Book of Chad

When they announced there was going to be an XC race at The Jordie Lunn bike park, I couldn’t really picture how they would be able to make a reasonable XC loop there. I didn’t really think it could be done without crisscrossing in the middle somewhere. So hats off to Cody Canning and whoever else was involved to make this happen. Lindsay and I pre-rode the course several times in the week leading up to the race, and I realized it was going to be a fitness race, where the main part was going to be your ability to climb sustained for roughly ten minutes per lap on the main climb. There was then a two and a half-minute flow trail followed by another three and a half-minute climb. If you had been practicing your threshold work, you would be just fine.

Starting from the second row this time with my rear tire full of air was a great feeling. Even better, we embarked on a start loop that my coach has used for thirty-second efforts with rests on the downhill. We turned up to my training hill, and I put in the effort I was used to. I passed people really fast, and when we exited the start loop, I was fifth overall, right behind some pretty big hitters and just ahead of others. I had to really settle into my pace up the first ten-minute climb, as I could tell that going too deep into the red could cause a pretty big explosion later on in the race. I lost places throughout the first climb but was happy with the power I put out that I could sustain through the race. The first downhill was the most fun part of the course. The Wild Cat trail is a small jump flow trail that is very fast on an XC bike, with speeds into the 40 kph zone. The next climb is up the main climbing trail and then onto Burm Reynolds, which name implies the giant berms you will find on your way down, trying to engage your dinky XC brakes. A run back up the thirty-second hill and through the line.

The next climb; some people who had gone out too hard started to fade. One guy in particular completely exploded and fell 18 places in the next laps. He was so blown up that when I passed him, I asked if he was okay. Emily Williams caught me on this climb, and I had the pleasure of riding the rest of the race with this amazing racer. She led me down Wild Cat and Burm Reynolds on this lap, and it was all I could do to just keep in touch. On the climbs, we were closely matched, and I was able to stick with her and benefit from her line choices, as well as having a well-matched wheel to motivate me on the climbs.

On the next climb, I had to recover, especially on the long road section, using Emily to draft. As we got close to the top of the climb, I asked to overtake and led down the next section. On the second climb, I had just a little more in the tank and made it to Burm Reynolds with more of a gap. Then, up the thirty-second climb, I was home free. I crossed the finish line in 16th place, and I had a good race. It was 100%, but it was close enough at this early part of my season.

Time: 1:07:16
Distance: 16.3 km
Avg Heart Rate: 189 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 198 bpm
Normalized Power: 275 W
Place: 16th