I raced in the Elliot Lake Ontario Cup mountain bike race last weekend and it was a blast! We drove up on Friday, taking the Chi-Cheemaun ferry to Manitoulin Island and driving up through Espanola through to Elliot Lake. The trip was scenic and relaxing. Saturday involved a preride of the technical 11km course with lots of vertical, and then lots of hanging out with the rest of the crowd. Sunday was race day. The singlespeed catagory goes off at 9:30 in the morning, which I’m still getting used to. It was good though, as at 9:30 it was cloudy and bearable, while at the 1:30 Elite/Expert race it was sunny and far too hot. Here is what my race data looked like:

Elliot Lake Ontario Cup Data

The race started off flat, so we were all together into the first section of singletrack. I worked my way into first place through the first technical section and had a good lead as we dumped out into the climbing double track. A fast dip into a small stream bed and bam! Rear pinch flat. By the time I worked through some issues with my cheap multi-tool and the over-tight 8mm bolts holding on my rear wheel, 6 minutes had passed, and the men’s AND women’s fields were long gone. I love this venue’s combination of rocky, technical singletrack with smooth open climbing and steep descents, so I put my head down and decided to see what could happen. By the end of the first lap I’d caught up with Eva (leading the women’s field) and was in fourth place. I’d moved up to third place by thre top of the paved climb on the second lap, and kept up the pace. Less than 1km from the finish 2nd place was in site and quickly passed. Somewhere in the last 500m I pinch flatted again and crossed the line just as my rear tire lost all pressure for the second time.

I was riding my custom True North Cycles 29er singlespeed. I was running a WTB Wierwolf 2.55 up front at 24psi, and a WTB Nanoraptor on the rear at 28psi. Obviously, it would have been good to run the rear at a little higher pressure. The 2.55 up front was awesome though. I ran 34:19 for gearing, which was perfect for the course.

Make sure to check out the True North Cycles race team website for other people’s reports!