Canada Cup report

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Last 2 weekend was busy with the presentation of first and second round of the Canada Cup in Bromont and Mont Tremblant respectively.

Bromont was my first real race of the year.  After a bad night sleep (my little baby girl didn’t want to sleep that night!!) I wake up very tired but I was able to do a nap after breakfast before my start at noon.  I did a good warm up in order to do a good start because of the narrowest first climb and 68 riders on the starting line.  So after the sound of the gun, I did my plan and place myself between 10 and 15 positions.  I was feeling really good but I was not sure if I could keep this pace for 8 laps.  I knew I had the intensity but not sure about my endurance past 1h30 of racing.  On lap 3-4 and 5 I was sitting on 12th position and was fighting with a guy who was faster than me on climbing but I was faster than him on downhill.  Finally on lap 5 I had a bad luck with a puncture.  I hitted a rock badly!!  No I am not tubeless yet and I am waiting for the famous rims strips!!  I changed my flat and continue with low air pressure ( 16g c02 is not enough) and on last lap with about 2km to do I did another flat and this time I finished the race on the flat tire.  Finally I ended up 26th in 2h13min.  That was not a good result for me but in overall I was happy to finish the race (this is a good attitude) and happy about my general fitness.

Last weekend was Mont Tremblant second round of Canada Cup.  The week prior of this race I tried to put my wheels in ”homemade tubeless mode” but with no success!!  I had to do another race with tubes but this time with more air pressure.  The course was very technical with all the muds and there was 2 good climbs (6 min and 3 min).  We had to do 5 laps of this physical course with 69 racers on the starting line.  My strategy was to start slower and move upward each laps.  It worked well!  After the first lap I was 24th and I finished 16th in 2h07.  I was happy with this race but I think I didn’t go hard enough because after the race I was still feeling fresh!!  This day I was a really good climber (big wheels were going fast) but I was weak in the downhill part.  The bike was hard to control (reason was probably to much air pressure).

I am skipping Canada Cup # 3 in Ontario and will do some trainings to be in great shape for Canada Cup #4 in Baie St-Paul in 2 weeks.  I need to put more mtb millage and I am expecting a good result.  Definitely, this time I will be more aggressive and I am hoping to be tubeless at this time!!