Monday, October 4, 2010

Watch out, trees

University Cup Mountain Bike Series
Sept 18, 19, 26 & Oct 3

This fall I've been racing with the University of Guelph Cycling club doing the University Cup race series. What an adventure!

The preface to this post is that I'm a
huge newbie when it comes to mountain biking -- and if I had a dollar for every time I crashed or 'hugged' a tree... it would probably pay a month's rent!!

In any case, the U-Cup race series is fun because it involves everyone: from people who are racing for the first time to top Ontario riders. There's tons of camaraderie within and between teams and most events have a BBQ afterward. The series takes place over four weekends in Sept/Oct.

Our first race of the season was at Mansfield and it was actually a bit of a 'stage race', consisting of a 'crit' (like 4X on mtbs), a TT (4k individual-start race) and a regular cross-country race. The crit was pretty cool, 2x300m loops--so it was pure adrenaline.

For the TT and the cross-country race my goal was to ride as smoothly as possible in the single-track and minimize the number of times I had to unclip. Things went pretty well--I took 2nd in each of those races (for an overall 2nd place that weekend).

The next race was at Boler Mountain in London. I had a rough start but worked my way into 2nd by the half-way mark. At that point, I knew there was a train of 3 riders behind me trying to chase me down and so I rode as fast as I could. Apparently that level of fast was faster than my technical skills were ready for, resulting in some pretty funny crashes! ...sliding out and faceplanting into the grass; riding into a tree so hard that my bars twisted 10 degrees right of my front wheel... Needless to say, I did get reeled in and finished 3rd.

Last weekend's race was at Hardwood Hills. For the whole race, I was back-and-forth with a woman from our rival school Queens. I'd gap her on the doubletrack and she'd bring me back on the singletrack. We ended in sprint finish and I just edged her out for 2nd! Definitely one of the toughest races of my season.

For the rest of the mtb season I'll continue to work on handling--cornering in particular. I hope some of this translates back onto the road next summer.

In other Stevens news, Mel, Tricia and Sophie have been rocking the cx scene--though I'll leave it up to them to fill in the details :)

Happy thanksgiving everyone! I am very thankful for my lovely teammates and our awesome sponsors at The Cyclery.

--
Rachel

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