CCUP #2

Got home lastnight from the Canada Cup in Mt Tremblant.....Shitty shitty experience. Well I shouldnt say that, I got a solid pre ride in on friday. I was super excited at how technical the decending was, and the climbing was all double track....dammed near a perfect course for me. I lost track of time on race day, and didnt have much time to warm up. The beggining was probably about 1km or so of double track climbing, but not a really steep grade. So i figured, no big deal, just take that easy, and use it to warm up, then I can work my way up during the later stages of the race. Well the start was so slow, that my warm up pace had me going from 9th in the begginging of the climb, to 3rd going into the first single track(I made alot of positions on this super super loose gravel road section we rode for about 150m right before you hit the single track, there was a hard pack section about 2ft wide that was super fast that I was the only one that rode it). Any who, so I was in 3rd, I was just chillin in the single track, and then right away the guy in second fell, so I got by him, sweet, I was in second. Then I got stalled on a rock garden(i think the whole course was just one big rock). I got passed by 3 guys. I noticed there was a big gap to the next guys behind them, so I got back on, and caught the 3 that just passed me. There was some single track and big wide ski runs to cross, so I just sat in and stuck with them. I knew where I was waiting for. It was a 500m steep double track climb. All the guys infront of me went to small chain ring for the climb. I stuck in middle and just went. By the top I was about 100ft behind first place and had put about a minute on the guys behind me as they were putting very little effort into the climb. I decided to use the single track section to recover, especially cus there was almost no more climbing from this point, as its all decending into the village, then climbing all the way up. So the guy in first was so slow on the technical stuff, I caught him right away. There was this short little punchy climb that whent up a big rock about 15ft of vertical. I used this to pass the guy in first, but in doing so I somehow managed to sheer my Derailer hanger in half. So that was it for my race. I probably would have won the race as my buddy that finished in 4th, said that the pace never got faster, only slower, and I was feeling fanatastic. So I walked the like 4km back to the village as my hanger brock above the mount point for the rear wheel, so I couldnt even do something like coast down or anything. Sucky. So I hung out with my Buddy that is one of the Pros from the Norco team who is on the injured list himself. Then drank a whole bunch that night, then drove that same friend to the hospital in Ottawa, as it seems the foreign nation of quebec didnt feel they needed to treat him even though his right quad had swelled to twice the size of his left(doctor that he saw said that based on looking at it anti inflamitories would do the trick). Though it was swollen for over a week....

So after 7.5hrs got home lasnight, uploaded some pictures I got of the race, and the Red Bull Monte Decende relay race at night, and went to sleep. I will try to remember to upload those pictures tonight when I get home from work.

Also, I have to give a huge huge shout out to the NORCO mechanics. I brought them my broken hanger, they found a matching one, and just gave me a new one. Pretty solid dudes.