Cobble Hill MTB

 The second Island Cup of 2012 was held this past weekend in Cobble Hill, which is just 40 min north of Victoria on the other side of the Malahat highway. The weather was beauty, and after doing a warmup lap/pre-ride, I realized just how much climbing the lap had! In under 20k of racing, there was just about 1000m of climbing...  good for those fit guys.

I wasn't sure if I was one of those fit guys yet, because the race last weekend at the dump had only small climbs, with most of the course being flatter technical trail. I felt good there, but I know my way around the dump better than Derek Kidd knows how to get himself free personalized business cards, so I still wasn't too sure how I'd do.

The race didn't start where I thought it was going to start, so I just followed wheels for the first few km's. I got blocked pretty hard by some guys going out a little harder than they should have, but half way around the first lap I got some open space and settled into a good rhythm. Problem was, while I was following twitchy wheels for the first half lap, Steve Noble was up the trail cracking the whip like Scottie on a Saturday afternoon at the shop. Towards the end of the first lap, Steve had about 40 seconds on me, so I tried turning on the jets to catch up. At the start of the second lap I brought the gap back down to around 15 seconds, but when I tried closing even more I started riding like a spastic child and lost my rhythm a bit. I faded on the last lap, but I had enough of a lead over the group behind me to lock up second place, and thoroughly enjoyed ripping the last smooth burmed descent to the finish line.

Lots of other riders had good climbing legs, including Dawn Anderson who took down the rest of the Women's Expert field, Jason Binab who won his second race in a row in Intermediate Men, and Geoff Homer, Halldor Gunnarson, Regan Pringle and Jon Benskin, who all had solid rides in the Men's Expert category.

Sorry there aren't any pictures up quite yet, but if you want to check the course, or my heart rate details, or how many calories I burned at my threshold power while in zone 4 on a climb, my Garmin file from the race is below:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/159418294

Thanks for reading!

COBBLE HILL CLASSIC (Crippler)
MARCH 18TH,2012

Beginner Men
Darryl WOODLEY 53:0 Caleb LIGGETT 53:08
Nic BOKROSSY 55:26
Nathen KREIN 1:00:06
Duncan MAFFIA DNF
Patrick TROTTIER DNF

Beginner WOMEN
Shannon COUTTS 53:50
Sarah MITCHELL 55:00
Holly HENRY 59:36
Abby LIGGETT 1:08:00
Jenni FUNK DNF
Sabrina MACLEOD DNF

Intermediate Women
Maya MUNZAR 1:39:32
Jennie AITKEN 1:40:07
Sandra HARDY 1:41:48
Karen FEDORUK 1:48:27
Heather TADDY 1:49:31
Marion LANG 1:54:57
Kim HART DNF

Intermediate Men
Jason BINAB 1:19:55
Pelle GUSTAUS 1:19:59
Rob SKELLY 1:23:41
Mark WALLACE 1:23:43
Guy GENSEY 1:23:59
Shayne ALEXANDER 1:24:59
Grant LESTOCK-KAY 1:25:03
Joseph McMAHEN 1:27:45
Colin RENNIE 1:28:19
Dave SHISKOFF 1:29:40
Jeffrey COLEMAN 1:31:04
Steve PILCHER 1:32:18
Don COBURN 1:32:51
Sandor BOROS 1:32:54
Jason NICKELS 1:33:09
Rick HART 1:35:33
Brad NIXON 1:36:10
Derek STEEL 1:38:20
Brad SINCLAIR 1:40:11
Daid WARBECK 1:43:26
Steven OLSEN 1:44:11
Mike RUSSEL 1:46:14
Ted STALLARD 1:48:36
Byran ROZON 1:50:44
Jason NIELSON 1:53:25
Corey WICKHEIM 1:53:29
Doug TREIT 1:54:06
Al VANDERLEE 1:54:09
David LESTOK-KAY 1:58:23
Tim GRIFFIN 2:06:15
Colin WILSON 2:08:26
Arran SPENCER DNF
Sean GIBSON DNF

Expert Women
Dawn ANDERSON 1:59:52
Karen TRUEMAN 2:00:37
Joele GUYNUP 2:04:01
Kate SCALLION 2:15:42
Adrienne MILLER 2:37:15
Cathy GRAHAM 2:39:25
Tanya BERG DNF

Expert Men
Steven NOBLE 1:35:04
Thomas SKINNER 1:37:43
Carter HOVEY 1:39:47
Geoffrey HOMER 1:42:49
Daniel VARGA 1:43:40
James CAMERON 1:43:53
Justin MARK 1:47:22
Trevor JONES 1:48:40
Jay LATIFF 1:48:54
Jeff BLAIR 1:50:02
David HUNTLEY 1:50:49
Regan PRINGLE 1:52:15
Jonathon BENSON 1:52:27
Dan SMITH 1:53:33
David HILHORST 1:53:42
Chris BIRCH 1:54:49
Ken OLSEN 1:55:04
Tom GARROW 1:56:24
Todd NOWAK 1:57:41
Haldok GUNNARSEN 1:58:09
Mike POLLOCK 1:58:32
Ron HEWITSON 1:59:12
Spencer SKERGET 2:00:13
Sean HENRY 2:00:42
Steven LAN 2:01:43
Bill MACMILLAN 2:02:11
David CARLSON 2:03:00
Menno JONGSMA 2:03:08
Nick GOTTFRIED 2:04:52
Daryl CHASE 2:06:58
Alex BROTHERS 2:08:36
Mark WEILER 2:10:29
Les BRONEE 2:11:04
Geoff LARGE 2:12:32
Devin FIGHER 2:42:50
Robin DUTTON DNF
Russell ANDERSON DNF
Kirby VILLENEUVE DNF
Drew McKENZIE DNF
Roland RABIEN DNF

Island Cup #1

Second race of the year was Island Cup #1 at the Dump in Victoria... and I wasn't really sure what my goal was. I should have been more confident like Mike Tyson and told everyone on the start line that I wanted to eat their children, but instead I just kept quiet like a little wuss and pulled up to the start line in the third row. (Thanks to Shanks who pushed me up to the second row just before the start). I was already making excuses and telling myself that I was tired from a 3h MTB ride the day before, and a 2h ride out to the race, but I need to tell myself to toughen up more.

I knew there would be lots of people flying (like Carter who's been crushing everyone on the local rides, Trace who manhandles everyone on a weekly basis (figuratively, not literally) and Cory who just won a 24 hour race in the states), but I thought I might have a chance to be up in the mix. I waited a minute or so after the start to move up, and slowly worked my way to the front. I got on Trace's wheel through the first singletrack section, and we were riding in second and third. I had a chance to go by him on a tricky rocky climb, and I led the chase for the lead about 5-10 min into the race.

Steve Noble had a decent little gap on Trace and myself, but when I led Tyler through the singletrack I was able to close most of it before a longer section of fireroad. Just as I was closing the gap to ten or twenty meters, Steve's chain broke, and I was left in the lead with 2.5 laps to go.

Photo credits to Brad Head

I wasn't sure if I wanted the lead. An hour TT by myself? With my wuss brain always thinking that I would be caught, or that someone would close the gap to me. But I just kept riding steady and tried not to push too hard so I could save something for the last lap. It turned out that I was fine riding solo. I built up a solid lead of around 3 min, but then with half a lap to go I saw that my front tire was going soft, and my tire sealant was spurting out trying to fill the hole. It sealed it a little, so then I stopped to add some air and the whole thing went flat. I didn't think I was that far from the finish so I started running. What usually is fast on a bike though, is very slow by foot. I got close to the finish and thought I could still win, but then three riders passed me with a few hundred meters to go. I didn't even make the podium.

I guess it could have been worse; I could have been riding slow and had no mechanical problems. Or I could have been bouncing off trees in the singletrack instead of riding like a boss, which I think I was. Anyways, there's lots of racing to go, and now I'm stoked to get out on the new Norco and carve up the trails like a piece of celebratory pie that I'll crush at the finish.