Raiding the Fort

[This is, according to my usual fashion, late. Almost two weeks. Whoops. --Q]

Upon returning to the castle last fall, the raiding party (CeePee, 'Chops, and Austen) was in consensus: 4 Hours of French Fort Cove deserved every superlative in the book: fastest, smoothest, best! Knowing this I planned to go this year and on returning I agree with every word. I haven't ridden in Ontario but I hear it's sort of like road biking on dirt. It's not the technical 5km/h-picking-over-rocks-and-roots difficult that we know so well, but made so because you're averaging 20km/h in the woods trying not to shoulder check trees. It's disturbingly fun.

In traditional form 'Chops let loose some early bass beats as front wheels were put on, chamois donned, and chains lubed. We perfected a three-part harmony for the chorus to M.I.A.'s Paper Planes, later to be sung as we rolled into the first section of singletrack. A few minutes before 10am CSD rolled out to warm up, check out the first corner, and have a few gummy bears. The trio returned en masse to find the riders meeting over and the gun about to go off, perfect timing. We turned our bikes around at the front, waved to Pickle, the official team support staff, and the four hours began.



A fairly large group of us rode the first ATV climb in pairs, chatting and looking forward to the day of riding. Lines and corners were figured out on the first lap, and at a couple of points we made group decisions about which way to go--after that we were alright. By the end of the first lap we were down to a handful of riders, and unfortunately for this reporter he was soon going to leave the group. As I settled into my own pace through the singletrack 'Chops and Austen were riding solidly with a Terrier nipping at their heels.


For the next four hours (my final time was around 4:45) I rode pretty much alone, occasionally coming up on a rider, who more often than not had a massive grin on their face, and of course seeing an incredibly welcome bottle being held out for me as I came though the start-finish. Did we mention our feeder was also our photographer? Check out this rocking action shot that deserves the jealousy of the most senior SI photog—they don't even get this stuff at the Super Bowl:


Seriously.













As for the trails themselves, they were so dry and dusty I felt I was in a New York club bathroom with Robin Williams every time I drifted around a corner picking lines through the baby head rocks. The lines we did were so fast and tight we all had nosebleeds by the end of the day. It's not often I feel I'm on an Australian rally course but when you're ripping a bench-cut section with a gorge on your right down to the river and a haze of powdered earth in your eyes it feels just as epic.

I'm always amazed how quickly an endurance mountain bike race passes, but maybe that's because the two I've done have been under clear skies on wickedly fun courses. I was almost sad to know my second-last lap was coming to a close. To still have the eagerness and energy to jam through whoops and nail descents after three and a half hours of racing is surely the hallmark of an awesome course. I rolled in a half hour down on 'Chops and twenty minutes back of Austen, figuring on a fourth or fifth place (first and second were already sealed by the aforementioned pair) only to learn the Terrier hadn't gone out for lap seven, choosing to curl up in his kennel instead. Who knows, we might have just swept the podium. To my dismay there was a pesky "experienced rider" (in the frustrating way TT is almost twice our age and still faster than most) who ended up being five minutes up on me. I'm not sure when I got passed, but it was probably during a cross-eyed, leg-cramped fit on the singletrack climb. Ah well, for the first season of MTB racin' I was pretty pumped!

After we all chilled with the support crew (who graciously doled out chocolate milk and courageously withstood my filth and stench) we made our way down to the podium/gazebo/parking lot to be showered in accolades.



The only stop of note on the way home was in Shediac to eat at a faux-KFC, Dixie Lee. This is because everything, at 7pm on Sunday, was closed. Never has boxed food been so appreciated, or at least not by Austen. He was pretty impressed.

Q out, p-out.

Fitz of Fury

Alright, got a brief Fitz report for yas.
Course was pretty damn muddy and the descent demanded the utmost in white finger concentration, especially when sessioning behind the wheel of Opus-Atlantic. 'Chops eventually took the lead, never to relinquish a nice even-numbered crushing of the point series. Behind him the battle between Gmoney, Young Gun, and The Old Man raged, with Youngmoney eventually taking 2nd, Gmoney 3rd, and TOM 4th. Marty rolled in a muddy and disheveled 5th. JB was back there somewhere after a two-week singletrack sabbatical. He'll be ready for revenge come Elgin. Randy held down his four grueling laps to roll in 11th. Enid fininshed with one less 1, taking the win over Coach Sherle. She was damn pleased with her fast self.

Right on, now I've gotta go read Psychology and Law or something. This weekend CSD is penetrating the wilds of northern New Brunswick, attending Fort French Cove in da Miramichi. Our bass is going to scare all the deer off the roads, I'm sure of it.

'Chopz.

Curse of The Gorge

“Do you guys always sing while racing?” a comment from the winner of open women Caroline Towell. The answer is no, but on a day like today in The Gorge it was completely necessary.

The day started off with a rainy drive into the valley for the twelve noon start to the race. After our legs and a pair of arms were oiled up we headed to the start line to chat casually until the gun. The race started of pretty quick with G- money taking the lead early on up the double track climb, he was joined in a second by me bridging the gap and then, the euro machine that he is, Aston Martin used his DB9 horse power to come up and join us. G-money and I, assuming that Jamie’s shore racing and his “screeching in” had got the best of him, we rode on at a decent pace through the woods. We were pleasantly surprised when we heard a yelling Lamb behind us and he was back on the CSD train.

We rode at a decent pace until the train was derailed when I crashed into GMC and Chops at the bottom of the tech as hell decent. We rode pretty chill most of the race with the racing beginning between me and chops on the last lap. We discussed why the Myatt and Comeau children were cheering solely for chops and not the young gun and we confronted them about it later on. Some high lights of the other laps were stopping for a lube break and offering some lube to the chasing hub rider. I thought to myself and expressed out loud how annoyed that guy must have been, catching us only because we stopped to lube our chains. We also decided to add to the race we would start singing. We came up with our own version of living on a prayer. Jamie was the lead singer, I was the back up add some Woahh’s occasionally. On the last lap the singing and socializing stopped so we could focus on sliding the corners and picking lines. I led into the first single track section and put as much power out as my LK’s on a slick trail would allow. Chops stuck on with no problems, we lockout our forks and hammered the second section of double track and refueled. I led into the next section of single track, but was passed by a serious lamb once out on the open road. We railed the first berm and chops rode the ladders with a double latte in hand. I stayed with him until I had to get off my bike in one section where he opened the 10 second gap that would win him the race. We stayed about that far away for the remainder of the lap. He told me that he was worried that I would catch him on the last running section, but he had enough of a lead going into it to take the win. At the finish line we discussed the race then headed down to the cars to clean up. I had the luxury of a puddle next to the truck and took advantage of it for cleaning me off. Once I was presentable I drove up to the team car where the bass could be felt on the drive up. We then switched the song to Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi, the very song we remixed during the race. We then made our way up to the tent where all the riders that braved the weather huddled underneath to receive awards. It was overall a great day on the bike and just and intro of the horsepower that we’ll be able to lay down on the dry dirt of Fitzpatrick Mountain in two weeks time. Stay tuned for the next update.

Yo

Andrew