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Mount Saint Anne WC |
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Written by Andrew Freye
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Tuesday, 11 July 2006 |
 Mount Sainte Anne was my world cup debut! I had never raced a world cup and to be honest I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Turns out as long as your fitness is decent they aren’t that bad, and actually can be a ton of fun.
Before I ever got to Mount Sainte Anne my adventure of getting there started. Trish Sinclair (Victoria Canada racing for Scott) stayed at the same house as I did at Mount Snow. I guess Trish knew someone who knew someone who knew Beau and that’s how she ended up at the house. Well Trish was without a ride to Quebec so I offered to give her a ride up as long as there was room in her condo for me until Thursday which is when my accommodations started.
On the 19th (my birthday, 22 years old now) Trish and I left Mount Snow and headed up to Burlington, VT where we would crash with some old high school friends of mine. Burlington was a great place to spend my birthday. My friends and I went out for some burgers and beer and watched game 7 of the Stanley Cup along with the Phillies vs. Yankees.
Tuesday morning a couple of my friends wanted to go out for a mountain bike ride, so Trish and I joined. Burlington has some amazing trails! It was great to go out and ride with a couple guys who don’t own a pair of spandex and don’t really care about going fast.
When Trish and I arrived in Quebec on Tuesday we met Flo and Nino from the Swiss-Power Team that Trish would be taking care of for the rest of the week. Flo was ranked 7th in the world cup and Nino who is the U-23 leader was ranked 9th. It was amazing living with two guys you read about all the time and look up to. The next couple of days I got a good sense of what some of the fastest guys in the world live like. Surprisingly they are really laid back and super nice. They will have a beer with dinner, eat ice cream and they drink a ton of Diet Coke! Flo and Nino might be ranked in the top 10 in the world, but they didn’t have a mechanic, chef, or manager at this world cup. They were pretty much living just like I was, except that they have a salary and are wicked fast.
From what I was told the course was shorter this year then in past years meaning faster lap times. The men were set to do 7 laps plus one crazy parade lap. I was called up 110 out of approximately 130 riders. To help stay calm I tried to tell myself that this is just like the NORBA’s when I first turned pro. However that wasn’t going over too well. I had the worst butterflies in my stomach before the race. Once the gun went off it was 110% balls to the wall on this dirt road. So much dust was being kicked up you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you, let alone barely breathe. It was the fastest and craziest start I think I’ve ever done. Elbows were being thrown everywhere. The race didn’t start to thin out until about lap 3, which even then it was still a tight race. The short laps make for a much more exciting race. You are passing people more often and the spectators get to see a lot more action.
Turns out the Specialized boys where off on there own planet at Mount Sainte Anne. After dominating Mount Snow they must have decided going one, two at a world cup would be a great idea. They had such a big lead on the rest of the pack that the folks in the back of the pack were getting pulled rather early. I was pulled with 3 laps to go and finished in 76th place; world cup points go 75 deep. I was kind of bummed about this because I didn’t have any way of knowing how far up the leaders were. I wasn’t sure if I had 3 laps to go, or if this might be my last lap. Based on the lack of information I didn’t have I assumed I had a couple more laps left so I wanted to make sure I could hold my pace for at least two more laps. Overall I am very pleased with my result for my first world cup. I did finish 3rd for the U.S. U-23’s which will help me out in getting a spot on the national team for worlds.
I would like to send a special thank you out to the crew from SRAM for helping me out over the past month. The guys from SRAM made sure my bike was properly working before every race allowing me to race free from any mechanicals. Also thank you to all of you who have helped me along the way and getting me this far. I can’t wait for my next chance to race a world cup because I will be much better prepared for the next one!
A
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