Tremblant Canada Cup? Interesting weekend to say the least! The course definately won't fall on one of my Top Ten places to ride lists. The flow is minimal, the majority of the tech sections aren't traditinal DH in my opinion, lots of rocky pedally sections (kind of like riding XC on big bike to handle the rocks, which may sound like an odd complaint comming from someone who races some XC as well), fast sections are mostly just long wide open fire roads, minimal berms, jumps or drops? I was actually quite suprised because the hill has so much potential with the terrain and vertical that this was the course layout they choose for the Canada Cup. You'd think after apparently running the identical course years they'd build something a little more flowy, with more steep section, and do something with all the open sestions (some berms, some 
jumps or maybe drop vs. just hammer across a field). However, Will I be back next year? Most likely. Did I have a great time? Definately. Was the racing great, tight and filled with excitement and suprises? Without a doubt! It was a great place to hone some skills where you can't use momentum to just plow over stuff, a great environement around Tremblant and DH scene as always, and ultimately resulting in a weekend of fun riding and racing.
So what hapened? The story of this weekend was Rob comming back from his 15th place at Bromont, where he knew a mistake cost him the placing he wanted determined to show what he could do. He spent the weekend dialing in runs and lines with determination and all the hard work paid off. A time of 4:43:050, killing the Jr. Ex field and finishing 11th in Pro! I think he made his statement. Can't wait to see what this step up in confidence will do for his riding and focus over the next couple of sesaons. For myself and the rest of the poisonfrog.ca crew can't say the runs went as well. After strugling a little in most of the practice runs my last runs Saturday and Sundays went well and I thought my chances of meeting my goal of finishing about 
mid-pack in my class should have materialized, but the stars wheren't going to line up for me. The first singletrack sections was the smoothest I'd felt all weekend, stoked and in the zone I come out to hammer into the two berms and heard the sound of metal breaking. Thinking I just blew my dearailler I pulled over in utter disapointment, realized it was just my chain but decide to DNF instead of run the entire course chainless and risk holding up the riders behind me. Plus with so many tech sections that you needed to be torquing the pedals to get through I can't imagine the hike a bike through the rock gardens would have been any fun. As for the other 
riders on the team simialar runs where had. JP had bike issues off the start, and had a dissapointing run. (However I must say he was one of the fastest riders going through section just above the off camber wet rock, all the while yelling out to us "this is a shit run".), Ben blew his chain a little further down the course then I did, and Chad had a decent finish with a 6th place but he caught up to the rider ahead of him who wouldn't move and he lost a lot of time making his run quite frustrating as well. But that's racings.
All in all I was quite bummed at the end of my run and watching people run through the course. Seeing how many sport riders where bailing everywhere didn't help because I was pretty sure I could tie together a relatively clean run without bailling at least. However looking back on things today the weekend as a whole was a blast with a lot of good riding which I'm sure improved my skills riding through muddy rocks on Saturday. Some good times where had over beers with a bunch of the Ontario riders, as well as Andrew and Laura who came up for the XC Race. And Steph managed to somehow keep me entertained over the 12+ hours of driving over the weekend. Leaving me wishing the next race was comming up sooner then it was to try and forget about that snapped chain.
Last note huge thanks goes out to Kevin and guys from the Norco Factory Support team for helping us out (me and Rob) before our race runs with some tech issues. With the limited resources we had available in Quebec and lack of a shop in Tremblant (Rob busted a derailler hanger and I needed a brake bleed) neither of us would have had the opportunity get in race runs to our fullest potential without the help. It's great to see the support of the sport and sportmanship between the Ontario riders and teams. The Blog should be quiet for a few weeks with no exciting plans over the next few weekends. See you on the trails.
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