Big mouth, small impact on racing. One racer's impressions of the season.

For a guy with such a big mouth, I’ve had surprisingly little to say over the summer. Since February actually. Now it’s time to unload what I’ve been storing up through the MCA XC race season with some observations, opinions and general blathering about racing.


Grand Beach;

Great race, well marked as always but I seem to recall that the prizing took an exceptionally long time. Probably the best post race food of all the races. And Olympia is always extremely generous with their prizing. Olympia is one of the, in my opinion, best race organizers in MB.

Brandon:

Once again the BBC presented us with a course that can best be described as flowy with surprises. They have some fantastic real estate to work with out there and it’s definitely worth the drive. Also well marked but the flow is interrupted by abrupt turns. The thing is though; this abruptness is there for everyone and knowing this, it is up to the racer to be prepared. Cash prizing was a nice change from shwag and this gem of a race course is rapidly rising up my list of fave’s.

Falcon:

Ok, I know that it’s a rocky course. I also know that the skies were relentless in their determination to make sure things were going to be damp for this race but what I simply cannot understand is why races are started late. Granted, the kids were out there for longer than expected but after 3 weeks of rain, it seems to me that it would have occurred to someone that maybe the race was going to be slower than normal and maybe new start times should have been posted, announced or generally made known. Racers prepare for noon starts. When the race start is constantly being pushed back, or no one seems to really know when it will start, well, it messes with our mojo. All things considered, this race started late and got later and later. It beat us up with rocks and mud and some organizational glitches. Hopefully the people in charge will learn from this year and last year and have a more authoritative approach to setting and keeping a revised start time.

Bring a Friend Birch:

My mom taught me that if I have nothing nice to say, then don’t say anything at all. With respect to my mom, I have nothing to say here.

But, because my mom doesn’t read my blog, I have a problem with this race. Yes, I do know that lightning means “no start”. Yes I do know birch is climbing. What I see as a problem is, is that there seems to be an attitude of “we have to make them suffer” approach by the organizers. A race should challenge a racer on all aspects of mtn biking but I really don’t think it’s necessary to climb incessantly just because we’re at Birch. I also think that it is completely unnecessary to make us race on fresh cut trails when there are plenty of flowy trails that connect reasonable climbs and descents. Granted, I will admit that I was still beat up from the Falcon race and a bad crash there but I still don’t think it’s necessary to have to climb as much as we did. 3 reasonable but challenging climbs spread throughout a race course is enough. Off camber fresh cut trail is unnecessary. Being told that the “friends” would start after the XC race and then suddenly rushing my friend to the start line because everything changed is unprofessional. Again, this is MY opinion but there was NOTHING about this race that would attract newcomers to the sport. If all races were run like this and were this hard, I simply wouldn’t race.

Swan River:

The only bad thing about this race is that the course is so far away. I would love to ride here more. Simply put, the Swan River crew deserve more than a simple thanks for their work. They deserve a standing ovation. No one works harder for less racers than these guys. One of the best things about Swan River is that we know exactly what we’re in for. A fast descent with a hairpin turn into a  climb to separate the field heading into what is probably the sweetest single track of any race course in MB and then some tight turns and climbs to remind you of the quad bursting climb back up to the start line. In conjunction with Olympia, Swan River was also very generous with the prizing. This is how races should be run.