Early Season Report

By: Eric Goss

Bike racing season is upon us once again and I for one am pretty damned excited about that. This past winter saw a bit of a lifestyle change for me as I returned to Fredericton, New Brunswick to continue studying towards my Mechanical Engineering undergrad degree. Having lived in North Vancouver for the three previous years where you can ride mountain bikes 365 days a year, seeing the mercury drop to minus thirty for extended periods at a time got me a little worried if I was going to be ready for go time this season.

In March I embarked on a trip that goes down in my books as one of the best road trips ever. Along with good friend and one of the most hardcore cyclists I know, Rob McNair and my lovely girlfriend Kathleen we set sail for the town of Brevard, North Carolina. There we put some early season hours on the mountain bikes and did a fine job of keeping shit real!

After the final round of exams in late April, I relocated myself to the National Cycling Center in Bromont, PQ. Pretty convenient as the first CC downhill of the season was scheduled to happen there in late May. During those few weeks in Bromont, roommate Geoff Pendrel (Devinci) and myself constantly realized that we were indeed living the life. From road rides on our mountain bikes with National Team Track star Erin Carter to epic parties on good old Levis Street with Steve "The 'Bro" and his crew, the only time we weren't smiling from ear to ear was either the first few runs on a Sunday morning or when we were scratching our heads wondering why anyone would do anything except what we were doing.

Then race time rolled around, and the smiles continued to grow. It's easy to forget how much fun it is to make you and your mountain bike go as fast as physically possible. Hitting turns so hard that you think bolts are going to start jumping out of your bike is a feeling that only mountain biking has ever invoked in me. The two training days at Bromont were awesome. Some hard crashes to keep me in line but the amount of clean lines I hit overshadowed any mistakes I was making. However, some race day nervousness got the best of me as I had a hard fall in my race run and coasted the last bit of the track across the line with about thirty feet of tape hanging off my rig. To my surprise, I rolled through in 6th place only 0.60 seconds out of third. I was rather unpleased with that because two pedal strokes would have put a medal around my neck. But, what I took away from that race was that I actually am riding fast. I just had to figure out how to do that under pressure, or just not feel the pressure in the first place.

The track at Bromont was definitely a fun one to ride. Rocky upper bit into a million bermed turns into a fast open set of grassy turns that made the knobs on my Maxxis Highrollers earn their pay cheques. Track started race day as a bit of a mud festival, which got me a bit excited. I like mud races. By my start time of 5:35pm (that's right) we were back to dry hard pack conditions. Oh well, I like fast stuff too. About the fourth last turn on the track was where I threw in the towel. Good run up till then. A bit rough but I guess that means I was pushing it. Man of the day was local prodigy Kwanah Sioui (DM Cyclo Sport). Kid is fast! He worked "all around nice guy" Geoff Pendrel by a few seconds, who in turn laid a few second beating on fashion guru and third place finisher Hugo Donais (Norco). Good times!

After Bromont, Kathleen brought the Neon back to the homeland for work and I set-up shop with John McNair in the famous Dodgy Van, which I have decided to write a book about as soon as I get the time to do so. On Thursday morning, we cranked the G'n'R and crossed our fingers for about four hours until we actually made it to beautiful Mount Tremblant for round two of the Canada Cup Series.

Cold and mud pretty much sum-up day one of training. I did a couple of runs and opted for some relaxing instead. The course was going to change significantly anyhow, so a few runs to locate some major turns and rocks sufficed. Saturday the weather sort of levelled a bit and we had an idea of where the track conditions were going. Five runs that day and I was pretty good to go.

The track at Tremblant was the same this year as it always was. In my opinion, Tremblant is a mountain bike course if there ever was one. It's a series of rocky woods sections broken up by large pedaling sections. Finish-wise, Tremblant is exciting. You can see the riders coming for about the last 30 seconds of the run. Pretty cool. It's a mountain bike course because you are faced with entering technical rocky woods sections when you are fatigued from pedaling your ass off from the section before. Dealing with technical trails when tired and continuing to push it and carry speed is mountain bike racing.

Second rider down the hill was Mike Jones (Norco). We could see that he had a good run and knew so when he posted a 4:30 and change. The hours prior to my start time were great. I somehow ended up on the start line with no stress at all. I had no butterflies or anything. During my run, everything that has ever happened before the laser beam was broke and everything that would happen after it was re-broke was non-existent. The only thing happening during those four minutes and twenty-three seconds was bike riding and it was great! That's right, I laid down a 4:23 with five riders to come. Matt Laurin (Iron Horse) was in for this round and I think he was by far the favourite for the day. He wound up a bit behind Mike in third. Waiting for the rest of the field to come down was fun. I was worried most about Geoff and Kwanah but any of those guys could have been trouble for me. As it would turn out, that run would be enough for my first ever win! Needless to say, some drinks were had that evening and somehow we managed to put the post Tremblant party bar up a few notches from last year. A feat that a while ago was assumed un-attainable.

The next morning Jean ("Johnny"everywhere except in Quebec) and I stretched our middle and index fingers out for a full day of crossed-finger Dodgy Van driving. The old '84 Caravan crossed the land in fine style. Delivering me to the Mazerolle Settlement no later than 10:30 pm.

That Quebec trip puts me in second overall in the Canada Cup with a win. Pretty good start to the season if you ask me. Thanks go out to Giant Bicycles, Smith, Troy Lee Designs, Maxxis, NRG Enterprises, Luck Shoes, Manitou Suspension, Sean, Sean and Wayne at Giant and Oliver at OGC in Montreal. Till next time!

Photo: Joe Elliott - www.mtbkanata.com

Posted by bikergrl at June 3, 2004 11:50 AM

---