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Monte Sainte Anne World Cup |
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Written by Andrew Freye
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Tuesday, 26 June 2007 |
 Monte Sainte Anne World Cup:
This was the hardest three laps I have ever done in my life! Well I say that a lot, but this seriously was.
The Quebec Cup was taking place all day Friday, so the world cup racers were not allowed on the course until 5pm. Riding at what should be dinner and rest time is not ideal the day before the race. But the later start did give me ample time to do a lot of work to the bike. In my last mtn bike race my seat post kept on slipping and falling down a quarter to half inch. I am not sure what the reason is, but to be on the safe side I put on some FSA grip/anti slip stuff and lock tight the bolt. I also put in some new Panaracer Latex Tubes which should help prevent pinch flats and they only weigh 90g a piece. This will help reduce the weight. Also since I lost my pedal sponsor I picked a up a free used pair of frogs from Wheels. Some people hate these pedals, but I have found the transition to be very easy. Plus they took off a quarter pound from the total bike weight! I also tried to get my never ending squeaking rear shock fixed by the guys at SRAM, but they were unable to assist me. I guess they are fazing out the M.C series so they did not have parts on hand. But the reason why the shock is squeaking so badly is because I didn’t ride it. Go figure, even when you don’t ride your bike, parts still break. No wonder why people are go over to the road. The pre ride turned out to be a semi race with so many pros out on the course at the same time! I managed to keep my distance and let the groups of Euro’s fly by as I didn’t want to get caught up in any unofficial race. Anyways pre ride went well, feeling confident. Took a super cold and long ice bath. Legs were feeling great.
Morning of race: Had the usual meal, usual warm up, feeling great. I was called up 100 out of 105 starters, great starting spot. The start loop is suppose to ‘thin’ out the field. It does this so by creating such a large cloud of dust that only the ones in the back suffer from like yours truly. After filling my lungs with fresh Canadian dust it was off into the steep single track down hill where everything bottle necks. This is where all the adrenaline kicks in as everyone is off there bike and trying to run around. Well somewhere in this mess I got a handle bar into the ribs. I wanted to quit right then, 5 minutes into my race. The first lap was terrible, I tried to hold on to the high 80’s. The second lap was worse, I was fading and I had the worst pains in my left side. When you race mountain bikes you push your body. When you race a world cup you deplete your body of everything it has and push it beyond its limits. I thought I was going to get pulled after two laps, but as luck turned out I got to put in a 3rd lap. In some ways this is good, but other ways I was about ready to pull over. I couldn’t bear the pain in my ribs going up the hills again, so I decided to have some fun. Going up the main climb you switch back maybe 5 times in a short period of time. There are maybe 300-500+ spectators there. I started to wave my hand a little to get them going. Then I would put my hand up to my ear like I couldn’t hear them. By the time I made it to the top of the climb I had the entire crowd yelling and screaming, louder than they did for fellow country man Kabush (who took 3rd). It was pretty cool to have that many people cheering for you and hearing them yell out “go bikeman!” and go “salsa! Go go go!!”.
After the race I checked out my ribs and I think that they are just badly bruised up. I got to see Kenny from DT-Swiss and thank him for my sweet 240 hubs. Which by the way are 10x better than the WTB hubs I had last year. I also got to see some prototype forks for next year! I can safely say that the XC race niche (and weight weenies) has something very exciting to look forward to from DT-Swiss in 2008 in regards to there suspension line up.
Sunday morning when I woke up I was so sore! My entire body ached and I was so stiff. I guess this is a sign that I really did push myself to and probably beyond my limits in the race. Even though I didn’t improve on last years result of 76 I am still proud of myself for finishing the race. Just being able to be able to compete with the worlds best athletes is something to be proud of and I am very thankful that I had this opportunity. Thank you for all of you who have helped me get this far in my career. I have one short month before Mount Snow! I can’t wait for nationals in Vermont its going to be great!!
A
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