I'll post a proper race report in a day or two, but for now I'll share that EFTA's own Paul Simoes schooled the locals, winning the 100K race in 7 1/2 hours. Most commonly used word to describe the race: Brutal. P.S. Everyone in the MTBMind finished on a day when the sun, the climbing, and the rugged nature of the course tested every competitors will.
Ultimate XC Race Report
(10 posts) (5 voices)-
Posted 2 months ago #
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Yes I need a few days to collect my thoughts and get rid of the humidity out of my brain. Amazing race and super insane. Felt like a 24-hour race when I got done.
Posted 2 months ago # -
Okay heading up to Canada is always a blast because the people are so friendly, everything always seems exciting, and bike races outside of the US are always more of a spectacle in terms of spectator participation and media coverage. A bunch of us headed up there for the Ultimate XC race, formally the Jay Challenge, knowing this will be an intense race from start to finish.
I arrived on Friday night late with my gf and we camped out in the parking lot the Mont Tremblant village while everyone was asleep. We woke up to some heavy rain at 3am but that was okay since it was only Saturday and the race was Sunday. There was a costume contest going on which I will show off as soon as I upload the photo, and I was committed to win the $500 prize.. but somehow lost to a guy wearing a t-shirt and mo-hawk. Anyway the Village there is absolutely amazing and gorgeous - sort of like Disney World with the colors and superior upkeep of the place. I suppose the extra 2% village tax on everything you purchase within the village vicinity helps pay for the maintenance, but that's besides the point.
So we all headed out for a pre-race meal which was fun on Saturday night - Al, Steve, myself, my gf, Katherine, Eric, Ernie, and his gf Lisa. The race day quickly approached at 4am and I was outside cooking on my camp stove before we followed each other to the race start for 6am. At a predicted 10-12k feet of climbing for this race, I was prepared to pace myself and not go off too hard while waiting for the last climb towards the end when we ascent Mont Tremblant to the absolute very top. Just before the countdown in french at the start, I reach back to notice I forgot to put air in my rear tire so I ran back to the car to pump it up and the racers were off. I quickly followed and passed everyone in the extremely tall grass not knowing what was in it until I made my way behind the top 4 guys riding together including Paul Simoes and Brian Lyster.
The 5 of us stayed together basically the entire race however I put a big gap on Paul towards the beginning when he flatted and had chain problems. He caught back up and kept his pace. I cannot tell you how draining the trails through the grass and low brush were.. having to walk your bike.. etc etc. I forgot to bring my gel flasks so I quickly stocked up on Hammer Gels at one of the feed zones. There must have been a feed zone every 10 kilometers which was handy because we all stopped at every single one of them.
I was feeling fairly strong despite the really really slow pace through some of this grass where you had no idea what was in it... so I held back my pace quite a bit on the downhill in fear of hitting a log or rock sending me to my doom. Once we approached the initial ascent up Mont Temblant, I was 2 minutes behind 4 guys and about 7 behind Paul who was now in 1st. I motored up the hill with NO GRANNY GEAR and somehow caught all the guys except for Paul. At the top with people cheering I am now in 2nd place overall and if climbing that damn mountain wasn't enough, the feed zone atop the mountaain was up the stairs! I grabbed a few sips of coke and oranges, looked down at the village below and could see 2nd place in my sights. I was gunning on catching Paul however with one squeeze of my rear brakes, I now realized I had none. All the hard braking leading up to this point somehow put air bubbles in my line (scratch on my piston), which left me with only front brakes.
Oh boy look out. A crazy fast decent into singletrack littered with rocks, roots, and sharp turns.. and I can't even have fun going down it!! My focus now was staying ahead of the guys I just passed rather than catching Paul because I was literally going 1/2 my pace on the descent. There was one more really REALLY big climb to the almost very top again before making your way around an insane and unnecessary loop of freshly cut trail (although the waterfall along that trail felt great when I decided to take a break and dunk my head in it). By this point all of those 5 guys were now by me and I was in 8th place overall. I fell on some crazy section, lost my contact, and now had no depth perception. OH MY GOD can we just get to the bottom now! 8 hours into it I could smell the food at the bottom but was still 15 minutes away because I could not brake nor see very well. I somehow managed to roll in about 12 or so minutes behind 2nd place I think? 8th overall but I lost a TON of time after the top and could have easily been down 20 minutes faster.
Great race - EXTREME RACE, and props for Dan for putting this all together. Looking forward to the next adventure when I'll be better prepared!
Nice work to everyone who finished!!!
Posted 2 months ago # -
Oh where do I begin??? "I finished..." Something I was on the fence about during the last 3 hours of my 10.5 hr race. We will get to that.
Drove up with Katherine aka "the wife", Ernie aka "Bake", and Lisa aka "Lisa", on friday. Had a great litle road trip and finally arrived at the village around the 7:30 timeslot. Checked in grabbed a bite and headed in for the night.
Saturday we grabbed breakfast and rode and walked around a bit to loosen up the legs. Met up with everyone, (Al , Chris and Marissa, Steve), had some laughs and dinner then headed to bed for our early wake up call at a very pleasent 4 am. (Oddly enough I saw a group of college kids going back to their hotel room to sleep as I was waking up for my death march.)
woke up and ate breakfast and swallowed down my delicious energy smoothie the wife has been making me for a while now. We are all nervously checking and rechecking our gear so not to forget anything important like shoes or bikes. Drive over to parking lot and meet up with Chris and Marissa who will be driving Chris's car around mont tremblant with a slow leak in fr tire to give him H2O bottles, food, moral support, and hopefully some dirty looks. Now lined up single file in our cars we caravan 20 minutes or so to the start of the UXC, (might as well have been the UFC). We quickly throw the fr tires on our bikes and make one quick final check of everything. Say a quick hello to Paul Simoes and another International Bike racer who I recognize by face. Here we go...
I quickly get in front of Chris for the first 3.5mm of the 100k race then decide to back off. Being a gifted 205lb (with camelback and gear) climber that I am I figured I should just ride my bike and go when I feel good. (by the way a great weight loss program this UXC was... 9500 calories in 10.5hrs, thats close to 3 lbs!!!) So we ride through the pine needle forest, through some guys barn/aid station, rough cut aka "suck the life out of you" trails and then the best part... poorly maintained SNOWMOBILE trails YAY!!!! Ernie and I were stoked! I cant tell you how many times we high fived! So yes of course the course got better (sorta) roughly after we left the tampon zone (buffer zone). We had done some decent climbing but now the best was upon us. We climbed and climbed some more with very little decending, there was just no flow, at all, ever. Quickly ate our spaghetti dinner and tried to munch down my P&J sandwich where Im pretty darn sure I was the only one to get the sandwich with both of the ends of the loaf. (I hate that) Then we hit some fun technical trails about 5 hours in and Im like sweet however I didnt have the fresh legs to burn them up. Then the teaser climb came up with a really fun fast non tech decent. I caught back up to Bake at the bottom and we headed to the bottom of that small 5k climb. Grabbed some food and made sure to tell the guys at the feed station to watch out for the wife and was thinking of her. So here we go I remount and guess what??? Oh my legs dont want to go anymore. Ticked away in granny gear for about 2k then walked and watched Ernie slowly go out of my sights. A few others passed and now that fun mental portrait of saying Im done is clearly painted in my head, however, one thing keeps me going... The wife! I know shes not going to quit and I figure at this speed Ill be finishing with her. (I did beat her by almost 3 hrs). So all those people who passed me are eating at the top and having a good time. So I decided to say the heck with the feed station, and now my fun begins. As i wath those people scram to their bikes I am now in my comfort zone... tricky decending and at this point I let her rip. Now all those people who passd me are of course catching me on the next rediculous ascent, but we are almost at the top and poised for another 2-3 downhill runs. That was fun! Of course there was a bit more climbing and walking but I caught a few more people and was happy not to get passed in the last 10 miles. Here comes the village, and now the lake! Granted my time and result sucked but I was very, very happy I finished but of course more happy and never prouder when the wife came in (smiling of course) a couple hours later...
Awesome job Chris, Al, Steve, Ernie, and the wife! Thanks for the moral support and smiles from Marissa and Lisa. All you guys rock!!! A final congrats to Paul Simoes for winning that beast of a race.
Out~
Posted 2 months ago # -
Indeed, where to begin. 9+ hours is a long time to be pushing, I mean riding your bike. But, yeah, I also finished. I dragged the whole family up for this one. We went up Friday and just got to kick around and take in some of the activities going on Sat. I woke up to Dan Des Rosiers doing the race meeting for the runners Sat morning right outside our hotel room. I got up, grabbed some coffee and checked out the start
Apparently a 4-wheeler equipped with a chain saw is the standard pace vehicle for one of Dan’s races. Later we took the gondola up to the top of the mountain. Took to pictures, did a little hiking and cheered the runners on until the kids got board (dad, can we do the luge now?).
Yup, that’s the village way down there. We have to ride from there, all the way up here. Well, actually we have to ride about 40 miles, then ride up the peak of another mountain to the left (not pictured) then back down, then up here, but we’ll get to that in a minute.Eventually we meet up with everyone else, hang out for a bit before calling it an early night. Race day comes and I get the family up at 4:00 am so they can drive Al and I over to the start. We follow the caravan of vehicles the 15 or so miles to farm in the middle of nowhere. Park in a field that hasn’t been mowed and get out stuff in order. Dan seemed to give everyone about 15 minutes to do what they needed before calling everyone to the line. Unlike for the runners the race meeting was brief. Dan informed us that he had a race meeting Thursday night for those doing the full challenge and then proceeded to count down from 5.
The first part of the race went pretty quickly. It was a combination of soggy fields, double track and some really nice single track that I guess the landowner had made just for the heck of it. A lead group quickly formed and began to separate from the rest of us. I was near the front of the 2nd group going into the single track. The first 15 to 20K pretty much stayed in that area. After we hit the 2nd aid station and started to head over to the mountain the trails got a bit more “primitive” in nature. Most of it, over grown snow mobile trails.
Some of it someone had been kind enough to drive a quad through recently.
If 15 or so people hadn’t come through here ahead of me, there’d be no sign of a trail. Somewhere in the stretch between 40 and 50K I got completely miserable, by myself, bushwacking these “trails” and was beginning to question whether I’d be finishing or not. Fortunately, Al caught up to me at the next aid station. At the same time the trails turned back into nice, well defined, hard packed, single track. It’s amazing what riding with someone else on nice trails can do for the morale. I rode with all for the next 10 miles or so until I started cramping near the top of the first big climb. I managed to get things worked out on the decent but by the time I made it to the start of the big big climb, Al was long gone. At the aid station they informed me that they had cut out a loop they had at the top of the mountain which was ok by me. I don’t really know how long it took me to make the 4.5 K climb to the top. I rode some of it, I hiked a lot of it. Experimented with 5 or 6 different ways to hold the bike while pushing it up hill. I think one hand on the bar and one on the saddle was working the best for me.
I did ride the grassy, super steep section right at the summit with al the people cheering. I made it to the top with both legs cramping, turned left and made it maybe another 5 feet before I had to get off and hobble the 20 yds to the aid station. I barley made it up those stairs. Now for the fun stuff. We started off with a fast access road descent before turning into the single track. Other than that very bit at the top, all the descending was single track and Dan was not kidding when he said your arms would be tired by the end of it. This stuff was fast, rooty, rocky, twisty, steep and a whole lot of fun. I but a good couple of minutes on the guys I’d left the aid station with by the time we came out on the access rode for guess what, another climb. Where I proceeded to give back all the time I had made up. At least this time we didn’t go all the way to the top. Back into the single track and things start getting gnarly.
This is what the trail has to look like for Dan to put up a “Danger” sign. There was about a 100yd section of stuff like this more or less unridable on an XC bike in my condition.
I finally get to the next aid station and ask the volunteer how much further as I fill a water. Imagine with a French accent “you do this loop here… maybe 20 minutes, come back through then 10 minutes to the finish”. I don’t really believe the guy, but being 30 minutes out is a nice thought. Well before you know it the trail turns into Whistler with high bermed switchbacks, bridges, ramps, drops and ramped berms.
By the time I got the bottom I was thinking there was no way I could hike back up that in 20 minutes and I’m sure the return trip won’t be that easy. It wasn’t. As the climbing began yet again the trailed turned into some fresh cut nightmare that Doug Pekham would be proud of. Don’t get me wrong, it’d be a great trail to ride down sometime, but up, in my condition, it just wasn’t happening.
Paul probably rode that on his way to victory. I hiked and took another picture of the waterfall.
I finally make it back to the aid station and begin the final decent to the finish. Seriously, one of the coolest parts of the race was the finish through the village. There were still a lot of people lining the way when I came through.
This picture is from the running race, but you get the idea. The actual finish was down at the lake. Which felt pretty damn good when it was all over. We hung out, waited for everyone to finish and got to rehash it all over a few beers that night.This race was top notch. The venue and course were fantastic and the volunteers we unbelieveable. Sure there were parts of the course that seemed terrible at times, but in retrospect, it had a little of pretty much every type of riding you might encounter up here in the Northeast and for that you have to appreciate it for what it is.Definitely a race worth doing,even if only once. I'll be back again. Thanks for putting it on, Dan.
Posted 2 months ago # -
Hey I sat down in that waterfall for a few minutes.. a couple of times actually. haha I don't think anyone rode over that rock ledge unless they wanted to die.
Posted 2 months ago # -
Posted 2 months ago #
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I think this was the guy in the IBC kit. After seeing the running course I don't feel so bad about the snowobile trail.
Posted 2 months ago # -
That's awesome. My helmet cam wouldn't turn on at the start (battery may have been dead) and wish I could have filmed the last 20 miles.
Posted 2 months ago # -
Mont Tremblant was quite a scene: a slopeside ski village with a hundred
stores, restaurants and bars, merged with a hotel complex. Big. I
ventured down to the start finish area and saw some of the mondo-racer
types finishing the 58K trail run. The finish area was on the Lac
Tremblant beach, after the racers ran straight through the middle of the
village. I imagined myself slipping underneath the surface after
finishing the next day. The podium was huge, as was the production the
promoter pulled off, something well integrated with the local
businesses and Mont Tremblant resort.The MTBMind team came together
in time for a couple of pics and nervous reassurances before hitting
the hay. Our 4:10 am alarm wasn't needed after a night of hooting and
hollering out in the street as partiers, well, partied in displays of
righteous inebriation on an echoey street. The start was 25K away.
Steve's family sleepily carted us to the starting field and before we
knew the details, Dan started the race. I am seen here licking magic
sleep crusties while poised for pain.<a onblur="try
{parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YFeRUhev1Zw/TDPnbhavs1I/AAAAAAAAAGs/wAnWt7rWpOw/s1600/Mont+Tremblant.JPG">
Game
on. The same silly fast start as a 2 hr XC race blasted away from me. I
took up a position alongside Katherine for a bit, hoping to survive
what I thought would be 6 to 7 hours of riding, feeling the weight of
power bars, tools and tubes straining the fabric of my jersey, pulling
the whole jersey back thus effectively strangling me until which time I
loosened it to the point where oxygen resumed its flow into my
bloodstream and my eyes reopened.The first fields gave way to some
nice wooded singletrack over the farmland of Bertrand, president of art
glass designer thinkglass.com, and friend of Dan Desrochiers who had
built some trails for the heck of it. I came across him twice on the
trail as he clicked off some pics that he later sent my way via e-mail -
including the promise that he'll race it next year. His trails were
tight and had a nice steep flow through lush Quebec woodland.
Eventually we came to the second checkpoint and feed
station. They were at 10K intervals throughout the race, manned by
great support people who'd grab my bike, fill my bottle and offer
bananas, PB&Js and boiled potatoes alongside hammer gel. I opted to
carry one bottle and refill it at every checkpoint, which worked
perfectly except for the 7th and 8th checkpoints which seemed VERY far
from one another, but maybe it was becasue of the something thousand
feet of climbing in between. At around 40K I rode up on Steve S and we
pedalled for the next 25-30K or so with James, who eventually finished
third in the three day full solo event. The guy can ride and after two
days of killing himself, eventually rode away from Steve and I when we
got to the 5K backside climb of Mont Tremblant. The climb was after what
I guess was 5 hours of riding and in 80 degree heat, up a fireroad in
the sun. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();}
catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YFeRUhev1Zw/TDPky0GrfLI/AAAAAAAAAGU/4w37yykDpbM/s1600/Pushing+Bike+up+Mont+Tremblant.JPG">
Unlike
the race's previous sensations, walking parts of the mountain was
friggin' demoralizing except that when I reached the halfway point,
Tyler Merritt was laid out on a chairlift seat, regrouping or sleeping
or cursing but definitely not moved forward. Someone had it worse off
than I, which gave me momentary relief until the road once again turned
upward after a short descent. Like Steve, I rode the last supersteep to
the applause of 20 or so spectators, hoping that my show of force
didn't cost me in cramps later. As I crested and rode to the aid
station, a gentleman official informed me there was only 26 K to go. It
seemed impossible. I just didn't want to accept it, but there's
nothing better than riding to get to the finish and that I did, down
down down the white knuckle super fast hiking trail thinking "is this
sucker ever going end?"- I could hardly feel my hands but for the dull
ache. At one point I stalled out and flopped sideways while waiting for
a guy to extricate himself from some blowdown trailside. I didn't clip
out and the torque on left leg sent it's hamstring into a cramp. Oh!
So there's the cramping... It only reappeared once while walking up the
next fire road climb for an instant, which I poured water and
electrolyte tabs over. One tab for each bottle was my strategy and it
worked fine. Somewhere along the way I ran out and I copped some water
from Bob, another hardcore full solo racer and threaded my way through
more hillside bridge-laden trail. The last 5 K was simply nonsense. It
was fresh cut super twisty that would be fun fresh, but sucked tired,
'cept for the lovely cascading waterfall. After finishing I realized I
hike-a-biked it during the eight hour of the race, hence the uniformly
applied distinction as "sucky." At the end of it, there was a super
steep descent over some ledges slopeside which I ripped in order the
distance myself from an anonymous road racer. It was a surge to feel
the end coming and soon I flew down the main street lined with tourists
spectating and yelling encouragements at the curiosity. The end in
sight, I spread my arms and relaxed after nine hours of saddle time and
no flats. I dropped my bike, shoes, jersey et al and waded into the
water where I immmersed myself, plunging into the underwater world of
the lake.The lack of flats during this race was significant for me,
having succumbed to the Pinnadebacle a week earlier. Research shows
that my method, and this is double secret, to prevent flats is 1. freak
out over a Stan's No Tubes slow leak a few days before the race,
putting off my wrench who sees No Tubes as "an experiment", 2. carrying
one tube in my jersey and another taped to the seatube, and 3. also
carrying three 16oz CO2 cartridges, none of which were used in any way
except as sweet resistance training weight. And I mean really sweeeet.
Works purrfectly. I finished 18th in 9:04 or 8:53 depending on which
results are referenced and with a very big smile across my face as
first old guy(of a huge field of 3). <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();}
catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YFeRUhev1Zw/TDPlaVmuKoI/AAAAAAAAAGk/SSp_6oYarCE/s1600/Podium+Mont+Tremblant+June+2010.JPG">
After
the swim, Steve rolled in and before long, Ernie and then Eric crossed
the finish. Katherine, kept the suspense high, arriving as the most
happy finisher at 13 hours. MTBMIND got it done that day and I'm still
experiencing a solid sense of satisfaction. Speaking of satisfaction,
Paul Simoes, oft-relegated-to-second-place demi-god, pulled out all the
stops, riding in harmony with the course in 7:40to win by more than 20
minutes. Paul had an awesome race performance and looked fresh on the
podium after a brutal day on the trails.P.S. If you are or were a
Wayne's World fan, you will have noticed the references to my costume
theme, something that was lost on, well, pretty much everyone who saw
me. As Garth Algar, I'm sure I rocked the biking world, or definitely
something really cool like that, like what Wayne would do if he was...
king... of the biking guys... riding bikes... on mountains.Costumes
afford anonymity, which I put to good work while staring straight into
the face of a unsuspecting, shapely 20 year old race administrator
saying "Woah, you're Babelicious. If you were President, you'd be
Baberaham Lincoln." BTW, I didn't win the $500 costume contest. A three
day full solo guy with a red arrow mohawk did, a costume which we'd
best be quick to employ next year.Posted 2 months ago #
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