This past weekend was the final weekend of CX racing in BC. It was the BC Cup Finals Saturday and Provincial Champs Sunday. Made the early morning drive Saturday, to arrive in South Surrey to a wicked course. Not many fast sections and not many climbs, Which suited my non-fit skills at this point in the season. There was minor bits of snow, a very frozen ground with some peanut butter on top. Which made for some super slick riding out there. I was running well below 30 PSI on clinchers....safe? No. Anyway in warm up I felt like a piece of crap, which was expected as I had been sick for the previous 2 weeks and still in antibiotics. So that explained the 190 HR on my easy pre-race lap. Got the start line all nervous, since my last race was Nationals and that was just out right horrible riding. So I was hoping this might be better. As I had 1 good week of training and 2 weeks of well, childs play. Got the holeshot, then went around the 2nd corner and went down good. Had some of my white ass hanging out my shorts, as they were pulled right now. Got back on the bike and chased watching each of the top 5 guys, except Schooler, take a turn visiting the course in different ways. Caught on for half a lap and realized that getting the holeshot was my 1 bullet for the day, didn't have the 20 round clip today. After my spill I kept riding towards the sides of the course and finally figured out my handlebar was little off, plus my shifting was getting funky while going through the sand pits so I switched bikes, to my winter training bike with different length cranks and apparently a different position. No excuses here, as I was way dropped well before. Once I got going again I knew it was not the day and it felt wrong going that hard, so I pulled the pin. That was DNF #2 in my career, with #1 being MTB Nationals. Not stoked on ever having that beside my name, but it felt like the right thing to do. So I washed up and watch Tyler Trace roll through the field late in the race and get a fair size gap in a short time to take the W, along with the BC Cup overall. After the race we were all huddled around hoping that our tickets were the winning ones for the case of beer, And the winner was of course the man who doesn't drink. Go figure.
Saturday night was time to take pressure off my self, I've been putting a ton on this fall, as I was wanted to finish the season with atleast a race or two where I felt good and that was sort of successful. Up to this point I had one CX race back in early Oct. So today was yet another dissapointment. I just kept thinking if I have a good race then the mono is gone. So I went out and had a nice burger and beer that night with my dad.
Sunday morning was slow and leisurely. Got the chamois on and it was game time. Went to the race ready to throw down some fun racing for the last time this year. Rode a couple laps of the course and knew it was going to be great at speed( Big thanks to Kevin Calhoun, who put on the once again the best cx race of 2010) With some overnight rain and cold temperatures it meant for a great day to race. Started slow to keeps thing in check, a group of 5 of us established pretty quickly. With everyone taking blows. I always like to keep the pressure on through the tight twisty stuff, where I can put the mtbiker skills to use and relax. Andrew Pinfold, Tyler Trace, Aaron Schooler, Kevin Noiles, Drew Mackenzie and myself were rolling around together like 16 girls that were BFF's. Then the attacks came we all were on our own. Just like high school girls are best friends at break and then by lunch they are all calling each other bad names...Anyway surges kept happening, and some good attacks were thrown down and it was only a TTrace, Schooler, Pinfold and myself left. Then two laps later TTrace attacked and it was him and I left. Pretty interesting day for me, I was able to put myself deep deep into that long forgotten paincave and just hold on with showing as little fatigue as possible. We rode together well for a couple laps, then each took a couple attacks, I made the mistake of trying to attack while outfront and just torched myself a too much then we hit the open I moved over and BOOM he threw it down hard, I was almost on his wheel then we hit some technical sections I was finished. The gap was opened and I tried for a lap to shut it down, but it was a no go. Big congrats to Tyler Trace for taking the W two days in a row, and he even went back to Vic in between races for a moustaché party. What a champ. Hungout with all the boys during awards, all talk shitting as the French would say. Finally a good race again, Felt like a worthwhile weekend in the end. Happy to finish the season, and really happy to finish it while feeling happy, because it you weren't feeling happy then it would be hard to think 2010 was happy. So being happy is key going into the winter. Too many happy's?
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