Bear Mountain Challenge 2011 (Mudfest)

So this weekend was the 15^th running of Bear Mountain Challenge DH in mission. It was the 2^nd BC Cup DH of the year, but the first race back for me from my extended bout of injuries and 11 months away from the race circuit. I have raced Bear at least 8 times before, have always loved the track and placed 4^th there two seasons ago (crashing hard there last year), so I was cautiously optimistic about what I could pull off. I knew my fitness still wasn’t going to match that of my competitors who had been able to train the entire winter, but being that it is a bit of a shorter track and I have been training like mad, I hoped to be able to strategize a way to play my strengths and minimize my weaknesses in order to pull off a decent result.

The adventure started for me when I decided to resurrect my van as a means of travel. As it hadn’t moved in over 10 months since I took the insurance off it after my knee surgery, that meant replacing the tires and brake pads, changing the oil and refilling the tranny fluid, all on the most minimal of budgets possible. Adding to the headache was the fact that seemingly every bolt rusted itself on. Fun times. After getting the van running and insured and working late into Friday night at the bar, I packed up all my gear and early the next morning began the voyage down to the coast. It was rather satisfying to pack down the van with all my gear, crank the tunes and head down there surrounding by everything I needed to succeed.

When I arrived a couple of the boys who had come down the night before were already training. The first task I set for myself was to find and maintain a consistent race-head as I have not had much opportunity to practice long runs at a race pace and I needed to increase my level of focus at speed. The mischievous weather had thrown a bit of a curve ball at us, so on the track we found deep mud, to the point that on the four packs that usually you would have to scrub to avoid landing flat, you had to sprint with everything you had in order to make the first set before landing in squelch and missing the second sets. Tristan, Thomas and myself got to do a number of runs together which was fun, figuring out the track while sliding around in the mud. The track was sloppy as all hell but I really enjoyed it, drifting corners and surfing tough lines. It took a good few runs to get up to speed but by race day I was feeling half way to my old self.

It was fun to work with a few of the younger guys who are just getting into it and see them put together a solid weekend of racing. I was really impressed with their attitudes as they faced bad weather, a super foreign type of track and mechanicals, but despite the adversity, came through charging. Jordan blew up his back wheel casing a muddy double in training on Saturday but managed to get a new one built so he was back in the game. Tristan’s back brake decided to die on him late Saturday and as it was a Formula no one had the required equipment to fix it so Sunday morning we poached the brake off my hardtail to get him back running. There was also the obligatory Bear training line-up in the rain to deal with, but as the boys learned, all such is racing. Being more prepared for adversity than the next guy is half the battle and we pulled together our race-heads while putting together everything we needed to at least be in the competition.

Bear Pt. 2

I faced a mechanical myself just before my race run - as I took my rear caliper off to clean out the grime that was packing it, the connection from my brake line came loose so when I reattached the caliper and squeezed my brake lever oil spewed out everywhere. I managed to bleed the brake before my run but as I was about to find out, the damage was done and my rotor and brake pads were contaminated, with no brake clean to be found anywhere. Despite this I headed up the course in a good mind-set focused on the task at hand. I did a thorough warm up and was as ready as I have ever been by the time I was in the gate. Just into my run I realized that I had minimal if any stopping power in my rear brake, which forced me to be a bit conservative in the technical upper sections, my main card I was hoping to play. Once I got to the second hairpin entering the long flat middle section I was consciously relieved and set to work on the pedals. The weather had wrought havoc down on the course to the point that run-times increased by over 50%, so I found my handicap in conditioning really impacting me as I slogged through the muck. Save for a few dabs and a wash-out to near dead stop I felt I had a pretty consistent run, but by ¾ of the way down the course I was seriously hanging. I really didn’t have any power left at the end of the track, but I made it down safely and was pretty happy to find the end of the track.

After my run I was pretty satisfied with how things had gone, all things considered. My race strategy and mental game both went really well and I didn’t get hurt, which were three of my main goals. My mechanical was unexcusable, but there was nothing I could do about it at the time. I didn’t feel that I rode at my best and my lack of stopping power didn’t help, but a bunch of friends came up afterwards and complemented me on the sections they saw, so that was encouraging. As well it was really satisfying to work with our younger riders and see them pull off a successful weekend. I ended up 23^rd, which was a long way off where I was hoping to be, but it was my first race back in 11 months and my conditioning, confidence and speed will only increase as I get to spend more time on my bike so I have to try to be patient. A highlight of the weekend for me was getting to throw Thomas in the Old Mill Pond after he placed 3^rd, a Bear Mountain tradition for those who earn the podium. He is killing it every time I see him on the bike and undoubtedly has good things in his future. Our next race is Arduum on the weekend of the 10^th, so we have our work cut out for us over the next 2 weeks in training for the most technical race of the year, undoubtedly much more my style.