Mont Saint Anne Quebec Cup

The Quebec Cup at MSA this past weekend was great practice for the world cup round which, is taking place on July 3, because it used 90% of the world cup track. There was a lot of speculation as to where the track would start as rumors started between peer groups.

MSA has around a 2200m vertical drop, nearly to sea level, and winning times are close to four and a half minutes. This track is very high speed for the most part and has every good feature a proper downhill track should have.

This race brought out some big names like Olypmic Skier Cross gold medalist, Chris Del Bosco and Trek World Racing's, Neko Mullaly, plus all the competitive Quebec racers. Friday and Saturday brought thunderstorms and some rain. It wasn't a down pour, but it was enough to convince me to run Wetscream tires, with the knobs uncut. Those tires are just so much fun when it's muddy! Practice went well and on Saturday there was timed seeding to arrange the start list for Sunday's final. I seeded 2nd with a run that felt below average. It was a surprise to me to be so close and knew I could push a lot harder for finals.

I woke up to sunshine on Sunday morning, but there were some threatening clouds not to far away. By this time though, the track was rapidly drying out. I did two practice runs Sunday morning, one on mud tires and another on dry condition tires. The mud was tacky enough that traction was available even with dry tires which roll much faster, so that was my choice for finals.

Everything was looking good and I was going for the win. I wasn't feeling pressure and was relaxed in the start gate. I just wanted to pin it to the bottom because the course is so much fun. I pedalled hard out of the gate with only one rider behind me to start. After the first turn was a short flat sprint that had some small but deep mud holes along it. There was a sneaky line on one side of the track that I was hitting great in practice. I stayed left and jumped off a root to clear two consecutive mud pits and did it fine in my practice runs, but either my chainguide or pedal hung up on the root and pitched me over the bars in my race run. I landed softly in the mud, uninjured, but my goggles and helmet were crooked and covered in mud. The rest was ok but trying to recover and go faster to make up time on a run that is already supposed to be your fastest isn't ideal. It usually results in small mistakes so I finished 11th. I was really disappointed and pretty bummed out about the unusual crash.

This weekend is the Bromont Canada Cup and I'm looking to turn things around. The forecast is rain... A lot of rain actually! It should be tangley!

- Helmet cams videos will uploaded shortly

MSA finals - home stretch
Photo by - Edouard Levesque