Canada/Quebec Cup #2 Race Report 5/19

Expert Masters 40-49
1st/18

The whole Wheelden fam bolted for north of the border Friday morning for a mini-getaway in conjunction with the season’s first mountain bike race. Bromont, in the province of Quebec was our destination. This is a ski resort town located +/- 45 mins. East of Montreal. It is a French-speaking province, but luckily everyone is bi-lingual. This is cool because you really have a sense you’re in another country, yet not out of your comfort level.
Babs picked out sweet lodging right at the base of the mountain and spitting distance of all race-related activities. The most important criteria being it had an indoor pool which is crucial for kid happiness. We pulled in Friday mid-day allowing for a 2-lap pre-ride of the course for me and a 100-lap swim for Drake! I met up with the Bikeman.com Elite group and trailed them on their 2nd lap. The course was your standard ski-resort design: open fire road climbing/technical singletrack descending. The area had seen rain recently and there was a threat all weekend so the singletrack was muddy adding to the technicality of the terrain. I was slightly apprehensive after the first lap as I was unfamiliar with the course, but my 2nd was a hot lap and I rode all the sections, providing me with the confidence I needed heading into race-day.
I had a 2:30 afternoon start which was a change from the normal early morning events. This was good in that I had ample time to hydrate and relax, but bad because it gave me a lot of time to think about the race and what could go right or wrong. Being with the fam helped because they helped me keep my from dwelling on the event. We had breakfast, hit the pool, I helped
Andrew & Co. with their start, had lunch, then prepped for the race.
This race is part of the Canadian National Series, equivalent to the US’ Series. This was a nearby opportunity not to be missed to race against decent competition with no pressure to do well. It meant passing up the first Maine MTB series event, but I’m not a fan of the course so I was content with focusing on the 1 event and having fun with the family. As it turns out, I couldn’t have scripted a better weekend.
I donned the famous blue/orange Kona kit and felt an immediate surge in adrenaline! After a minimal warm-up, I lined up with my group as we awaited the younger classes to start ahead of us. I was the only American in the field. As many of the competitors are competing in the series, almost all received call-ups to the line so I was relegated to the very back, but that was OK as there were only 18 of us. The start area was pretty spread out so there was room to advance positions. I guess I had cyclocross starts on my brain and felt it necessary to get to the front right away. Once we hit the first climb I settled in right on the leader’s rear wheel thinking strategically I would let someone else lead the first lap in hopes they were faster than I in the singletrack and I could follow their tracks. Well, the pace was simply too slow and I figured my strength was going to be climbing so I needed to take advantage of the opportunity to push the pace. So, on the next climb I pushed the pace and created a gap heading into the more technical singletrack. I was already catching guys on the tail end of the younger group and was actually slowed up by them. This allowed one of the guys in my group to catch up and we rode out the first lap together. As we ascended on our 2nd lap, I again created a gap as I was climbing as well as I’d hoped. However, he erased the deficit again in the singletrack and passed me as I dabbed once. His lead was doomed unfortunately; he soon flatted, effectively taking him out of the running which was too bad as I was never challenged again. I stayed on the gas, taking lessons from the Elite: never let up on the easy stuff and cruised to victory with over 2mins to spare over 2nd place. My time would have placed me no worse than 3rd in the younger classes so I was doubly pleased with the effort and the reward.
Babs and the boys were an amazing support crew and rowdy fans. I was spurred on each lap knowing they were there. At the finish Drake couldn’t stop saying “I can’t believe you won!” Unfortunately there was no kids’ race, but they were content with climbing boulders and frog-hunting with French-speaking friends.

Special thanks to Babs for being team mom/photographer/feed zone handler/referee, I couldn’t have done it without her.
Next up is a ROOT 66 Series MTB race in VT in hopes of qualifying for Nationals.