Wild day

Today was the first time down Greenstone from the tower. Trail’s in great shape (don’t tell Chuck) for the most part anyways. It’s actually very overgrown and grassy in some sections which makes it hard to see the trail. We need more people riding it! I managed to have a good crash as well, but escaped with only minor injuries. I now have a leg that looks like I have an extra kneecap. Oh well, at least it’s not broken. I’ve been trying to keep things at a medium pace lately, and it seems people around me have been getting pretty badly injured. My BF Johanna broke her femur a few weeks ago, and another buddy Douglas almost had his foot ripped off his leg about 5 days ago on our new Greenstone trail. These are the things that are going through my head lately when I ride. Needless to say, I didn’t do any of the stunts that I normally would’ve. I really just wanted to make it down in one piece! An hour and a half later, I made it! Such a long, awesome trail. If anyone’s interested in riding something a little more technical, let me know and I’ll try to arrange something. The next run we decided to do “Shorty” (the name for the new trail). Short.....er than the last one, but still over 5 km of trail. There’s one little spot on the trail that requires a short pedal, and I just thought Warren and Jay were waiting and resting a bit at the top when I looked to the right and I saw this young moose! “hey – look at the little moose!.......ummmmmm........where’s the momma?” I said/asked. “Oh, she’s just around the corner in the trees” was Warren’s reply. Ummmm, ok, thinking she was far enough away and we were safe. Nope...WRONG! She was about 50 ft away. All I heard was some trampling bush noises coming towards us and we all started yelling “GO GO GO!!!!!!!” I was the last in line, closest to get trampled, and I almost pushed Michelle out of the way to get past. I didn’t look back. If I looked back and saw her coming , I probably would’ve pooped my shorts. That wouldn’t have been nice. Whew! Crazy! Avoided another tragedy today! Success! Can’t wait to see what happens next time......

Rough creekbed love

Creekbeds are not soft.

Sunday arrived early at Bear with shuttles starting at 8:15. The track was wearing in a bit but the dirt was tacky and my lines were working flawlessly. I did one training lap with one of my U17 racers and decided that I was satisfied with my runs. Everything was flowing perfectly so I cleaned and prepped my bike, ate a delicious lunch, visualized my race run a couple times and settled into a chill day of hanging out in the pits, playing lots of guitar and cheering on other racers. I spent a fair bit of time over the day planning my run out and committing my headspace to the task ahead. It helped a lot and I felt more centered than I have yet this year before racing. As the last bus headed up it started to rain on us a bit, but by the time we got to the top it had subsided to misty drizzle. As everyone was warming up riders were joking that the roots would be super slippery and everyone should slow down and be careful, which made for a good laugh, but I pretty much decided it was not going to affect my pace. The top of the mountain during pro starts is honestly my favorite place in the world, and at Bear it was no different. There is no place where you have such a clear, focused mind and are surrounded by so many friends in the same head space. The energy is unique, empowering and slightly addictive. In the gate I thanked my start volunteer friends and then charged. I carried my momentum well over the flats up top while staying committed to pacing and quickly made it down into the most technical section of the trail. I hit my first couple lines perfectly and carried perhaps a bit more speed then in training into a stepped out rocky creekbed section. The section entailed a fallaway right turn into a series of high-speed rocky whoops and then a jump turn from the last step onto an off-camber rock to hip out. It was pretty tech to ride but became kind of gnarly at speed. I came in hot and dropped a little further than before out of the right hander into the first step. I landed in the compression a little outside on a root I had been avoiding, which threw me forwards and inside. I hit another rock and flipped, gapping across the creek bed to land on a large boulder with my hip and elbow before ragdolling down the creek-bed, ending up on my back upside down in the mud. All I can say is thank god for pads. It took me a bit to right myself, and when I got up vollies were running up the trail with scared looks in their eyes. I asked them to take my bike off the trail and limped to the sidelines. I was pretty sore and shaken so it took me till after the next rider had passed to decide that I was not going to end my weekend walking down the trail. I straightened my bars, got back on my bike and started down the trail. I wasn’t sure how well I would be able to ride but after a bit I was flowing pretty decently. I let another rider pass mid-way down the trail as I didn’t want to inhibit anyone else’s runs, but I was able to hit everything on the trail and still have some fun with it. Once I got off the bike I was not nearly as mobile, however. I was also a bit disappointed that I threw away another run on the circuit. Crashing is part of racing and one of the strongest motivators for learning, so the lessons are in my face and I have my work cut out for me.

Happy trails,

J

Year of the Crash......?

Hi, it’s me, Marcie. I know I haven’t been posting in a while. I like to do the disappearing act every once in a while, mostly because either I haven’t actually done anything worth writing about, or I’m injured and I feel like poo and just don’t want to talk about it. This time is the latter. About 6 weeks ago I was riding on our new trail for the first time this season, and next thing I know my bars were sideways and I was flying through the air, landing on my ankle completely sideways. I thought I broke it. It was so painful I couldn’t bear any weight on it whatsoever, and had to ride out the rest of the trail one-legged. My ankle swelled up and became jelly-like when I tried to walk, therefore giving the name to the new trail “Jelly-foot”. Kinda funny I guess. Since then it’s been a long road to recovery. I deliver mail for a living, so that means walking up to 4 hrs/day. Not a lot of time to rest the poor thing, and every day I’m still in a lot of pain. To make matters worse, I decided to try riding again last week. I had one good day on the new Greenstone trail, and the next day went to ride Rio, and ended up doing almost the same sort of crash, except this time I did a full superman lander. LOL - I can laugh about it now, but it was actually not very funny the days afterwards having felt like I got run over by a truck! Argh, I’m too old for this shit. I don’t crash very often, but this year seems like the year of the crash for me. It’s extremely frustrating, like I’m sure you all know, not being able to ride the way I know I can and to have to slow down and take it easy for the time being. But this is all part of what we do. It’s a very risky sport and anything can happen at any time, especially if you like to push your limits!
So that is my verbal diarhea for now! I hope you’re all having a much better summer than me. I have some trips planned for the next few weeks. Swansea, Steamboat, and Paradise mines. I haven’t been to Steamboat or Paradise Mines, so I’m pretty excited for the new adventure. I definitely need it!

summer start-up

i've been doing alot of mountain riding this year as opposed to the usual hardtail shredding, which is alot of fun. I hit up whistler a couple weeks ago and got super stoked, than went to peaks last week and rode with ALOT of friends for toonie day, couldnt have had a more fun time. Me and matt dedicated last run to shoot a couple photos which turned out pretty sick. Back to whistler on monday with ian to get a bit of practise in before goatstyle this coming weekend. Hopefully i do alright, seeing as i got bumped up a catagory from last year. But oh well, just ginna go and have fun. Heres a little video and the photos from peaks.

Bear build-up

So just sitting in PoCo, watching some race vids after finishing prep for the race tomorrow. I am super well fueled after a delicious dinner a la Jen McMillan, my bike is dialed, I know every bump on the course and I am feeling strong. The course is super fun and playful with lots of jumps, but it is a little bit simple after coming from Arduum. This means that to be competitive you have to dial in the course to an even higher level since everyone can ride it fairly quickly. My bike is so perfect and easy to ride that I have a smile on my face the instant I am on it. It makes it so much more simple to push it when you have complete confidence in your equipment. I feel that I have the potential to be extremely competitive on the technical parts and with line choice. My biggest challenge will be with pacing, as their is quite a bit of pedalling and it is easy to go out to hard. As well I need to make sure that I reign in my aggression in the race run so I stay upright, as I have not had the best track record so far this season... If I can sort out my mental game and ride a measured run I feel that I can come away with a good result. I cannot wait to arrive at the race tomorrow, surrounded by the best of friends in the atmosphere I love facing an inspiring challenge.

Hope tomorrow is as fun and exciting for everyone else as it will be for me!

J