season. Steve Peat had the fastest time in qualifying but had an unfortunate crash in his race run putting him down in 55th, this is racing I suppose.

we drove to a small town called Prattsburgh in the USA, to spend the night before heading to Quebec to find a go kart track for Taylor to do some laps. We pulled in to a gas station to re fuel, after nearly running out of gas! And also asked where the nearest motel was. The lady at the counter told us there was a motel just down the road where ex convicts recently released from prison were staying. We opted to find another place. After we drove for little while more we arrived at a Best Western or something of that nature, a goodnight sleep, and morning with fresh waffles!

We headed onward to a track that Taylor had found online. After a quick stop at Target and Dick's Sporting Goods for a browse and a couple of clothing items we were on our way. We arrived at the track around 3pm, set up the kart, after changing out some clutch springs and a quick tune up. Taylor did a few laps and then decided his gearing wasn't high enough for the back straights. So, back up on the stand, wheel off, gear wheel off, shortened the chain, un mounted and re mounted the engine to adjust the chain tension, re adjusted the muffler pipe, and at 5:30 he was back out on course which left half an hour to do laps. It was col to watch, but I do prefer fixing bikes, they are much simpler to work on. Taylor got in 28 laps or so then it was time to pack up and head to Saint Anne. The track was only an hour drive away from our condo, so it was relatively painless.

We stopped at a St. Hubert, as you do in Quebec, and got some fine chicken diners. We are now at the condo, unpacked and ready for some sleep. Tomorrow I will get Mical's bike all ready for her, then head into the village and check things out. Apparently there is a pump track, so I will check that out for sure tomorrow. More later, and pictures!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup DH

2010-08-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Here we are at another beautiful in Windham for the World Cup Finals. Today is the DH finals, should be very exciting o watch. I haven't seen the entire course yet, so I will walk up to the top and check out the madness to come! Unfortunate news, Ontarian Trek Primary rider Rob Fraser had a big bail yesterday in practice and had to spend some time in hospital, I saw him last night at the 4x, he was hobbling around on crutches, so no racing for him today, lets hope for a speedy recovery so he can represent Canada at Worlds next week. Last night was pretty cool watching the 4x, some big jumps and a wicked pass by Prokop to take second, behind Australian 4x legend, Jared Graves. So, today will be exciting, can't wait! Its hot out there again, so will need to stay hydrated.
Check out this sweet picture I took of Jared Graves last night, Epic!!!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Wrap Up

2010-08-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

So, in the end it was a great race! Except for the fact that every rider on the team had at least one flat, and Mical snapped a chain, not too good. The course was very rough and fast, and any errors in line choice would leave a rider with a flat or a destroyed rear wheel or rear derailleur as some riders faced, including Geoff Kabush who did not finish after he twisted his derailleur in half. Eric stayed strong throughout the whole race, Peter caught back up after flatting in his first lap, and Adam was plagued with a second flat! Rough day.

For me, it was a very interesting day, the first race I have had to do anything more than yell at the guys as they flew by. Need to give a big thanks to Havie from Norco for helping change Peters flat when him and Adam rolled into the pits at the same time, I took care of Adams, big help!

After the XC race today we headed back to the house and had some quick dinner before rolling back to the hill to watch the 4x finals. It was pretty cool, the course was great and Jared Graves of Australia ended up taking the win for men's! I may try to go ride it tomorrow if they aren't keeping to close an eye on it! maybe some helmet camera footage to follow!

Tomorrow we leave our place and head back to the hill. We will pack up the trailer, watch the downhill finals then roll onward to Mont Sainte Anne, with a stop along the way to rip around in Taylor's Go Kart in Quebec! Good times! Anyways, off to bed now then up tomorrow to get Micals bike prepped for Worlds! and then DH finals to watch. Should be a great week in Quebec with lots of racing!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Last Lap

2010-08-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

Race is just ending now, 80% rule in effect, so Eric and Peter were pulled before they got to head out on their last laps, great ride by both of them! Pics and video to come shortly.

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Last Lap

2010-08-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

Derek Zandstra came through, made up some spots on his previous lap, Lucas from Trek World Racing was sitting in 5th, Cam Jette just came through for his final, waiting to see now if our trek boys can stay ahead of the lead pack long enough to finish a last lap!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Elite 5th lap

2010-08-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

Derek Zandstra came through with a flat, got it changed and charged back up, Cam Jette cam through a little bit behind him, about 8 riders back, but Derek motored past a bunch more people. Eric is back on Cam by a little bit, still riding strong! Here come Peter looking really good! They should be able to hold the pace and finish!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Elite 4th lap

2010-08-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

So, Adam got another flat, he's cruising back to the tech zone, but got passed by the lead group so he is out, too bad! Eric and Peter still going strong!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Elite 4th lap

2010-08-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

Eric through, Peter making some serious time up on the pack! catching up to Eric now! Ryan had a puncture, got him sealed up and sent back out, and now waiting on Adam, hopefully all is good!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Elite 4th lap

2010-08-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

The top guys are flying through. Derek Zandstra came through strong, waiting on Eric now in the bottom tech zone, Adam and Peter have cleared the second tech zone, witing for them to start their 4th laps, Cam Jette just came through, Eric should be following soon!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Elite 3rd lap

2010-08-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

This just in, Ontario Norco boys Andrew Watson and Zack Hughes are both out with mechanicals, tough day, course is super fast and the descents are rocky and technical, Trek boys still good after the second tech zone, what a ride for Eric!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Elite 3rd lap

2010-08-28T11:53:00.001-07:00

Eric is riding really strong, looking good! Derek Zandstra is ahead of him by about 10 riders, Peter is making a good push back up, and Adam is trailing Peter by about 8 seconds, all riding well, no mechanicals this lap!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Elite 2nd lap

2010-08-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

So, Eric came through really strong looking good, Geoff Kabush came through with a destrpyed rear derailleur, he's out now, too bad! Both Peter and Adam had rear flats, i got them chnged with the help of Havie from Norco, they're back on course now, should be able to make up some spots!

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup Mens Elite Start

2010-08-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Fast start for the Elite men, there was a pile up right at the beginning so half the field was back quite a bit, including our boys, Adam, Eric, and Peter. The start was blistering fast! Tried to film it but didn't have a memory card in my go pro, oops! And, it is extremely hot, so Rick and Taylor are up in the top, I am down in the bottom tech zone with Cindy, and Adams mother doing the feeding! more to come, stay tuned

Happy Trails!

Windham XC Womens Finals

2010-08-28T06:54:00.002-07:00

Women's finals just ended. Mical snapped a chain on the first lap about 3/4 of the way through. Luckily most of it was downhill but then she had to run for a good 300m. She got to me in the tech zone panting pretty hard, I slapped a new chain on and she was off. Mical was able to catch back up and pass a few of the women. On her last lap she had made her way back up to 41st! I left the tech zone after she had passed to check to see how the guy's bikes were, so not sure how she finished in the end, I assume in the top 40, so a great job. Catherine won, Marie was in second by 3 seconds, she made up 16 seconds on Catherine on the last lap, amazing! Anyways, its getting super got now! The men go at 2:30, so just over an hour to go, it's going to be hot! Rock will be in the main tech zone while Cindy feeds the guys, and I will be in the top tech zone with Taylor, its gonna be HOT!!!!
updates after

Happy Trails!

XC Finals Today

2010-08-28T06:54:00.001-07:00

So, Rick, Taylor and myself arrived this morning to set up the banners and get everything redy. The Junior men's and women's races are underway currently, DH practice is on, and XC finals will be starting later on. Mical Dyck is set to go at 11:30 for the Elite Women, so we will head up soon to set up in the tech and feed zones. Eric Batty, Adam Morka, and Peter Glassford will all be going at 2:30. Check back for results when available. It's a beautiful day here in Windham, and it will heat up for the mens race at 2:30, will be a tough race with 6 laps to do.
More to come.

Happy Trails!

Windham World Cup

2010-08-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

We arrived in the town of Ashland where Taylor and I are staying with the rest of the team. Crossing the border was trouble free which was a big relief! We stopped at Dicks sporting Goods in Syracuse to check out some guns and compound bows, pretty cool. Our GPS took us on a crazy route through some sketchy backroads hardly wide enough for one car, let alone a truck with a trailer, and no lines on the road either. After some fine driving we arrived at the large house we will be staying in for the next couple of days.

Had a chance to ride the course today, it was super fun! Lots of climbing, but also lots of good technical descents. More tomorrow, the team is all racing tomorrow, then Downhill finals will be on Sunday. More to come, managers meeting now, then dinner.

Happy Trails!

Ontario Cross Country Provincial Championships

2010-08-25T06:11:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the final race of the Ontario Cross Country series. It was held at a brand new location in Durham on private land called "Woodnewton". I went up on the Thursday before the race to pre ride the course and see what it was all about. Since it was a brand new course, it was very slow because the dirt had not yet had time to pack in. But, it was a lot of fun! There was some great single track sections, and lots of open double track for passing. It rained the night before and the day of the race. By the time my category started at 1:30 it had dried up quite a lot, and the dirt was still very tacky with lots of traction.

For the race I decided to try a new tactic as I had not been training enough over the season and would not be able to hold a fast pace right off the start. So, I decided to sit back and let the other racers tire themselves out on the first 600m of the course which was a long uphill and flat section through a freshly cut field, so it was slow and hard to keep speed through. I was sitting back in about 14th I think, then we hit the second climb and I passed a few riders. Then, I pressed on and by the end of the first lap had taken the lead by 20 seconds or so. I continued, had a good clean race and ended up keeping the lead and taking the win! I also ended up in 3rd overall on the season. It was a wicked course and hope that they keep it in the circuit for next year.

So, this winter I will have to pick up my training and spend a lot of time at Joyride 150 as I will be moving up a category into the Elite level, a whole new realm of racing, need to get prepared.

Happy Trails!

Ontario Downhill Provincial Championships

2010-08-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

The race was held on "O Chute" at Blue Mountain, a pretty fast, tight trail with several corners and pedalling sections. The conditions were good, sunny and dry, and practice was going well for me. I had several consistent runs and was feeling confident and picked up the pace more and more, discovering new lines. I had a small crash into a tree in one of my runs, but no injuries, just some scuffs, it can be seen in the video below.

The day ended with clouds rolling in threatening to unleash a whole lot of rain. It rained, everywhere, except on the mountain which was great! Morning practice went well, I did three runs and was feeling very prepared and excited to race. This was my second downhill race of the year, so I was a little nervous in the start gate. But, finally it was time to go. I set off, and was having a fantastic run, hitting all of the corners well, pedalling where I could, then I entered the section dubbed "the coffin drop" a series of flat rocks a rider can either skim across and drop off the end, roll over and ride down the backside, or jump the entire thing. I did not feel it was necessary to jump them, so I was sticking to them skimming across the tops. I cleaned it just fine, railed the right hand berm after it, leaned into a loose left and began to slide out sideways. After dragging my knee along the ground for most of the corner, my knee pad finally fell off so now I was beginning to loose what precious skin I had left on my knee. Finally my bike, and myself, came to an abrupt stop, I jumped back on, knee pad dangling off my leg to the side, and my seat sitting crooked. I hopped on my bike and pedalled like a maniac to the finish line and ended coming in 8th place. It was a little disappointing, but god friend and rider Harold Woolnough took the win over Rob Fraser by 3 seconds, so great riding by him!

So, that's it, no more downhill races this year, will have to wait until next year to avenge myself, oh well! Great season, great race, and a fantastic weekend.

Happy trails!

Summertime Fun

2010-08-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

I just picked up a Go Pro HERO HD helmet camera the other day, pretty cool little toy. I slapped it on my helmet and went down to the dirt jumps in the Don Valley, here is what came of it. Oh, and it's not in full HD because I didn't read the instructions how to change it, oh well, enjoy!

happy trails!

Shiny Products, Top Fuel 98??

2010-07-31T13:19:00.000-07:00

So, browsing the web again, came across this little number, pretty cool, looks like Shimano XT 10 speed, and check out the rear fox shock, remote lock out!

Enjoy

Happy Trails!

Oh What a Trip!

2010-07-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Back in Toronto now, been back for a few days and it is super nice to be back home. Landed back in Toronto on Thursday, saw the family and my girlfriend, went out to dinner for my nephews B Day, then slept like a stone. Following day I took Barry's truck up to the Honda dealer to get the fluid levels checked, and replaced, wheels rotated and oil changed, then vacuumed and washed, then back to the store to work the rest of the day. Worked the whole weekend, then got to unpack and relax yesterday, right back into the swing of things, good times!

Anyways, here are some interesting stats for the trip. First of all across prairies on the way out we hit a serious head wind, and gas mileage was at an all time low, averaging about 200km to 85% of the gas tank, crazy! So, we made a total of 31 stops for gas, not all for complete fill ups mind you, but still a lot of stops non the less! Total mileage came in at 7,761.2 km and total gas consumed came in at 1,764.84 L. A lot of driving, and a lot of refueling! Oh, and can't forget about the millions of insects that were slain on the front of the truck, poor bugs, at one point there were so many bugs hitting the windshield that it sounded like it was raining!

So, it is great to be back in Toronto, had a wicked time out in western Canada, and miss it, but I will return one day, perhaps the same time next year. So, trips done, no major problems, it was a great experience and hope to be lucky enough to do it again! And here is what a lot of you would
like to see...

Yours Truly!

...Pictures!!
Enjoy!

Pictures courtesy of Lucas (http://picasaweb.google.com/dewey2999) from Rundle Mountain Cycling Club, thanks for the great shots!

Back to riding Toronto, will be great!

Happy Trails!

2011 Trek Session 88 prototype?

2010-07-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

So, I don't usually browse the web a whole lot looking at new bikes, and speculating on what may or may not be, but then again, there is not a lot to do in Blind river Ontario. Anyways, came across this mystery frame, looks very Trek like, who knows, you decide, check it out!

Happy Trails!

In Blind River, digging around the intraweb, cool new TREK Bikes

2010-07-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

2011 Trek Session 88? maybe? but who knows!

Cam McCaul's Scratch

Session 88 with fancy paint!

2011 Scratch 9 Air

2011 Remedy, with XX?

There they are, a few tasters, gonna keep searching, see what else I can find, enjoy!

Happy Trails!

The Ridgeline sleeps 2

2010-07-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

So, just a brief overview of whats happened so far. We packed up the trailer Monday morning and headed into Canmore to grab a coffee with the whole team before we all went our separate ways. Emily had already left, Rick was flying back to Ontario the next day, Eric and Eden were taking another week to drive back and take in the sites and camping, Pat and myself had to start our long trip back, and along the way drop off Adam and Peter at the airport to head of to the next World Cup in Switzerland.

We dropped the guys off at Calgary Airport and headed East back home. We hit a small town, Morse along the way, conveniently as the tank was pretty much dry. The Gas station was closed, and it was pretty late, so we reclined the front seats and got our sleep on, it was pretty comfortable, as far as reclined car seats go. Got up early, omelet for breakfast and on the road by 7:30 am. We reached Dryden fairly late, as the time had also gone ahead by 2 hours since we left, and decided to push on to Thunder Bay. I drove, we arrived at around 3 am, lots of gas stations were open, we filled up, then pulled into a super 8 to get a good comfortable nights sleep. Not the case. We tried pretty much all of the hotels in Thunder Bay and they were all fully booked! Apparently there is the Junior World Baseball Championships going on this week, so it was packed! We found a rest stop at the Terry Fox memorial, and once again, slept in the car.

We left Thunder Bay pretty early this morning, made a few stops along the way for relief, and rock throwing, now in White River Ontario where the trip blog began, at an A&W getting some lunch. No cell phone reception, again, but the high speed is great!

So, going to hit the road shortly, head to Elliot lake, get a god nights sleep in a bed, ride some trails in the morning, and should be home for supper tomorrow! Off we go, Pictures and more stories to come, keep posted.

Happy Trails!

Canadian XC Nationals Day 2

2010-07-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

So, it was time for me to race, huh, been a while. I had pre ridden the course a whole bunch in the week leading up to it, and was feeling great. The night before was the post race party in the town of Canmore, and I headed out to party with the team. A few barley pops, and probably too late of a night and I was ready for bed. Woke up early, a little groggy, headed to the Nordic Center, set up the tents again, gave Jon Barnes' bike a final race check over, and headed out for a couple of warm up laps. I felt pretty good, but nervous, headed back to the tents to drop the i pod off, then off to the start area. Go Time!!

15 seconds to go, probably the worst 4 and most nerve racking 4 word combination I know of. The whistle blew and we were off. I hammered out of the start gate as hard as I could, and put on a 100ft gap in the first several seconds of the race, probably a bit too much too early. I came to the top of the second big climb in the start loop and was feeling pretty gassed. My plan was to get into the single track first so I could rip through it and not have anyone hold me up, my plan worked perfectly. At this time I was wiped, ready to throw in the towel, but I can't do that so I pushed on. I finished the first lap with a decent gap on second place, 2nd lap my gap grew, 3rd lap I widened the gap a bit more, then last lap I emptied whatever I had left in the tanks.

I ended up winning the Senior Expert category by 2:38, I was super stoked! It was amazing. I was sore as hell, tired, lungs full of dust but smiling like an idiot! Th course was great! Back to the cabin for a couple of post race bevies, a solid dinner, then a good night sleep. Pics and more detail to come when I come across them!

Tomorrow Pat and I will start our trip back to Toronto, hopefully will be back by about Thursday night, we shall see. Check back for more later.

Happy Trails!

Canadian XC Nationals

2010-07-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

Race Day! Rick and I got up early, and headed to the Nordic Center to set up the pits, which looked great with the beautiful mountain backdrop. Bikes were left in the trailer, and we headed back to the cabin to pick up the team for the race.

Emily Batty from Trek World Racing, and Mical Dyck from Trek Canada were the first of our atheletes to race in the morning. Emily and Mical both killed it, finishing 1st and 3rd in there respective categories, Emily Batty, U23 National Champion!

Next up were the men, Eric Batty, Adam Morka, and Peter Glassford all took off in the main pack. Eric was holding onto 4th for quite a while until he blew up in his 4th lap, he would finish 8th! Peter, first race back from a broken collarbone would finish up in 11th, and Adam Morka came in behind him in 14th, great results for the team!

Awesome day for the team, no mechanical issues, I was handing out cold water for them to cool down with as it was super hot, and very dusty! Pat Dennis from the Trek Store team had a solid ride, pulling ahead of Matt Paziuk, also from the store team, unfortunately they were lapped by the faster Elite riders, still a solid effort by both of them! Tomorrow Emily is off to Europe, and Peter and Adam will be off to Europe on Monday. I race tomorrow, as does Jon Barnes, hope it all goes well!

Day 5 DH training

2010-07-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today, Friday, being he day before race day for the team, it was a rest day. Rick Batty and I headed up the road past the Nordic Center to find a downhill trail I heard about. We found it off the side of the road up to the reservoir dam. The trail is called re-claimer, starts off the side of the rode, down some steep shale and loose rocks into couple of super tight flat loose corners. It gets steeper and steeper with some good chutes and into some good bermed corners. There are a couple of flat pedalling sections in the middle, then it starts to turn to dirt. More fast corners, a couple of good pre load jumps, and a god pedal out to the end, wicked fun! Rick was kind enough to shuttle 5 times, timing me on his stopwatch, but majority of the time I beat him down, finally got a time of 3:56 on my second last run, a little bit better than Ontario.

Rick dropped me off at the Nordic Center, I headed down a couple other small trails to the village for lunch, and rick went for a couple of laps of the course and then went to the managers meeting to find out the details for race day. Rode the DH bike back to the cabin, made some eats, did some final race preps to the bikes, and got a good nights sleep. Tomorrow should be a good day for the team. Keep you all posted!

Happy Trails!

Day 4, more riding

2010-07-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

Today was the same as the last, wake up, pancake breakfast, and head to the Nordic Center to ride the course again. The course had dried out quite a lot compared to the day before, and was much rougher from all of the riders using it and from all of the braking in the corners. We all did 1 to 2 laps, then headed into town and to a flatbread restaurant, and all had some flatbread pizzas loaded with veggies. We hit the farmers market in town after that and rode back to the cabin.

I worked on some bikes, rebuilding a fork, bleeding brake, switching some cables and housing, and cleaning all the bike, prepping them for pre ride the following day. We made a big Bson roast for dinner, and a huge salad. Then hit the sack, after watching Americas Funniest Home Videos, and called it a day. Tomorrow I will take out the DH rig and find some trails, should be a great day!

Happy Trails

Canmore Day 3, Pre Ride

2010-07-15T09:51:00.001-07:00

The view I woke up to this morning was spectacular! The sun was shining down on the mountains, melting pretty much all of the snow that had landed the day before. Pat and I geared up and pedaled over to the course, riding the trails we had found along the way. Adam, Emily and Rick drove over and met us up at the Nordic Center for a couple laps of the course.

The course has a phenomenal amount of climbing in it, well at least for the Elite guys and gals it does, I later found out that my expert category along with all of the other Sunday races get to cut out about 0.6 km of climbing, shaving about 4.5 minutes of the lap time, pretty stoked about that. After all of the ascending however, there is quite a lot of descending, which is just a blast! A few tight steep descents that can be a little tricky to navigate at speed on the XC bike, but non the less, it was tons of fun, and put Ontario to shame. It was a little nerve racking though, seeing signs that read "caution, bears in area" made you very aware of your surrounding, always peering into the woods to look for movement, but I still haven't seen a bear.

After everyone had finished practice we headed down into town back to the White Horse Cafe for coffee, the biggest sandwhich I have ever seen, and a pint (for me only), it was delicious, and so so filling. After lunch, Pat headed back up to do a couple more laps, Eric Eden and Rick went for a hike, Emily and Adam spun back to the cabin, and I drove back to get my downhill bike and see what I could find.

There was one trail we found that headed from the Nordic Center back into town that was super fun. It was like a mini four cross course, consisting of some nice jumps, whoops, and big berms. I sessioned the trail a few times before a local guy told me of a DH trails just up the mountain. After a quick tutorial of how to get up to the trail head, I was off, pushing y session 88 up to the highest point f the XC course. I found the trail he was speaking of, and dropped in. It was great for about 5 minutes. All kinds of rocks, roots, some tricky corners and some really fun natural gap lines, I was having a blast! Then, I took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and ended up riding 45 minutes of cross country trails until I finally reached the bottom, I was exhausted! I packed up the bike, headed back to the cabin, shoveled down a whole whack of food, and headed into town to do some laundry at the laundromat. We got back to the cabin at 10:15, waited for Peter Glassford to show up from his flight into Calgary, and all hit the hay. A solid day of riding indeed. Tomorrow I will go try to find some more DH trails and explore some of the XC trails pointed out to us on the map we got, and keep an eye out for bears!

Happy Trails

Canmore Day 2, Rain

2010-07-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

Woke up fairly early this morning, re packed the trailer, had breakfast and headed to our new lodgings in Harvie Heights. It was raining, miserably cold, and just all together a poor day. But, the mountains were poking through the clouds which creates such an amazing sight to behold. After we checked in, nobody else seemed to want to ride, can't blame them, it really was awful out, about 7 degrees and raining pretty hard at times. Pat and I however, deemed it a good idea to go for a ride, and what a ride it was. We decided not to head up the mountain as it would be far colder, and it was also snowing! We cruised around Canmore, exploring various trails, hiking paths, and random climbing challenges up some of the steepest grades we could find. After about an hour we stopped in at the White Horse Cafe for a coffee and to warm up a little, it was fantastic. We tooled around a bit more, went into a local bike shop, the bicycle cafe and grabbed a trail map which we will explore in the days to come. On our way back to our cabin, we saw a map and what looked like a trail off to the side of the highway, so we investigated. We followed the trails for about 2 km where it spit us out pretty much directly behind the hotel we are staying at, a much better route than taking the path along the highway.

After a good ride in the cold rain, followed by a warm shower, we headed into town to grab groceries for dinner, had a feast, and headed off to bed looking forward to drier, warmer weather the following day. Tomorrow we will go pre ride the course, should be a whole bunch of fun.

Happy Trails

Canmore Day 1

2010-07-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

So, we arrived in Canmore after a flawless rive from Edmonton, a couple stops for gas, and lunch, the trailer was packed to the nines which put fuel consumption at an all time high. We had 14 bikes, 3 huge bike bags, and all of our gear bags, so pretty close to capacity, plus there were the 4 tents in the back of the truck, and myself, Pat, Emily and Adam inside, loaded!

The weather was perfect when we arrived, sunny, no menacing clouds, just a little a little cool up at the Nordic Center up the mountain, where the race is being held. We walked around and stretched out the legs for a little while before heading down to the village to check into our Hostel we had booked. Parked the trailer, unloaded all or bags, got into the room and realized there wasn't going to be enough room for all 8 of us. We frantically searched the Internet calling pretty much every place in Canmore trying to find a chalet or lodge type accommodation that would fit all of us comfortably. After several phone calls we found one, sort of. A place called Gateway inn, in Harvie Heights, about a 5 minute drive from the town center, so it was still relatively close, and we were all able to comfortably live together.
Today was a rest day, no riding just lounged around and played on the Internet. We had taken the direct route to Canmore, where Eric, girlfriend Eden, and Rick had taken the scenic route through Jasper, so we had some time to kill before they arrived. The four of us headed into town to grab some dinner, a little late after being sidetracked for quite some time. We went to a pretty popular pub type place, which also happened to be a micro brewery, god stuff! We all had big salads, and I had the tasters sampler of their micro brewed delicious nous. It was a tray consisting of all 11 of their in house brewed beer, in small shot type glasses, which equaled out to just over a pint, they were great! We walked back to the hostel, greeted Eric and the gang, then hit the sack in our bunk bed dorm room accommodations, rain on the horizon for tomorrow, we will see what happens.

Happy Trails

Canmore here we are

2010-07-12T22:39:00.001-07:00

So after a roughly 4 hour drive we arrived in Canmore, checked into our hostel, realized it wasn't going to work with all the bikes, gear, and 2 more riders showing up on Wednesday! We called around and apparently July is a busy month. Anyways, on the way here we were caught in some lightning and thunderstorms, as well as heavy rains and really heavy winds! We spent a few hours trying to find new accommodations, then headed out for dinner. Now back at the hostel, ready or bed, a real bed, not an air mattress like the last 2 nights, life is good, except its cold and rainy. More words and pictures tomorrow!

Happy Trails

Edmonton Canada Cup, Race Day

2010-07-11T21:39:00.000-07:00

Race Day, it begins! Rick and I headed down to the event at 8:30 to set up the Trek Canada pit area to get it ready for the race and the team to show up. The tents and banners went up without any problems, and it looked great! We hopped back in the truck, and headed back to the house to grab some breakfast, the team, and head back down to the pit area to warm up and get the bikes ready to race. Emily, Eric, and Adam were scheduled to lead the children's race off at 12:30 for two short laps. After that, they were back to the trailer, some final quick adjustment, warm up then to the start line for race time!

The course was drying up a lot, and it was time to race! Rick was in the first tech zone, and also doing the feeding for the team. I travelled to the very back end of the course to man the second tech/feed zone. I hopped on Peter's 9.9 elite hardtail to have spare parts for the team in case there was an issue. On each handle bar I would have had 4 wheels, plus a pack full of tools and other parts, but, Kirk was nice enough to carry 4 wheels over for me to lighten my load. It took about 15 minutes to get over to the tech zone, once there, I set up the wheels, in case one of the racers had a flat, it is much easier to change the whole wheel than to change just a tube, and waited for the racers to come by. None of the team riders had any technical problems, just overheating which required a dousing of water to cool down! Pat did two laps and had some cramping and lung issues, the course had many tough quick climbs and roots sections which takes a lot out of you, much more tiring than a traditional "endurance" type course. The course was getting pretty muddy, chewed up from all of the riders going through.

So, in the end, Eric ended up finishing in 5th, Adam in 7th, and Emily in 2nd in the women's elite class. It was an awesome race, a wicked venue and some great results for the team. We packed up after podiums, Eric and Adam signed some posters, Pat and I walked the course and took down a ton of tape used to mark off the course, we headed back and feasted on pizza and left over Kokanee from the beer garden which was for sale at the race. The bikes are clean, and we will be ready to head out to Canmore tomorrow morning, with a quick stop for a ride on the way! More to come on the stats of the journey, check out some more pictures from the race!

Eric, beer in hand, no worries though, it was never opened

Going to hit some downhill trails, and hopefully find some dirt jumps as well while in Canmore, more later.

Happy Trails!

Edmonton Canada Cup, Practice Day

2010-07-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

So, It rained last night, a little bit this morning, the course would be wet, if we rode it early in the day, which we did not. I woke up around 8:00am to a light drizzle, and decided it was a perfect time to wash the truck and trailer from the drive out, as the rain had probably moistened the bugs fused to the trailer enough to have loosened them off slightly. Equipped with a brush, hose, and a bucket full of soapy water, I managed to get all of the bug carcasses off of the trailer, the front of the truck, and gave the truck a light washing as well, to make the trailer a little more presentable down in the parking lot of the race course.

The team woke up as I had finished washing, and we all sat down to breakfast, each having our own personal meals, oatmeal, muesli, granola, yogurt, whatever, I opted for scrambled eggs. After breakfast we all sat around in the living room playing on our laptops, updating blogs, e mails etc, and counted 9 apple products in the room at one time! Remarkable! Pretty much everyone has a Mac Book, there was an i phone, i touch, i pad, too many i things floating around to keep track of, good times.

After a light lunch we headed to United Cycles to pick up the teams plates and check in for the race. The plan afterwards was to go to the farmers market close by to grab some fresh meat and produce for dinner. Unfortunately, we circled the block, parking lot, and back lane ways for a while before realizing that we could not fit the truck and trailer anywhere. So, we opted to just head to the course to pre ride instead, as it was nearing 3pm. The course had dried up quite a lot. Pat had arrived there before us and had already done a lap, his bike was decently muddy but not the worst i have ever seen. Adam headed out shortly after and came back a noticeably cleaner bike than Pat's. Eric did a lap on his Top Fuel, came back and opted to ride his Elite 9.9 hardtail with a smaller tire, the XR1's. Between his two laps you could once again notice how much drier the course was getting. I headed out for a quick lap as well, and returned almost spotless. The course was going to be perfect for the race.

We washed the bikes, packed up the trailer and headed to Safeway to grab some food to cook up for dinner. We grabbed Salmon, Gnocchi, pasta, and tons of veggies. Adam and I cut up all the toppings for the salad, the he made a marinade for the salmon, which was super tasty, tossed it in the oven, and while we waited, Pat was on gnocchi and pasta duty. Everything was prepared, cooked, delicious, and ready to devour! Kirk has an amazing place with a huge deck in the back yard, and since the weather was nice we were able to sit outside and eat, it was perfect!

Here we have the top of my head, Serena, Pat, Kirk, Adam, Emily, and the legs of Rick!

Kirk is one of the main organizers for the race, and his Shop River Valley Cycles, has obtained many sponsors for the race, including kokanee, and being the biggest retailer of Troy Lee Designs in Canada, Troy Lee designs. So has supplied him with the beer for the beer garden (40 24 packs of cans), and TLD has supplied their brand new retail trailer which is only a couple of weeks old, and this will be its maiden voyage. The trailer is full of hats, T shirts, Jerseys, and Red Bull all for sale at the race, The interior is amazing, as is the paint job on the exterior! Below are a few pictures, the trailer party outside of Kirks house, The fold up wall of the TLD trailer, and Kirks truck, full of cans of mountain barley water, Crankworx edition!

Well, that's about it for now, race day is tomorrow, I will not be racing, nor will Mical (recovering from the BC Bike Race), Peter (Recovering from broken collarbone, but will be at Canmore next weekend), but Adam, Eric, Pat, and Emily will be out flying!

More tomorrow.

Happy Trails!

3400 km across Canada to ride "The Don"

2010-07-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

We (Myself, Pat, Kirk, Emily, and Adam) went to pre ride the course yesterday (Friday), to see what we were in for. The trail is located in essentially downtown Edmonton, much like the Don in Toronto. After starting into the trail, it felt like I was in Toronto riding the trails I ride pretty much every day. The terrain is very similar, just a little more rooty, actually a lot more rooty. But, it had many of the same attributes as the Don, same smells by the river, the odd bit that is always muddy, and several short steep climbs followed by a short decent and flat twisty single track. The course is really good, quite a bit better than the Don in many ways, but still, it was funny to think that we had driven across Canada to ride the very trails we had just left behind.

We all did one lap with Kirk leading, otherwise would have been severely lost in the inner city trails of Edmonton. The first half of the trail was gravelly with some very tight corners and some fast decent's, wicked! The second part was where all of the roots began, the Superfly 100 seemed to be the ultimate bike for the course, the wheels were big enough that they didn't get caught up in any of the gaps in between the roots, and the 100mm rear wheel travel made it easy to float over the tops of the roots. The course also led us pretty much through peoples backyards, down a lane way, and a windy climb up a road, a very well put together course given the location of the trails. Pat and I ended up doing 2 more laps before heading back home, which was good because the humidity made it hard to breathe properly, and we had each drained 3 bottle of water.

That night Adam and Emily coked up a feast. We had curried chicken with rice and veggies, it was delicious! Today it is raining but is supposed to warm up a bit which will dry up the course. This afternoon we are going to a farmers market to get some meat for dinner, then go to the trail, set up the tents, and do some more practice laps, should be another fine day in beautiful Edmonton.

Happy Trails

Toronto to edmonton, and everything in between!

2010-07-09T16:37:00.000-07:00

We (myself and Patrick Dennis) departed the Trek Bicycle Store in Toronto at 10:30am, ran a couple of errands and hit the 401 Westbound at 11:00. We had a trailer full of bikes, a full tank of gas, GPS, and 3400km to cover over the next three days, we seemed to be prepared.

For those of you who have never had the chance, or needed to drive across the country, I would recommend it, it's a fantastic journey with lots to see. But, you have make sure you are prepared for how far, and how long the drive really is, because 3400km is a long way, and that's just to Edmonton! The longest and most somewhat aggravating part of the drive was through Ontario. Once we were far North it was nice to see all the different scenery and get a bit of a break from the everyday life of Toronto. It is a very beautiful and scenic drive, however, when it takes about 15 hours to leave the province, progress begins to feel somewhat non existent.

The drive was going very smooth, getting decent mileage considering we were pulling a fairly large trailer through the mountainous ranges of northern Ontario. The gas prices varied from average to "full service" rates of $1.21/L!

Along the way we saw lots of interesting things and many ridiculous conversations and covered hundreds of topics, all the way from stuff, to things. We listened to a lot of music, a bunch of hip hop, which brought up a very interesting question, what exactly is a "shorty"? Well, here

is the dictionary definition:

Shorty |ˈ sh ôrtē| (also shortie) noun ( pl. shorties) informal

a person who is shorter than average (often used as a nickname). • [often as adj. ] a short garment, esp. a short dress or nightgown
So, going by that definition, I have no idea what any of these new rap artists are talking about orreferring to when using the word. Anyways, a little off topic, back to the trip.
We realized that Thunder Bay was probably a bit of a stretch, so, White River was the first place we stopped for the night, a small town. The place was called PAWS Cabins, to do with bears, not dogs, and it was very nice. We had our own separate cabin, a full kitchen, dining area, and 3 beds, all for $55 for the night! Look it u if you are ever heading out this way.

Before we reached our destination however, we had to deal with some pretty serious fog. Visibility was pretty low, it was nearing 10:00pm, and there were moose warning every 100m or so, so the conditions were far from ideal. This picture on the left pretty much sums up the driving conditions, ridiculous!

Day 2:

We woke up early, got a good breakfast into us, and hit the road, this time shooting for past Winnipeg, a short 1000 km or so drive. The weather was perfect for driving, clear skies and not a cloud in the sky.

Today would be a good day, as we would finally be exiting our wonderful province of Ontario, a great landmark and feat!

We crossed the Manitoba border, bypassed Winnipeg and stopped at a small town call Portage La Prairie. We grabbed a shotty motel for the night, as we had rolled in around 12:30 am, and grabbed some sleep. We woke up to find the trailer had been blocked in by two cars, so after some maneuvering we hit the road again. Now that we were out of Ontario it felt like we were finally making some progress.

Before we reached Portage however, we decided to stop at a small town called Rossport by the advice of the waitress who served us breakfast earlier that day. It was a really nice small town, big sand beach and dunes that travelled far out into the distance . The idea was to go for a swim, but after walking out about 300 ft or so, and still being barely knee deep, we decided to just turn around and head back to the car, it was a nice break from the drive.

Day 3:

Prairie time! Not a whole lot to write about here, don't get me wrong, the prairies are beautiful! You can see for miles and miles, you can almost see the curvature of the earth, and can track storms approaching from a great distance. The only thing is, its very very flat! We were determined to reach Edmonton on this day, and it was perfectly feasible. The gas consumption went up due to some very strong headwinds and a slight increase in speed, which meant we had to stop to re fuel a little more often, but we kept on going.

Along with just wrapping your head around the fact that you have to drive so far, there is also the time change which one must take into account as well. So at one point it seemed as though we were chasing the sunset. It stayed in front of us forever, plus the time would change back by a total of 2 hours when we were into Alberta, making it still light at 10:00 pm! we stopped for dinner in some small town, at a restaurant called "Red Bull" and advertised on the big sign out front was "ribs, steak, and pizza", a good place to stop for dinner. After sitting down however, the menu seemed to be more extensive than we had anticipated. We were able to get a chicken fajita style wrap with minestrone soup, mind you the soup did have beef, sausage and pasta in it, but was delicious.

So, road trips usually involve buying or doing lots of silly things, and here is one of them. I saw it, and Pat bought it for me, purely for the photo ops. It is a caramel corn, corn cob. That's right, caramel corn glued together with delicious caramel in the shape of a real piece of corn. It was stale, hard to eat, and incredibly delicious! There is video of me eating it on Pat's blog.

Pat has recently become a non vegetarian, he used to be, but now he's back to meat. I say this because he has never had beef jerky before, and coincidentally, neither have I. So, we bought some at one of our earlier stops, and then continued buying a bag at nearly every rest stop we stopped at. Beef jerky is delicious, and because of the super high sodium content, you don't have to pee as frequently! Aside from that, it is very high in protein and low in fat, a perfect snack food.

So, full of dinner we pushed on through the remaining 285 km to Edmonton and ended up arriving at our destination around 11:00 pm with an insect mass murder crime scene on the front of the truck and trailer. We are currently staying with Kirk, an event organizer for Alberta MTB'ing and a friend of Emily Batty (Trek World Racing) and Adam Morka (Trek Canada), who are both also staying here after a last minute flight to come race.

So, 3400km conquered with no issues or any heart aches, i'd say it was a successful trip, so far...

We will pre ride Friday, check the course out, set up the tent saturday for the "official" practice day, and then sunday for the race, where the Trek Canada Team will be out fighting for the top spots, excluding Peter who is sitting this race out still recovering from a broken collarbone.

Well, it's definately nice to not have to wake up tomorrow and drive for another 11 hours! Big thanks to Kirk for the accomodations, Emily and Adam for making the introduction, Pat for helping with the driving, and Barry for making it all possible. More to come.

Happy trails!

Edmonton, we have arrived!

2010-07-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

So, we made it, 3 days, 15 stops for gas, about 3400km, and a very dirty bug spattered truck and trailer! We are staying at a friends of Adam and Emily, who turns out to be from Hamilton, so that is very convenient for us, a huge help!

I will have to elaborate on the trip in detail tomorrow when I am not so tired, but we're here, everything made it safe, and we will pre ride the course tomorrow. A 1200km day of driving, shared with Pat, calls for a cold beer and a good nights sleep, i'm off.

Happy Trails

To Edmonton!

2010-07-06T21:49:00.001-07:00

So, set of for Edmonton today, left the Trek Store with Pat Dennis at about 10:30 this morning. After hitting the bank, and conveniently not having my debit card returned to me by the teller, and my lack of checking to make sure I had it back, we were on the road. Smooth sailing heading out of Toronto, no traffic or any issues, Pat and I stopped a couple of times for gas and some snacks, beef jerky and some trail mix mainly, and coffee of course and pushed onwards.

We swapped driving at Sioux Ste Marie, and have now stopped in White River at a sweet cabin motel for the night a $56, sweet! No cell phone reception but the internet connection is stellar!

The truck (Honda Ridgeline) has been handling great! The trailer is no problem for it at all! At one point while coming around the lake, actually most of the drive, the fog was so thick it was hard to see what was coming up ahead! Pat slowed down the pace a bit for safety reasons, and the fact that there were moose warnings every half a km. Luckily, no issues with moose, or is the plural form meese? Who knows, but at least we didn't hit any!

So, rest time now, up early tomorrow, off to thunder bay where they hopefully have a CIBC branch, then on to Winnipeg and see where we go from there!

Happy trails!

24 Hours of Summer Solstice

2010-07-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to join a 24 hour team with Nick Poissant from the store, I accepted the offer and had no idea what to expect. After hearing about last years' 24 hour race, or more like 12 hour due to the rain, everyone was hoping for a dry weekend.

The race goes a little like this. There is a mass start for the first lap which kicks off at noon on the Saturday, then when the rider comes in they pass off a magnetic chip card to their teammate who is waiting, and so on until noon the next day. Each lap was about 16 km, so lap times were anywhere from 43 minutes, to over an hour and a quarter.

We showed up in the pouring rain on Saturday and the other guys on my team, "team juice", were expecting the same outcome as last year, getting rained out and ending the race early. But, the weather was on our side, after a smart call by the guys from Chico Racing, the race was postponed for 2 hours, which ultimately saved the course and the day, so great job by them!

Our team did well, I was feeling great. putting down some fast lap times which was great. I did a lap at 3 in the morning, when I woke up later I had no recollection of my lap at all. It is so mentally straining to push yourself for 16km when you are half asleep at 3am, one of the hardest things I have ever had to do!

Long story short, our team pulled out some great laps, I ended up doing 5, along with Nick and Kenny, while the other two members did 4, and we ended in second place! It was tons of fun, celebrated with a couple of "pops" and went home with medal, exhausted.

Team Juice

It was a super fun race, great team to ride with, and an awesome experience, thanks to the guys for the invite, and I'll probably try a couple more, and recommend it to everyone to try, its a great way to get into racing either casually or seriously.

Off to Edmonton next for some tech support at the XC Canada Cups for the team, check back for updates!

Happy Trails

Kelso Dh O Cup #3

2010-06-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, Kelso, back to the good "ol go to course for Ontario. I'm not putting the place down, it really is a fantastic place to ride, for both XC and DH, and I do recommend riding there, $7 for the day isn't bad!

I pre rode the course on Thursday with my friend Tom. It had just rained so the course was slow, tall grass and soft jumps! I was running mud tires which worked really well, they were cut down quite a bit so the rolling resistance was pretty minimal. Practice went well, no crashes or mishaps, my hand was hurting pretty badly, as was my wrist, so I did a few runs, but it felt great to get back out on the big bike.

Race day was interesting. Tom crashed in his first run, ripping his arm open and receiving several stitches, not a good thing for him, or for anyone to see, sort of brings down down the confidence level watching a friend crash badly. So, that aside, practice went on, felt pretty good, crashed once and landed on my right wrist, the god one, and put a pointy rock into the side of my knee. There were two rocky sections on the course which I was riding very conservatively as to avoid a crash. The rest of the course was pretty flat with some corners and lots of pedalling.

Race run came around, I hammered out of the start gate, smashed the first berm then jumped into the woods, sideways. I headed straight for a large tree, and came to a halt. Trying to pedal out of a dead stop is difficult, specially when in one of the harder gears. So, I pedalled out of the corner, over the humps and out into the open. The mistake in the corner was probably about 3 seconds, which on a 1:12 course is a lot of time! I rode smooth through the rocks, not fast just controlled and smooth, didn't want to crash. I ended up finishing 14th out of 18, which is isn't great, but I was just happy to be back on the downhill bike and back in the scene, it was wicked! Rob Fraser (Primary/Trek) took the win, with Sidney right behind him, which is wicked to see, super close! The Session 8 was riding great, I was riding smooth, barring the corner mistake I could have been top ten which would have been great, but now there is a big break until the next O Cup DH, so plenty of time to practice, train and heal!

happy trails

Hardwood Hills XC Canada Cup

2010-06-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

Some of you may not know, but aside from all of my racing I am also the mechanic for the Trek Canada cross country race team. The Hardwood Hills Canada Cup presented by The Trek Store was the first event that I have been present at for mechanical support and team pit set up.

We arrived Saturday morning to set up the tents and unload the new trailer. This was the first time we had ever set up our pit area, so it took some time to get it all organized and set up

the way that we liked. After some time it all came together and looked great! The tents were a huge help as it was extremely hot, sitting around 32 degrees or so, but under the tents it was actually kind of cool, so a big help for me and all of the team. The banners created a barrier to ensure nothing would go missing and to provide some added shade and security. If you look in the back right of the tent set up, the trailer is somewhat visible, designed by Nick Poissant of the Trek Store, it looks great! I'll have to get a better picture of it.

A little video by Matt Paziuk of me building up the teams new Bontrager XXX carbon wheels

yeah i'm pretty quiet

The team had a days worth of riding to

do with hundreds of kids who had signed up to ride with them. Following the riding they had meet the team and autograph session. The line up to meet the team was huge, which was great to see. Kids were getting posters, racer cards, and all of there cycling equipment, including bikes, signed by the team! it was great to see the following the team already has.

The race went well for us. Also returning to race was recent addition to the Trek World Racing Team, Emily Batty. Her father Rick and myself would tend to the tech zones on the race course, where a rider can drop in to get there bike fixed if there is a mechanical issue, flat tire, shifting problems due to a crash, whatever they need. On the course there were 2 tech zones, so we would have our tools set up at each one and transfer between them. Only one problem the whole race which was good, Mattew Paziuk came through with a twisted front derailleur and couldn't keep it in the big ring, so after some precise hand bashing, I straightened it off and he was on his way. The heat was rediculous! riders were dropping out cause they couldn't push on and their muscles were cramping. Rick and I were handing out litres of water just for the riders to dump on themselves to cool down, insane!

Emily Batty took the win in the womens elite class, with Trek Canada rider Mical Dyck close behind in second. In the mens our riders placed very well. Adam Morka took 4th place with Peter Glassford right behind him in 5th and Eric Batty rounding it up in 7th.

The mens elite podium all 3 of our guys made it up there!

Women's elite podium

Jon Barnes of the Trek Canada Team took the win in his category by over 3 minutes! Matthew Paziuk, Tim Carleton, Brendan Matheson, and Patrick Dennis of the Trek Bicycle Store Race Team finished 40th, 41st, 45th, and 50th respectively. With 14 Elite racers not finishing the race, and battling the heat, these guys did a great job!

All in all it was a great race, the trailer and pit area worked and looked great! The tem finished really well, and I ad a blast sitting on the sides for a change. Next i'm off to Edmonton and Canmore for the next Canada Cup and then National Championships at Canmore, should be a great trip!

happy trails!

My Rides for 2010, Check It!

2010-06-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

So, here is what I have been and will be riding for the 2010 race season. For the DH i will be on a brand new Session 88, size large, last year I had a medium, which was super nimble, but got me into some trouble when things got high speed, it was a little twitchy. It weighs in at just under 40 lbs fully stock, with a slightly heavier chainguide and pedals than what the bike comes stock with. And, for the XC I am on a Superfly 100, 29" wheels, 100mm of travel front and rear, full carbon fibre frame and a geometry that matches my DH bike, it handles all of the descents and technical sections like my session, but way lighter and faster on the climbs, the superfly weighs in at around 24 lbs. Here they are, enjoy!

Dagmar DH Practice and Mini Race

2010-06-06T19:36:00.000-07:00

I headed up to Dagmar a little while ago to get in some practice runs on my new Session 88. It was a perfect day, pretty hot, but not a cloud in the sky. The guys who have been building up there have done an incredible job! There was such a variety of trails you could ride all day and never get bored, awesome. The trail we were riding on this particular day was a brand new fresh cut trail. There were a lot of off camber sections (where the terrain slants away from the direction you are riding) which made it a little tricky because the bike wants to slip down the hill sideways, throw a couple jumps and rock gardens in there and you have yourself a wicked trail.

Through the "mine field" before crashing

photo by Robert Scadding with some HDR effects

The earlier runs went really well, having tons of fun, getting used to the new bike. took a quick break for lunch then headed back out for some more runs. It was all good until I got to the hardest part of the course, a jump line into a rock garden that some would refer to as a mine field. My front wheel hit off of the side of one of the larger rocks, which sent me a little sideways in the air, right into a nice big tree. I hit the tree left hand first, then shoulder, bounced off of it, landed and then continued to roll. I got up, confused and dazed, sat in the wood and assessed myself for damage. I felt not too bad, but my hand was killing. Once we had packed up and were heading out, I decided I better get my hand checked out by a professional, so off to the hospital again. Turns out I fractured my hand behind the knuckles on my pinky and ring fingers, not so good, time for another cast. So, i'm out now for a little while, looks like no Mont Tremblant for me, first time in several years, ah well, things keep moving along, probably a good sign that I need a little break.

It was a great day of riding, the bike was feeling great, and the trails were amazing. Hopefully I will heal up quickly and get back out again!

happy trails!

Albion Hills XC #2

2010-06-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

Snow, cold temps, primo parking spot, and more delicious pancakes.

Once again, we started off the day with pancakes at Patrick Denis's house before packing up his car and heading up through the snow on the way to Albion Hills, yes, snow! We arrived just as Trek Store Owner Barry Near was leaving. Since his race was earlier in the morning he was able to snag the closest spot in the entire lot, so we stole it from him. Walking to the start/finish area in my winter coat, I was running through excuses as to why I wouldn't be able to race due to lack of motivation to ride in such cold temperatures. In the end I did race because it would have been lame excuse in the end.

Race time rolled around, after getting in a good warm up, I put on whatever warm riding gear I had brought with me, which happened to be knee high ski socks and some base layer I had dug up, looking as what some may have called ridiculous, I was warm and ready to race.

Due to my win at the previous XC race I was called up to the line to get the best start. I put it in in the big ring and hammered up the first climb to the top, perhaps a little too hard! halfway through my first lap I felt like I couldn't keep pushing it, so I eased off a little to catch my breath, popped a gel, and then kept going. The rain had made the course a little tacky in some areas and pretty sloppy in others, so it was an interesting combination. This race Brendan Matheson's (Barrie store) parents were nice enough to feed me, so big thanks to them, and the encouragement each lap, it was great. On my last lap I was starting to feel better so pushed a little harder to the end, and took the win once again. Another awesome finish!

Big thanks to Barry Near for all the support, and the parking spot, Brendan's parents for the feed, and Pat D for the pancakes and transportation.

happy trails.

Kelso Dh Pre Ride

2010-06-03T05:18:00.000-07:00

I headed up With Tom K (Silent Sports Devinci) to pre ride the first DH race of the year at Kelso. This year they had decided to run the course from several years ago which in my opinion is a much better course. It incorporates the same rock drop every year, but instead of a 35 second pedalling section, it is cut down to about 10, then goes into a rock drop corner into a high speed fade away drop, lots of fun.

Practice went really well, I was feeling great, unfortunately not on my bike as it hadn't arrived yet, so I was borrowing an old Santa Cruz V10 from Kyle Lockyer (Silent Sports Devinci), so big thanks to him. I had the course dialed in and was confident for Sundays race. Heading back to the car I took a pretty bad spill when my front wheel sunk into a big mud puddle hurtling me hands first into the ground. After sliding on my shoulder and head across patio stones I got up, pretty shocked and a little confused as to what had just happened. I gave it some time, but something wasn't feeling right. I went to the hospital and after several x rays and a CT scan, it turned out I had over stretched the ligaments causing some bits of bone to break off in my wrist. So, looks like I would miss race day for the first DH O Cup of the year! too bad, but several more races to come, should be good for Albion Hills XC O Cup in two weeks, lots of rest until then!

happy trails

Ontario Cup XC #1, Mansfield

2010-06-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

The Ontario Cup XC series kicked off once again with the first race at Mansfield. The weather was perfect and I was able to pre ride the course twice before race day, which was a big help! Come race day I was feeling very prepared. The day started off with a pre race pancake breakfast at Patrick Denis's place before packing up the car and heading up to Mansfield. Pat's girlfriend was nice enough to tag along and "feed" (hand us a fresh water bottle) every lap, for me it was 4 laps, and for Pat it would be 5 since recently upgrading to elite.

We arrived, walked around and chatted to some people, then geared up and warmed up. Sitting in the start line waiting to go I was oddly nervous, I had a lot of adrenaline flowing through me and was super excited to be back racing. My tactic was to sit back and see what the others riders pace was like. We climbed up the first section of fire road, got into the single track, I was sitting in 4th, exited and then feeling like the pace was a touch slow I took off.

The course was tons of fun, and suited my riding perfectly. A mix of some super fast descents, tight single track, and some pretty good climbs, it was a perfect course for me. I passed most of the classes in front of me by the end of my first lap, kept pushing on pretty hard to keep the lead. Near the end of my last lap Quebec rider Rafael passed me followed closely by Trek Canada rider, Eric Batty. I let them pass, and pushed on to the finish line where I ended up taking first place in my Senior Expert category! I felt great, all the winter training had definitely paid off as I took the win by about 2 minutes and 30 seconds, I was stoked!

It was a great way to start off the season, big thanks to Patrick Dennis for the energizing pancakes, and to Laura for the feeds! Next race is Kelso Dh #1, should be fun.
happy trails!

Temporary Set Back

2010-02-04T16:21:00.000-08:00

So about three and a half weeks ago now, been a little slow with the updates due to my downed computer, I broke my arm riding at the very place I had just been raving about, Joyride 150. It was a Sunday, January 10th to be exact, I had just finished work and decided to head up to get a few hours of riding in before they closed. I arrived, signed in, payed for my pass and started riding around 7 o'clock. I warmed up on the XC loop, pump track, then headed to my favorite area, the advanced jump line. I jumped for about an hour taking breaks for water periodically then wham! I was really thirsty, so I sat down for a while and re hydrated. I went to the pump track to do some marathon laps to really work myself. As I rode more, and started to go around faster and faster, some new gap lines on the pump track were opening up. I dropped in, came off the back berm, pumped over the first hump, railed the corner and gaped from the following hump to the corner after it (if u have ridden there it may make it easier to understand what I am describing). I tried to land in a manual and hold it to the next step up roller, which I did. The problem was when I hit the roller in a manual, it sort of killed most of my momentum, and combined with the force I put into the bike trying to bunny hop the step up, it propelled me forward and down very rapidly. I tried to hold it to the bitter end, which turned out to be quite bitter as a matter of fact, hit front wheel first and came down on my side. I impacted with the side of my right forearm first, followed by the outside of my right knee, and the inside of my left ankle, and then continued to inflict more damage by sliding on my face. Thankfully however, I always wear my full face helmet, which I encourage everyone to do especially beginners, when riding these types of obstacle, so my face was left un harmed.

At first I didn't think anything was wrong. My knee was killing me from the impact of my 200lbs body combined with gravity coming down on it, but my arm just wasn't that sore. Then once the adrenaline had worn off, I straightened it and tried to rotate it. Not happening, to the hospital we went. Thankfully I was there with a friend of mine, Kevin Norris, who drove me to the hospital where we endured a 6 hour wait. With shooting pains firing up my arm, and it slowly getting stiffer and more swollen, the wait was getting pretty annoying. I had deducted that I had only dislocated it because I could still somewhat move it and it didn't feel as if it was broken, but then I realized that I am not a doctor and probably shouldn't be giving myself self diagnosis. X-ray time came, which was the worst time of life in recent memory as my arm had stiffened and swelled to the point where it was completely immobile. "Just twist it like this", the doctor would say, as he grabbed my arm and did it for me. I held back from saying what was actually on my mind as it may of made him more angry and possibly just hitting my arm with a hammer to check if it was broken instead of the x-rays.

The final verdict; I had broken the head of my radius right where it goes into the elbow socket, clean in half as well, a fine break I may add. So, into a cast that wraps around my thumb and goes right up to pretty much my armpit, and leaves my arm bent permanently at a 90 degree angle, which royally sucks. I took 1.5 weeks off of everything following the break, then started back at work, and more importantly back on the trainer again. I can't wait to see how much my cast reeks after 2.5 weeks of absorbing sweat, should be a good day!

On the trainer with the cast, watching Top Gear, awesome show!

So, I will go back to the fracture clinic at the end of the week for a follow up and some more x-rays to see how it is healing, and hopefully I can start physio soon and get back on the bike, and head up to Joyride again! Until then I will stick to riding the trainer in my basement, thinking about the season ahead, not unlike my good friend, and team mate Patrick Dennis who is down in Tucson Arizona, recovering from a recently broken collarbone and is in the same boat as me. Happy healing and a quick recovery for us both!

Keep you all posted on the recovery,

until then,

Happy Trails!

Joyride 150 Indoor Bike Park

2010-01-14T16:18:00.000-08:00

WOW!
I had no idea what to expect when I went to Joyride 150 the first couple of times to help out with some of the building process, I was blown away then, and since it's been completed and I had a chance to ride, wow, it's incredible. Mark, Scott, and everyone else involved have put in countless amounts of time into ensuring the riding is top notch first of all, and safe as well.

I have been about five times now, and every time I go it's like the first time. They have turned a 90,000 sq/ft building into an indoor mtb'ing/bmx'ing haven, just imagine riding in a t-shirt or jersey throughout the winter in Toronto! Amazing. The park includes a 768m long cross country loop complete with log roll overs, drops, rock gardens, some small jumps, and a challenging climb right at the start. Other features include two pump tracks, a BMX street park, foam pit, beginner/intermediate "skinnies" section, and a beginner/intermediate/advanced box jumps section (my personal favourite).

Staying low on the advanced jump line

This will definitely prove to be a very handy tool in staying fresh over the winter, combined with some trainer time at home of course, should be top notch for next season. I've had a blast the few times I've been and get exited to go back with every opportunity to go that comes up. Interested in mountain biking? check it out, they have riding for all levels of riders, and I am sure you will have as much there as I did!

happy trails

Orangeville 4X

2009-12-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I decided to head to Orangeville and try my hand at 4X racing. I have never tried one before so I had no idea what to expect. A 4X race is like a bmx race where riders line up across a start line and wait for the start gate to drop, which happens at random, and take off in a sprint to the finish involving jumps and corners, except there are only four racers.

After a lot of practice laps the races began. This was my first time ever doing a gate start, and I was surprised at how much more difficult it was than I had anticipated. In the gate a rider must balance with their front wheel against the gate, look ahead at the lights, and listen for the beeps before the gate drops before putting down full power and trying to get in the lead. After the first three heats I had enough points to go onto the main (finals) where I placed a respectable 4th, which in 4X is last. I was happy with my result and had a lot of fun on the track all day, and definitely learned a thing or two. Downhill racer Rob Fraser ended up taking the win, while cadet downhill race Kyle Sangers took 3rd.

Thanks to Tom K for the drive up and the epic one on one battle in the second round, and big thanks to all the event organizers, volunteers and track builders, it was an awesome event and I wish there were more this year.

happy trails

Don Valley Video

2009-12-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

I headed in to the Don trails the other day with my Trek Jack hardtail, a video camera, and a tripod. It had rained the day before and with the leaves that had fallen, it was pretty slick. I had a great ride, got a little loose, and clocked a little bit of footage. Here is what came of it (click on the link) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvjtmMVtiJo

Season End Photo Wrap Up

2009-12-05T19:49:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone, so as the season comes to an end I have been looking back through some of the photos that were taken of me this year at various events. And here they are:

Thanks for everyone who was out at the events snapping these and many other amazing pictures, it is always great to see.
happy trails

Shooting with Marc Landry

2009-11-18T12:54:00.000-08:00

Recently I had a couple of opportunities to do some shooting with local photographer Marc Landry. I had worked with Marc several years ago for the filming of a ride guide episode. He is a super nice guy and easy to work with, and is focused on capturing riders from the local Ontario scene.
The first occasion I had to shoot with him was on Thanksgiving weekend at some local Collingwood trails. A large group of us showed up to ride and have a little end of season battle, while Marc stood around patiently taking pictures as we all flew by. We had our race, I finished up in second getting beat by local Taylor Rowlands, and we ended up our day with a little photo shoot in one of the last berms of the trail. Check out the full story and pictures at: www.fasttimesinc.com/blog

A little style out of the berm,
Nice shooting Marc!

The second day of shooting we did was a few weeks ago down at the local Dirt Jumps in the Don Valley. I called Marc to see if he was available to come shoot a group of us for the day. Unfortunately only myself, Rob Fraser, and Jamie Tice were able to show up after some last minute cancellations, too bad. I started warmng up a bit, hit a jump and whipped out the back end of my bike a bit too far, landed sideways and folded my wheel in half resulting in a crash, a good start to the day. A quick drive to the Trek Store and a new wheel and I was back to the jumps in no time, ready for more. Rob Fraser showed up a little later, we sessioned for a few hours and called it a day, again with some wicked shots.

Whip the hip

For a full report of the day and more pics check out www.fasttimesinc.com/blog
Thanks to Marc for taking time out of his day to come shoot and document myself and all ofthe riders who participated, great riding by everyone who came out as well!
happy trails

2009 Season Recap

2009-11-12T04:59:00.000-08:00

The 2009 race season has ended, and with winter fast approaching the time of trail riding is coming to end, depending on how much snow blankets the trails. The 2009 season was a great success for me with several podium finishes both in the downhill and cross country categories, which showed me that hard work and proper training really pay off. Over the winter of 2009, before the season started, I underwent reconstructive shoulder surgery due to ongoing dislocations from the past years, so completing a season injury free was a huge relief. The season started off well and went a little something like this:

Uxbridge Icebreaker XC (long course) - 7th place Elite

Mansfield O-Cup XC #1 - 1st place Sport
Kelso Conservation Area O-Cup DH #1 - 3rd place Elite

Albion Hills O-Cup XC #2 - 1st place Sport

Horseshoe Valley O-Cup DH #2 - 6th place Elite

Red Bull Monte Descende at Mont-Tremblant - 4th place (With teammate Cam Jette)

Mont-Tremblant Canada Cup DH #1 - 22nd place Elite
Hardwood Hills Trek Store Canada Cup XC - 1st place Sport
Kelso Conservation Area O-Cup DH #3 - 3rd place Elite

Camp Fortune O-Cup DH #4 - 27th place Elite

Bromont Canada Cup DH #2 - 49th place Elite

Blue Mountain O-Cup DH #5 - 3rd place Elite

Massif Du Sud Canadian National DH Championships - 32nd place Elite

Mountain View O-Cup XC#6 - 4th place Expert

Sir Sams O-Cup DH #6 - 3rd place Elite

Kelso Conservation Area O-Cup XC Provincial Championships - 2nd place Expert

Camp Fortune Quebec Challenge DH - 15th place Elite

Camp Fortune O-Cup DH Provincial Championships - 1st place elite - Champion

Ontario Cup DH Overall points - 2nd place Elite

With 18 races completed it was a busy, but successful season with an final race that could not have gone any better. This was the first year of the Trek Store Downhill Race Team consisting of myself, Ben Ellis, and Ben Reasbeck. With injuries aside I feel it was a very good season as a team, riding together, racing, and learning from one another. Our team ended up finishing 7th in the overall standings for points, which is a great result. I would like to give a big thank you to Barry Near of the Trek Bicycle Store of Toronto (http://www.trektoronto.ca/) for assisting the downhill team for the 2009 season, WREX Clothing (www.wrexracing.com) for helping us look sharp with our team kits, and thanks to all the event organizers (especially the volunteers) and all of you for checking in a keeping up to date with my progress, thank you.

With snow on the way my focus will now be turned to the indoor bike where I will begin training and preparing for the 2010 season to improve my downhill results and consistency, and upgrade to Elite for the XC series as well. With goals set high for next year, this winter will prove to be a very tiring and challenging one.

2009 season pictures to come!

Happy Trails!

Ontario/Quebec Challenge and Provincial Championships 2009 (Quick Recap)

2009-09-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the Ontario/Quebec Challenge and Ontario Provincial Championships at Camp Fortune in Quebec. I will go into more detail at a later time, but basically it was a two day race with a mixed field of Ontario and Quebec racers. After Both days the total points were tallied and whichever province had accumulated the most points would take the win. I am proud to say that Ontario won the challenge. On Day one I ended up finishing 15th with a wee incident involving a washed out berm and a tree, oops. Day two of the race was also our provincial championship race, I had the course dialed in practice and felt really good leading up to the race. I put down a pretty flawless run and ended up taking the win, making me the 2009 DH Champion of Ontario, pretty awesome. Rob Fraser won the race on Saturday so Ontario had the fastest times of the weekend which was also very cool. I took second place in the overall falling behind Rob Fraser who took the series. Great job by Pete Appleton, Lee Allen and their whole crew for an awesome event, all the volunteers and anyone who had a helping hand in the event.
Needless to say I am overjoyed with the way things turned out, and I could not have had a better finish to the season.

Check back for a few other races I still need to post and a full recap of the weekend.

Happy Trails.

Canadian National Championships

2009-08-20T16:40:00.000-07:00

The biggest Canadian race of the year. Typically held at the world renowned Mont Saint Anne in Quebec, which is one of the longest running World Cup tracks ever, they had switched venues for this year, 2009, to Le Massiff De Sud, also in Quebec. The hill was was sort of South East of Quebec City in a cellular "dead zone", in other words it was in the middle of no where. Not knowing what to expect we packed up Collingwood local Taylor Rowlands truck and headed East once again. After finding a small motel 10 minutes from the hill where the owner demanded we pay cash and didn't speak an ounce of English, we checked in, unloaded the truck and headed to the hill for a course walk. Although it wasn't Saint Anne, it definitely was worthy of holding Nationals. Never being there myself, along with pretty much every other non Quebec rider there, it was wicked to see a new venue and one of the best tracks I've ever ridden. It was rocky, fast, steep, open, tight, lots of corners, pretty much everything you would want in the "perfect" downhill track. We hiked up and saw a few riders getting in some early practice runs, it was sick to say the least.

Once riding the track during practice I understood just how steep and tech it was. Out of the start gate you head down a rough, high speed, bumpy rock face cliff edge whatever type of deal into a muddy rocky corner, sweet. From there it opened wide up into the open with a nice jump into a berm and a loose corner to a next jump and back into the woods again. After a couple of high speed berms and a fast fireroad it was time to get to the steep part of the track, which by race day was completely different with ruts getting super deep. halfway down there a was a wicked step up jump to a big booter where you landed onto a big hill, then down a steep rocky mess to a rocky berm and back down some more steep rocky sections before entering the last woods section which was high speed and loose loamy soil with some tough turns thrown in. Exit the wood, hit a berm to a rock pile across the ski hill then pedal to the final step down before the finish line, simple right?

Some shots taken during practice thanks to the awesome photographer at Lama Cycles

Just to make things fun, it was raining, wet, and muddy, yet the course didn't seem to get effected by it too much. Some ruts got slow and deep, but traction was there the whole time, pretty nuts. After my plate ripped off on the highway on the way to race day practice, I received a new one, 5 digits higher than my previous, darn, now I had the 50 plate. A couple of sketchy runs later and I felt as though I had the course pretty dialled. But then there is always race run, which doesn't always work out the way you want it to. I entered the first wood section crewed up the corner, exited wide and clipped a tree, I hopped back on and tried to pedal but feeling discouraged I just rode out the rest of the and finished near the end of the pack which wasn't a surprise after the way the first turn of the course went. I also forgot to mention that because it was the National Champs riders must do a seeding run to place into order for their start times, which is really cool because it almost gives you 2 race runs, and a time, so you know where you can make up a couple of seconds and what you have to do to improve. My seeding run was decent finishing near the number 20 position, unfortunately my race run was not an improvement. The track was absolutely incredible, best race course I have been on in Canada and hopefully they will host another race there next year. This race Primary Racing Trek's Dean Tennant finish in the top 5, amazing, great work by Dean.

Race run

"It's not over until it's over" and how true this was, not in regards to the race, but us trying to get back to Toronto in Taylor's (who finished 16th, pretty sick) Chevy Z71 pick up truck. we were doing really well until about Kingston. Out of nowhere the throttle wouldn't work properly, the RPM's were out of control and we were barely able to push 110 km/h. We stopped switched drivers and kept going after letting the truck cool down for a bit. Further into the drive we were only able to go about 60 up hills and hold about 80 on the flats, sometimes barely creeping past 20 on the big hills. with a funky smell and a very hot floor we stopped and called CAA. A flatbed showed up a couple hours later and towed us, four people and a truck full of gear and bikes, the remaining 120km or so way to my house in Toronto where we arrived at about 7am. Taylor called CAA yet again and got a tow all the way to Collingwood where he thought he might have had to take the ole truck out to the back of yard and put a couple slugs into her, fortunately it just needed a catalytic converter.

The ride to Toronto

The race was incredible, the track was sick, and I hope to return to Massiff again as it was a memorable experience.

Happy Trails

O Cup DH #5 Blue Mountain, Collingwood

2009-08-20T16:13:00.000-07:00

After Quebec I headed back home for the next round of the Ontario Cup DH series at our local DH lift access hill, Blue Mountain. With any Ontario track we do the best we can in terms of length and difficulty, but given our terrain, which lacks altitude, there is inevitably going to be a decent amount of pedalling, and Blue Mountain was no different. A whole new track was run this year compared to last year, tight trees at the top with a couple steep bits and some good corners thrown in made for an interesting run. Pedal back up/across an entire ski run and you were almost in the next section which consisted of two grassy loose turns where you then exited through the woods and sprinted across a long flat section to the finish line where you felt like you were going to puke your lungs out of your heart as they both exploded from your chest, sorry for the graphics, but its true.

The weather was really good, sun and hot temperatures made for a dry race track, and the need to consume gallons upon gallons of water. Practice runs went well, it was tough to get the tight sections dialled, a lot of corners that looked the same made it also difficult to memorize the course.

Pedalling in one of the flat sections Leaning into the first corner of the grassy turns

after Saturday practice, the gods graced us with a small amount of rain, which made the first couple runs on Sunday morning a bit interesting as Blue Mountain is pretty much all clay. As the day went on and the sun came out, the course began to dry and return to the same state as the day before. Race time came around, it was sunny and warm, a welcome change from Quebec. I set off on course and had a pretty clean run all the way through, except for of course the tree I clipped, yeah, but things happen, I hammered the pedalling sections best I could, and ended up finishing in 3rd behind the legend Justin Brown, and Ontario superstar Rob Fraser which I was very happy with.

Another podium finish, stoked!

Another O Cup in the bag, and another podium finish which is always good, and round 5 of the series is over. I hope to head back up to do some training sessions before the end of the year because it such a fun and seriously fast mountain.

Happy Trails

Bromont Canada Cup

2009-08-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

The next stop of the year was the always incredible Bromont Quebec, know for having some of the best downhill riding on this side of the country, it never disappoints. The set up was the same, leaving too much to do at the very last second. We headed out of Toronto a little earlier than usual to make sure we could get in a good amount of practice before race day. We arrived in Bromont with enough time to hike the course before getting some dinner and checking into the bike friendly "Le Menhir" hotel right by the hill.

Practice runs went well in the typical wet conditions we always seem to get at the Canada Cups. The course was pretty much the same as the year before, with a couple nice additions like a big wooden berm and a sweet road gap, which was pretty easy aside from the sketchy rooty run in to it. The day ended and the course was getting worked in nicely, we cleaned up and headed to the hotel to do some bike work and grab a bite.

Pre race day wheel build, and dinner, mmm!

After a decent sleep we arrived at the hill for race day practice. Apparently it had rained hard the night before as some of other teams' tents had collapsed under the weight of the water that accumulated. Luckily the TREK tents were holding strong, maybe a couple slight tears, but still standing, point TREK. Onto the riding. I geared up and headed to the lift for run number one of the day, maybe pushed it too hard, who's to say? But I did end up hitting a rock which sent me flying off my line and directly into a tree with my good shoulder about 4 seconds into the run. As I sat off to the side watching no other rider suffer the same fate, I contemplated what had just happened and wondered if I could hold on to he bars anymore cause I couldn't feel my hand. After a good long while I hiked back up to the start gate for a second attempt. The run went well but it was definitely a struggle to hold on to the bars. I got to the bottom, rested for an hour and did another run to see how it was, not much better but manageable.

Race time came around, with the weather not being too bad as I remember, except at the top. The time came to get on the lift and head to the top of the mountain for the run that counts. Once at the top a new weather system rolled in which made it hard to even see the start gate from a meter away, and with it came some good 'ole rain, boo yeah, time to race. I started off on course with a decent run, my grip had come back but the shoulder was sore as hell. I made it past the tree where I had had the incident earlier in the day and kept on going. I cleaned the tough bits really well, hit the road gap with some speed, leaned into a berm further down from it just before you had to make a slight right turn through a tunnel, got a little drifty in the tunnel, hit the side and exited without my bike. I scrambled back in, grabbed my bike, tried to straighten my stem and brake levers with no avail, I carried on to the finish and almost crashed again off the last jump because my bars were pointing entirely in the wrong direction. A little disappointed with another crash during my race run, I watched the rest of the field come down, including fellow Ontario and Trek rider Rob fraser who ended up finishing 5th, which is amazing, and had the chance to stand alongside World Cup racer Sam Hill on the podium, too cool.

With another weekend in Quebec under the belt, we packed up and headed back to Ontario for the next round of the O Cup series. Bromont is always a wicked time, and this year was no different despite some incidences, maybe next year.

Happy Trails

O Cup DH #4, Camp Fortune

2009-06-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

I didn't finish last! Now that you know the result I'll go through the rest of the weekends events.
We arrived in Ottawa Friday night and checked out the sights before checking into our hotel for the night. Camp Fortune is about 25 minutes from Ottawa just inside Quebec. We arrived for Saturdays practice, set up the tents and hiked the course to see what it was like. I had never ridden this course before so it was cool to see something fresh. The course was fast and rocky with not too much pedaling except the usual sprint to the finish. With high speeds and big rocks things could go very wrong very quickly if you weren't on your line, which Ben Ellis found out for himself at the end of Saturday practice. After a few hours at the hospital and several X-Rays, Ben was released with just a beaten and bruised body and some good pain killers. We set up camp in the parking lot and got some good sleep for the following days race.
The weather on Sunday was once again hot and sunny, with a small amount of rain overnight which helped to settle the dust down a bit. After a few practice runs I was feeling pretty confident and anxiously waiting to tear it apart race run. After a long lunch break and a good rest, it was time to gear up and head to the top of the hill for the run that counts. The Elite category was huge this weekend with several riders coming from Quebec, pushing the category from the usual 15 or so riders to 33 Elite riders. I warmed up at the top, watched the riders go one by one before me, put on my goggles and sat in the start gate. The clock counted down, my heart was racing with excitement, the clock hit zero and I was off. Hit my lines in the first section well, hopped into the first woods section about 8 seconds into my run, put the rear wheel down on a rock and heard that awful sound known by so many riders that instantly makes your heart sink to your feet, a pinch flat. With a flat I continued on trying to push it as best I could, making lots of noise going through the rocks as there was no cushion between the rocks and the metal that was my rim. I crossed the line, didn't get passed by Rob Fraser, the rider behind me, and I didn't finish last!

A disappointing race but a fun weekend, I think my first ever race run flat which was too bad, but the course was awesome, the weather was great, and all in all it was a solid weekend. Bromont Canada Cup is next up on the schedule, which is happening this weekend, so hopefully things go better there. Happy Trails.

O Cup Dh #3, Kelso Conservation Area

2009-06-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

For the third round of the Ontario Cup DH series we were back at Kelso, on a whole new track. After some plans fell through for transportation up to Kelso on practice day, I was able to grab my sister's car and get up to Kelso for some late practice runs with Ben Ellis. After walking up the course and inspectecting it we hammered out a couple runs in the hot afternoon sun and got some lines dialed. The course was fast and flowy up top with some nice jumps and corners. Halfway down you headed through a shikane in the open grass, which was pretty loose, and headed into the rock chute which was surprisingly muddy due to run off water. We packed up, called Ben Reasbeck and told him the scoop as he was unable to make it, and headed back into the city.
Sunday morning came around faster than I had expected. Kyle Lockyer (Silent Devinci) showed up at my place with the trailer at 7:30 am, we packed up quick and headed to the hill. To get to the pit area one must cross some train tracks which have no bridge over them, and the gates are controlled by the hill and close at 8:00am. We did not make the cut off. With tents and racks and banners in hand we crossed over the pedestrian bridge and lugged everything to the tent zone, earlier departure next time. We set up, registered, and began our pre race practice runs. Ben Reasbeck had also shown up but had missed practice the day before, he hikes up as Ellis and I took the lift up as the sun was beating down on us pretty hard. Practice went well, no crashes ot issues, cleaned the bike, checked the start time and hiked up to the watch the action. Ben Ellis came through the rock chute looking really smooth and fast, and rightfully ended up in 2nd spot in his category. Watched a couple more riders go through, broke the cowbell a few more times, then headed back to the tent to gear up and get my race on.
At the top it was pretty hot. All the Elite guys were warming up and spinning out there legs preparing for race run. Collingwood local and fellow rider Andrew Guataco went down hard enough to have the course closed which was a bit of a worry, he ended up being a bit bruised up and was in goood spirits after the race. I was called up to the start gate, the timer started it's count down, beeped, and I was off. Nailed the first berm and hammered the pedals into the first wood section. I landed on the rocks, got on the gas too soon and clipped my pedal on a tree once again, sweet. I exited the woods and pedalled hard to the step down jump, onto the next double and into the rocks. I held off the brakes best I could, cleaned it, fired onto the road back on the gas, out of the woods and sprinted to the finish line. Dean Tennant (Primary Trek) was sitting in the hot seat, I missed his time by 0.6 seconds, so close. Dean's fellow teamate Rob Fraser would come down and beat his time by 0.3seconds, putting me into 3rd, and the top three elite riders within the same second, very close times. Not far back from me was Kyle Lockyer, and following him Tom Kakamousias (both on Silent Devinci). Ben Reasbeck would have a sketchy run through the rock chute and finish mid pack. The weekend was awesome, the venue was great, big thanks to everyone who had a hand in organizing the event, and making sure it ran well. The Trek Store Team had a good showing, and with the next race at Camp Fortune, there are more rocks than trees which should hopefully play out in my favour. Great work evryone, awesome race, and we'll see you out there at the next one. Happy trails.

me almost killing a snake (thanks Monika Luebke), and a good one
of the rock chute race run (thanks Peter Kraiker/studiofstop.com)

Hardwood Hills Trek Store Canada Cup

2009-06-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago the Trek Store held the third round of the Canada Cup XC Series at Hardwood Hills in Ontario. I left Toronto with Pat Dennis of the Trek Store nice and early to make it to registration by 8:30 (pre-registering is highly recommended) for my 9:30 start. It was early, and surprisingly cold further North of the city, but the parking lot was packed and the youngest category of the day was already racing! I went to registration, signed some forms, changed and rode around trying to stay warm and get some blood flow to the legs. Not sure of the speed my category would pull of the line, I decided to hang back a few riders just to pace them and not blow myself up off the start. The start signal went off and we were away. The course starts off pretty flat on a long fire road until the first hill shows up, which is where the field first starts to break up, then the rest of it is pretty much all single track through the woods, fast flowy and a bit technical, perfect for me. I was sitting in about 4th up until the first hill, the leaders shifted down and spun up the hill, i downshifted hopped out of the saddle and powered up it, maybe a bad call so early in the race, maybe not. I got to the top of the climb, turned the next corner up another small climb, crested the hill, looked back and I was alone. The fun was about to begin. I got into the single track first and stayed in the lead until the end. With so much single track there was very little room for resting, just on the descents, so it started to get a little tiring by the last lap riding at race pace. I came down the last section, which was routed through the four cross course, pedaling into the awesome headwind, came around the last corner and sprinted to the finish for the win. Three wins earned me enough points to upgrade to the next category, expert which is the category Pat Dennis is in, so for the next race I will upgrade and push myself even harder. I had some lunch then headed to the feed zone to hand Pat a fresh bottle for his laps. Pat unfortunately had some stomach problems and had to give in after his second lap, dry heaving is apparently not much fun. We hung around for the pro race to watch the fastest riders in Canada hammer out five laps. Emily Batty took 1st in pro women's, Cam Jette from the Trek Store Provincial Team took 3rd in pro men's followed by Adam Morka, Peter Glassford, and Eric Batty. Barry Near put in a solid 2nd in the old guys category, and Tim Carleton finished up in the top 30, great results for The Trek Store, and an awesome event/venue. I'm going to skip out on the next XC race, but will be at Buckwallow in the expert category, on top a busy DH schedule in July mainly in Quebec. See you out there, happy trails.

A couple of shots taken by Robert Scadding

Canada Cup #1, Mont Tremblant

2009-05-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Mont Tremblant Quebec, some love it, most hate it, I fall into the first of the two categories. The course is long and rough with a decent amount of pedalling, this is what some may call a "man's" course. Half way up the mountain is the start gate, and at the top is where we get dropped off by the gondola. So, just to get to the top of the course, riders must descend about 10 minutes of twisty, fast, and loose fire roads before they can disembark on course.

We (Kyle Lockyer, Mitch Forbes, Kye, and myself) left Friday morning at about 7 a.m, hooked up the trailer, filled up the truck and hit the 401 Eastbound to Quebec. Not knowing exactly where we were headed we punched in the destination to the GPS and we were off on what looked like an adventure. A ferry trip, a gas stop, and several windy dirt roads later we were in Tremblant about 2 hours faster than what it usually takes, thanks Garmin. Checked into the hotel, unpacked the trailer, got some lunch, and then walked up the race course to see what treats we were in for.

A few shots of the course, the bridge was new from previous years which improved the river crossing

Emptying the trailer contents into the hotel room, the trailer didn't quite fit in the garage, the village from the hill

It was nice arriving so early on Thursday, it gave time to relax and chill out in the village as apposed to our usual arrival time of about 4 am Friday. Reasbeck and I got up early Friday morning to meet the event coordinator and set up our tents in the pit area. We found Pierre, set up the tents, got the bikes out on display and chilled until registration opened at noon. we all registered and practice began. The course was pretty much the same as the last time I was there (2 years ago where the course claimed my shoulder for the 4th time) with some added berms and some smoothed out rock sections, this course was going to be fast.

The tents all set up, and the collection of bikes belonging to the Ontario Crew

A link to a helmet cam video of me doing a practice run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6dNtiWt-98

Saturday was again another practice day which went well. I was trying to not do too many runs just to avoid risk of injury and tiring myself out. Everyone had a good day, Ellis was riding well, unfortunately Reasbeck had a bit of a crash which left him pretty sore. Saturday was also the Cross Country Race where there were several Trek Store Team Riders competing. Emily Batty ended up winning the Women's, a couple of the men's elite riders did not finish due to mechanicals or illness issues. Peter Glassford flatted and worked his way back up to a great finish. Later Saturday evening from 8-10 pm was the first ever Red Bull Mont Descend which was a relay style race consisting of one downhill rider and one cross country rider. The downhill guys had a course they would ride down to the change zone where their cross country partner would get tagged and set off on their course and vise versa. I was teamed up with Cam Jette of the Trek Store Race Team, and Ben Reasbeck was teamed up with Tim Carleton also on the Trek Team. I have to say first off what an amazing our two cross country guys did. After demolishing themselves earlier in the day during their race, they came back out after minimal recovery time to hammer themselves into the ground a little more over the course of 14 or so 5 minute laps involving a good amount of climbing, great work. The race went well, Cam and myself were sitting in third for a while and ended up in 4th. Ben and Tim did a great job as well and came in at a solid 8th. On my 10th lap or so I came into one of the final jumps, slipped a pedal coming off doing about 60 km?h or so, landed and dug a pedal into the ground and proceeded to rag doll for what seemed like far too much time. I got up, hobbled back on my bike and cruised very slowly to the finish. Hopped on the lift, started to feel a bit better by the time I was at the top, and hammered out a few more runs until the clock had stopped and time was up. As it got later, it got much darker. They had done a great job of lighting up the course, but there were areas that were still very dark. When they said "light recommended" I of course decided it was a good idea to ignore this suggestion, I realized around 9:15 pm that i had made a terrible decision. The event was wicked, nobody hit any of the numerous deer on course, and I was tired, sore and ready for bed.

Red Bull Champions Me through one of the dark corners Reasbeck on his way up for another

Cam Jette and Tim Carleton

Me off the final Red Bull Rock Reasbeck pinned in the dark Me off the final fountain gap

Sunday rolled around which meant a couple final practice runs, a bit of relax time, hotel check out, oh yeah and race run. The course hadn't really changed from Friday till today, if anything it was tackier and faster. Ben Reasbeck was feeling Saturday's crash pretty good, did one run and decided to call it, really too bad. Ben Ellis came down in his class and claimed the hot seat but missed out due to the announcer speaking French and all, he ended up finishing 7th! My turn, Saturday's crash took a bit of a toll on me, just some deep bruising, but I was in decent shape. I headed up, cruised down the fire road nice and easy to avoid crashing or any sort of mechanical issue that may occur. I really didn't know what to expect. With a possible concussion I warmed up the legs, hopped in the start gate, countdown began and I was off. First wood section came up, had my lines down then in a muddy corner I sketched out and hit a tree with my and came to a stop off the bike, great start. I hopped on, and gave it my all to the finish line. I go into the final rock section "Brazil Rock" and heard the Ontario Crew heckling yelling at me I assume to go faster, couldn't tell, I pinned through that section and came out to the last big pedal to the finish. A good friend of mine Mitch Forbes had made the trip out to race from North Vancouver, but due to a bad dirt jumping crash and a fractured collar bone, was not able to race. I heard him screaming from hundreds of feet away, when I got to him he was already running alongside the track pulling me in to the finish, I hit the final jump, crossed the line and that was that. I ended up in 25th spot with a 4:27 which I was very pleased with, all things considered. It was great to get back out East again to ride some real mountains, and also to get the session 88 opened up. The bike keeps n blowing me away, it simply is incredible. Great weekend, had tons of fun, thanks to everyone who helped out, around the pits setting up and keeping it clean, and everything else, Kyle Lockyer for the wicked transport set up. The Team had a good weekend, despite a couple injuries. Reasbeck will be back on his feet in no time, my tweaked body is ready for more, and Ellis will be ready for our next Eastern Stop in a month, Bromont. Till then I have a Canada Cup XC race coming up at Hardwood Hills, and another round of the Ontario DH Cup series at Kelso, Happy trails.

Me pinned down Brazil Rock Mitch Forbes

during my race run The Legend

Thanks to all the Photographers who were out, especially Andrew Gautaco, Peter Glassford, and Dean Tennant for

snapping some wicked shots.

O Cup DH #2, Heights Of Horseshoe

2009-05-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the second round of the Ontario Cup downhill series at the Heights of Horseshoe. I headed up Friday morning to get in some practice because I was unable to make up for Saturday, which worked in my favor because the weather turned sour for Saturday's practice. The course was different from last year which was cool to see. Instead of a woods section the builders had added in some big "old school" grass corners which added a new element seldom seen in an Ontario downhill course. Practice runs went well, and I headed back to the city.

I headed up Saturday evening to Collingwood to stay at Ben Reasbeck's place, as it is much closer than where I am in Toronto. We were up early Sunday morning to pack the trucks and head to the hill to set up the tents. The wind was intense, and the temperature had fallen to much more than zero, it was cold. We got to the hill, registered, and started doing some race day practice runs. The last section of the course had turned into a messy slow mud bog which took up about 20 seconds of the run, and it was no easy task. Practice went well with no implications. The mud bog was destroying people's bikes and their energy, so I opted not to ride it until race run as it was pretty simple, point and shoot.

Practice Run Footage

Lunch break ended about 12:30 and the racing had started. With three more hours until race runs we did what we could to stay warm, which included taking down the tents to avoid completely destroying them due to the wind, also to allow more sun to hit us, which helped slightly. As more racers came down our start times were fast approaching. Ben Ellis had a tough run and ended up in 13th. It was time for Reasbeck and I to head up to the top to get ready for our race runs. With a thick coat and a wind breaker on the wind was cutting through me a little less. Reasbeck's time had come, I wished him luck, he wished me luck and he was off. He gave it everything he had out of the gate into the ridiculous headwind and fired out of the first woods section with speed to spare, it was good. A few more riders and it was my time to go. The wind was insane, the clock beeped down and I hammered out of the gate as hard as I could yet felt as though I was going nowhere. I was having a decent run but felt I could have dug a little harder to pull out a bit more power. I entered the last mud bog section and wished that I had done at least one run just see what I was in for. I leaned back and dealt with what was ahead of me. I pedalled through the hub deep mud to the finish line and with a final push, crossed the sensor into 6th place. I was a little disappointed with my efforts but was happy overall with the run I had. Reasbeck had blown out a big grassy corner pushing it a bit too hard and went down, so he lost a bunch of time there, and finished up a little further down the list. It was a great weekend, we had our new team kits which were looking great thanks to WREX, with a couple mishaps we still had a good race day.

Next week it's off to some real mountains, and the first Canada Cup at Mont. Tremblant, keep you posted.

O Cup XC #2, Albion Hills

2009-05-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the second race in the Ontario Cup XC series, and it went down something like this.
I headed up early Saturday with Pat Dennis from the Trek Store to pre ride the course to see what was in store for Sunday. As we headed out of the city we hit some of the worst rain I have seen in a while, visibility was low and the rain was coming down hard, the first thought in our heads was "sweet, this is going to to be fun". We arrived at Albion just as the rain was starting to let up, changed into riding gear and headed to the trail head. Just as we started in the skies opened again and didn't let up until we had finished. The course was wet, which made for some annoying mechanical issues with the bikes, brakes failing, chain sticking, and every moving part just sort of not working too well. We dried up, headed back to the store and got the bikes prepped for Sunday's race day.
I headed up early Sunday with Barry Near to get there in time to register and for his 9:30 start time. The weather was much better than the day before, a little cloudy in the morning but the sun was starting to show signs of life. Due to the rain the previous day the organizers decided to re route the course to avoid demolishing the freshly built track they had planned on running, to another more frequently used trail. I hung around to watch the 9:30 start, went to the feed zone to give Barry a new water bottle for each of his laps, and after the first saw just how much the rain had effected the trail. The riders were coming through absolutely covered in mud, cursing the long climbs they had to run up because the mud was impossible to ride through. Barry finished 3rd, and it was time for me to get ready for my start.
I suited up, cruised around to warm up the legs, and lined up at the start. Due to my win at the previous O Cup, I was called up the front of the pack, which put a bit pressure on me, cause I then felt I had to defend my title. "30 seconds, 15 seconds, GO!" It was on, I pushed way to hard off the start and was pretty tired by the top of the first climb, but pressed on. Like I had heard from riders in the earlier start time, the first half of the course was dry, and the second was a mess. I started in on the second half and found this to be very true. There were a handful of sections that were completely un ride able, and the ones that were ride able taxed the legs more than usual. I finished the first lap in good time and climbed up through the feed zone for my second. I reached the second half again and found the conditions to be a bit better. On one descent however, the volume of riders had cause ruts to form in the flat of a fast, long fire road conveniently placed between two ponds. I came flying down, hit a rut and decided to go for a swim. I flew into the pond on the left, landed on my side still clipped in, unclipped and stood up in waist deep water, all while thinking that alligators and crocodiles were coming for me, which of course they were not. I carried on and finished up lap number 2. Lap 3 was incident free until near the end where my quads started seizing up due to the running through the mud. I held off the rest of the pack and ended up winning my second XC race of the year, and got a sweet purple leaders jersey. Barry found me, congratulated me on another win, as did Pat Dennis and Tim Carleton who had shown up for their 1: 30 start time. I changed and headed back to watch the Elite riders go.
The rest of the Trek Team did very well. Emily Batty and Adam Morka had returned from racing world cups over seas. Emily won her category, Peter Glassford was 2nd in men's Elite, followed by team mates Adam, and Eric Batty. Tim Carleton was barely nudged out of 9th and finished up 10th, Pat Dennis had a good run finishing up 11th in expert.
Another Venue, another awesome job by Chico, and a handful of great results for Trek Store Race Team. The next race is at Hardwood Hills at the end of May, stay tuned.

O Cup DH #1, Kelso, Race Day

2009-05-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

After practice on Saturday I was pretty anxious to get back there Sunday and see what kind of a run I could put together. The set up for the weekend is as follows, Saturday is open practice and course inspection for everyone, as well as registration. Sunday morning is practice from 9 am until 12, where each rider has to do 2 mandatory practice runs, then from 12 until 12:30 it is pro only practice where we are able to put together a full practice run on a closed course which is crucial because during normal practice you will find yourself having to stop for other riders and not getting to put together a complete top to bottom run. There is a 1 hour lunch break then races begin. The Pro Elite class is the last to go at around 4, so staying warmed up and focused during the break is key.

Ben Reasbeck and I hung around the pit area for a bit, then hiked up the course to watch some of the riders in the other categories go. One rider in particular, a young ripper that rides with Ben in Collingwood, Caleb Glithero who finished 2nd in Cadet. Then a few minuted later Ben Ellis came down looking good and finished up 4th in his category, missing the podium by less than a second. Reasbeck and I headed to the tent, geared up and walked to the lift to get up top for our runs.

After warming up the legs and getting into race mode, it was go time. Ben wen t ahead of me and looked good out of the gate and through the first rock section. I pedalled around a bit, got some blood flowing to the legs then got in the start gate. The countdown began and my heart started racing. The commissar called out the times, "15 seconds" "10 seconds" "5 seconds" "GO", it was on. I hammered out of the gate nailed my lines through the rocks, then off of the drop i started to pedal too soon after landing. My feet blew off the pedals, i smashed the inside of my ankle of of one of the pedals, and came down hard on my saddle, luckily I didn't crash. I finally got my feet back on the pedals just in time to hammer through the long pedalling section where a friend of mine was waiting with fireworks in hand, I blew through the war zone he had created and nailed the the rest of the course. Exited the the last woods section and pedalled to the finish line the best I could to a very respectable 3rd place finish. The adrenaline faded and my ankle started to swell up to an unhealthy size, and the pain started. I iced it, talked to the other riders, then Barry Near showed up to check out the action, a little behind schedule, still good to see him out none the less.

I was happy with my run, except for the little pedal slippage that went down. Ben Reasbeck ended up finishing 7th on a course that didn't suit his riding style, so great job by him. It was an awesome weekend, a great race, and a wicked way to kick off the 2009 downhill race season. Great job by Pete Appleton, Lee Allen, the OCA and all of the other people that helped with the race, and Taylor Near for coming out and snapping some pics. See you all at the next one.

O Cup DH #1, Kelso Conservation Area, Day 1

2009-05-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today was the kick off to the Ontario Cup Downhill series of 2009. The first venue, as per usual, is the always fun Kelso. Today was practice day. I had arranged with Ben Reasbeck to pick me up at my place this morning to load up all our stuff, team tent and other pit necessities in his truck then pick up Ben Ellis. I woke up early, had a wicked breakfast, made a coffee, and then carried all of the stuff out to the curb to await his arrival. Ben then pulls up in his parents Jetta, this is going to be a tight squeeze. No tent, no pit gear, and just enough room for us and our gear. We piled in and headed west for Kelso.

The day started off nice, it was fairly warm, a little windy, and hardly a cloud in the sky. We all hiked to registration, took care of the paper work, geared up back at the car then started our hike up the course to the top. The conditions were perfect and the trail was in great shape. Big thanks to all the volunteers that came out and helped build the trail, great job.

After inspecting the course, discussing line choices, and heckling unsuspecting riders we hadn't seen over the winter, it was time to descend. It took a couple of runs to get warmed up and into a groove, once there the lines were appearing more easily, and the rocks were flying by going virtually unnoticed. Taylor Near from the store lent me a new HERO cam he had just picked up. After a couple of full runs I strapped it on and headed down the trail.

A cool perspective of a run

The day went on and the pace was picking up. We took a lunch break for a bit, re fueled then went back at it. Riders were starting to fatigue, and the weather was beginning to go sour. In the first technical rock section the phrase "rider down, rider down" was heard over and over again. One such call was for local ripper and friend Harold Woolnough. He unfortunately went down hard and will be out tomorrow with what seemed like a broken wrist, wish him the best. My final run was loose with a couple close calls, so I decided to avoid injury and call it a day. Just before this Ben Reasbeck, who was riding very strong all day, had gone down pretty hard off the famed rock drop, no major injuries, just some brake line damage which was fixed later in the evening. Ben Ellis had a little run in with a baby tree earlier in the day which left him dirty. As for myself, a couple of close calls, but for the most part I felt good all the day, but am not entirely looking forward to the 30 second flat/uphill pedalling section, my legs are burning! Today felt good, I will carry it over to tomorrow and put down some early consistent practice runs, then after lunch it's race time.
Big thanks to Reasbeck for coming down from Collingwood super early to pick up myself and Ellis. It was good to see everyone ripping today. Check back tomorrow for a post race post.

Mansfield XC O Cup Wrap Up,

2009-05-02T20:14:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I participated in the first XC Ontario cup race of the season at Mansfield. After pre riding on the Friday with Tim Carleton and Patrick Dennis from the Trek Store, I had an idea of what was to come for Sunday in terms of pace and difficulty. The weather had been unpredictable for the most part and by the time we arrived Sunday morning it was no different.

Half an hour or so before my race the skies opened and it began to pour, just as Barry Near was on his way to second place. I sprinted around to get my body warmed up, as that seems to be the thing do before a race, then lined up in the start zone alongside the other riders in my group. The Marshall fired the loudspeaker, and we were off. The course starts off with a long gradual climb, then rewards you with a nice fast downhill, and into a whole bunch of fast flowy single track, where my style of riding would pay off. I managed to get into the single track in first position, and proceed to wash out in the very first corner and eat some very wonderful Ontario dirt. A few riders passed me, but not for too long as I was determined to make the time I had lost back up. The trail opened up again and I got on the gas and made my way to the front. For the next two laps I felt like there was someone constantly following me, which of course there was not. I held off the other riders and ended up winning the race which was really cool on several levels. The imaginary rider behind me caused me not only to win, but win by a margin of about three minutes and thirty seconds, which I was amazed by. Apparently my off season training has been beneficial. Big thanks to Barry Near for helping me out all winter and keeping me on track.

The pro's and experts went later on in the afternoon, with Tim finishing 9th and Pat 7th, respectively, it was a great day all around for the Trek Store riders. The Trek Store Team swept the Elite men's category, filling 4 of the top 5 spots and a 5th rider in the top ten, great work. It was an amazing venue, great atmosphere, and all in all a good day, despite the weather.

Team Kits Have Arrived

2009-04-20T10:40:00.001-07:00

Came in to work this morning and found a package waiting for me. Inside was the new Downhill Team kit. Check it out!

Wrex did an amazing job with these kits, super happy with the way they turned out! Check back for more pics of the new kit in use.

Ridge Run Photo Session

2009-04-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

The other day I went out with Taylor Near from the Trek Store to snap a few pics. The sun was up and the temperature was climbing up to a warm 22, pretty much a perfect day to ride. Being in Toronto there aren't too many places to get much downhill training runs in, so we work with what we have. On this day the location was the ridge run in the Don Valley trail system. After hiking in and gearing up, I started riding, and Taylor began shooting away.

Gearing up, starting to rip

As the day went on, the riding pace picked up, the lenses were swapped, and the pics were turning out great. Hiking up and down the trail all day in the heat is tiring, but great training and worth it to get as much practice in as possible.

Hiking back up, and flying back down

Unfortunately we were on a bit of a time restraint so we had to cut the day short. But we still managed to capture some great shots and I was able to get in some good training. This was also my first day wearing moto pants, which i have to say make an incredible difference. The jersey is the same one from last year, and also the XC team store jersey, hopefully this week we should be seeing our new downhill kits rolling through the door. Till then, enjoy the shots and i'll keep you posted.

Picking up the pace, great job by Taylor behind the lense

Again, thanks to Taylor for coming out and snapping some pics. The first DH race is coming up soon at Kelso, looking forward to that. Need to get some more runs in and get used to the bike a bit more. Still nothing bad to say about the session, probably the greatest bike I have ever been on in my life.

Happy trails!

First Downhill Session 2009 (on the session)

2009-04-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

After a winter of recovery from last seasons shoulder surgery, and with a brand new Trek Session 88 waiting for me, I was very excited to get out and start descending again. The location was just North of Toronto, which had just been hit with 25cm of snow over the previous three days leading up to ride day. I arrived early Sunday morning and met up with fellow team rider Ben Reasbeck. After switching out some tires and getting the bikes prepped we headed for the trails in the 1 degree weather the morning had provided us with. We met some other locals at the trail and began our hike to the top. Ben had done an amazing job fixing up the trail and clearing all the snow off with some help from the sun. We inspected the trail, ditched our bags, and then started ripping.

Hitting the corners in the upper section

The first couple of runs were a little rusty after a long off season and a new bike. After getting the lines down, and following Ben for a couple, it all started to fall into place and the pace picked up a bit. First impressions of the bike were amazing. I dropped into the first corner, leaned in and before I knew what had happened I had been launched out faster than I had gone in. The day started warming up and the trail was getting progressively better with the Trek Session 88 pushing me to go faster and faster. The session railed the corners, pounded through the rocky stuff, and never once complained all day, all while staying dead silent. All in all it was an amazing first day on a brand new bike. With no one getting too injured, and everyone riding strong, the season is off to a great start.

Me riding through the muck loving the new bike

Ben Reasbeck looking in top form, pinned all day

New team kits should be showing up in the next couple weeks, can't wait, check back to see what they look like.
Happy Trails!