The second stop to our journey was Sun Peaks for the BC/Canada Cup race, which was also the Canadian National Champs race. I had high hopes for this one after crashing last year on my first ever DH race and ending up 17th. I knew the course was fast and rough and that’s how I liked it. Or so I thought…
We drove to Sun Peaks the day after Panorama and thanks to a very generous friend, stayed in a massive condo with more than enough room for the other riders who we were traveling with us to come stay. Caleb and I went out to ride for a day before the course closed to get a peak at what had changed and to start practicing. We thought the course was pretty much the same as it was last year, until the first day of official practice showed that the course actually started below the first two really steep fast sections, which was a bit of a disappointment. The top of the course was steep, but relatively flowy with lots of berms. It got less steep and more wide open towards the middle and bottom of the course, with only one slightly technical section with two tricky berms.
I felt quite confident after the first day of practice that I could do well if I put a good run together. Again, the second day of practice brought on a lot more riders which resulted in race course really taking a beating. It hadn’t rained for quite a while and everything was starting to get really dusty. It was impossible to follow your team mate down even 50-100 feet back because the dust lingered in the air due to no wind. After riding all year in wet and rainy conditions, I wasn’t comfortable riding in the unpredictable silt and marbley rocks that coated every inch of the course. My confidence was slowly going away.
My seeding time was average. I did all my lines cautiously and didn’t pedal extremely hard. I thought I could pull at least 5-10 seconds back in my race run if I hit everything full speed and pedaled my legs off. My hands were still feeling good and I was ready to lay it down on Sunday.
By the time of race morning, the course was absolutely destroyed. Moving into Jr. Expert, my race time was a lot later and after a lot more riders than in my previous category, which meant that the course would get beat up even more.
I had no idea how much until my actual run. It started off well out of the gate and I could really feel like I was putting down a lot of intensity. That feeling quickly vanished after the first corner when I saw the big dust filled holes created by all of the other riders braking. It felt like I couldn’t get back into race mode after that. My wheels were all over the place and I was going way slower than I wanted to. I began to tense up and rode the technical section even more cautious than in my seeding run. In the end, I pulled off the exact same time in my race run that I got in my seeding run. A huge disappointment.
