It was that time of year every mountain biker looks forward to in the summer. Crankworx, the biggest gathering of lovers mountain biking in the world. People travel from all over the world to Whistler for the 10 day event that’s all about life on two wheels. Luckily I only had to drive an hour and a half.
Unfortunately we couldn’t seem to do that right, with one of the tires on the camper trailer that I recently build delaminating on the highway 20km outside of Whistler. After a while of scrambling trying to fit the spare tire off my 2007 Ford F350 onto the axles of a 1975 Ford F350 truck bed and realizing that the bolt pattern wasn’t the same 42 years later, we managed to limp it up to the camp ground without causing any accidents.
This year I was competing in 4 events at Crankworx, the most I’ve ever done. The EWS, Garbonzo DH, Air DH, and Canadian Open DH. This meant that I didn’t have a single day where I wouldn’t be practicing or racing. That’s a lot of riding! The EWS was the first Sunday, with practice being on the Friday/Saturday prior, Garbonzo race was Tuesday with practice on Monday, Air DH was Wednesday with practice on Tuesday, and Canadian Open race was Sunday with practice on Thursday-Saturday. 10 days straight of Practice/racing! Unfortunately it didn’t go quite to plan.
Friday Practice for the Enduro was just one stage, Top of The World. Late in the afternoon from the Peak Chair, we started on the other side of a new suspension bridge that crossed over a bit of a valley in the mountain. Being scared of heights, I wasn’t too happy about that, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Practice went well, I had ridden all of the trails at least once before and just needed to dial in some final lines to be comfortable to go fast on Sunday. I knew that the TOTW section of the stage would be the hardest because there was a long uphill fire road sprint in the middle, and near the end was really flat so there was lots of pedaling required there. Further down, it got steeper in the garbonzo zone and I just had to focus on being smooth and consistant. This stage was the final stage and we estimated it would be around 22-25 minutes, which is the longest stage that I’ve ever raced in Enduro.
Saturday practice was a full day, practicing stages 1-4. Some EWS rounds you can shuttle to the top or near the top of the stage so that you can keep your legs fresh. Not here. The two trails on Blackcomb mountain had a really steep climb to get to them, most of it being on a dusty rocky fire road, which didn’t make things any easier. I specifically bought a 30T chainring for this race because I knew by the time race day came around, I’d need an easier pedaling gear compared to the 32T which I had for most of the season. It was quite nice to spin up there a bit easier with the smaller chainring, but the road was still really steep and took a lot out of you. I would have preferred that we practice stages 1-4 on Friday and 5 or Saturday instead so that we could recover a bit on Saturday morning before practicing the final stage in the evening like we did on Friday.
I had ridden 3/4 stages, two of them on Blackcomb, and the other one in the creekside zone of the bike park. 1 and 2 I was sort of looking forward to and not at the same time. They were fast, rough, and fun in places, but also there were lots of punchy uphill sections that I wasn’t too happy about. Stage 3 was in the bike park and I knew that I would have a pretty good time on that one because there wasn’t any uphill. There was one stage that I hadn’t ridden that was quite a ways outside the bike park on the opposite side of Whistler than Blackcomb. It was a pretty cool trail, with some tight stuff in the trees, some traversing, and another fire road sprint up into the finishing corners.
The summer had been pretty dry so far and there was a little bit of rain in the forecast for Saturday, but it ended up absolutely pouring right before we were going up to do the final stage so we took refuge inside a restaurant while the gondola was closed due to lightning. I was a bit excited for the rain because it had been so dry and dusty that everything was pretty loose and slippery, but it was raining a lot and I was getting concerned that it would still be muddy by race day. I hadn’t ridden in the rain for quite a while so with only practicing one stage that was mostly deep in the trees, I didn’t really get my wet riding skills back. After finishing practice late in the afternoon, rebuilding my bike, and making sure everything was ready to go for the next day, the start times got sent out and I saw that I didn’t start until 10:40. A bit later than 8:00 or 8:30 which was when I was expecting to start! What a nice surprise.
I was a bit nervous in the start gate this race because I knew the climbs were pretty tough and the liaison times that they give have historically been pretty short for the Whistler EWS rounds. I started out going pretty fast because the first part of the climb was pretty easy compared to when we got to the fire road on Blackcomb. The directions were pretty confusing on how to get up to where we needed to go and a Sunday in Whistler during crankworx isn’t the easiest to navigate dodging all the tourists not paying attention to where they’re going. I once I made it to the point where I knew where I was, I relaxed a bit and prepared for the steepness to come.
I usually ride with a Garmin device that tracks distance, elevation, time, speed, HR, and a bunch of other things that are quite helpful when you’re in the middle of climb and want to know how much longer it is to gauge effort, water, and food levels. Unfortunately, I thought I had dropped it during the tire incident 20KM outside of whistler on the side of the road because I couldn’t find it once I got to the campsite. I didn’t let it get to me, and since I had ridden mostly all of the liaisons, I knew how far and how hard it was going to be.
At the top of the first climb, I was tired, but not totally out of it, and I had almost 10 minutes until my start time to cool down and get ready for the first timed stage of the day. The first stage wasn’t the greatest, my legs were really tired and I could barely make it up the punchy climbs and struggled to keep it smooth for the downhill sections. My feet and hands were aching by the time I got to the bottom, but I didn’t have any crashes, so I was ready to get the second climb out of the way and ride the next stage, which I enjoy a bit more.
At the top of the next stage, I noticed that a bolt on my linkage was coming loose, one that I had to take the rear wheel off to tighten. I thought It was a bit weird since I had been through the entire bike the night before and was sure I tightened everything. Luckily, again I had about 10 minutes to get everything sorted before starting stage 2. I was a bit more tired at the top of this stage and wasn’t feeling too good. Going from sweating like crazy pedaling up, to not moving while waiting in line for 10 minutes freezing cold from being all wet wasn’t something I dealt with in my other EWS race experiences.
Stage 2, Crazy Train
The top of stage 2 went better, than 1, but there was a huge hole that had developed right out of the start gate that sent me off track. I laughed it off and continued on my way. Even though the climb to stage 2 was 15-20 minutes shorter than stage 1 and them both finishing on the same road, stage 2 was longer and by the bottom I was even more sore and tired than stage 1 and ended up having a stupid crash, washing out a loose corner. I didn’t hurt anything, I was just annoyed that It happened. The two stages on Blackcomb weren’t that wet at all, and were still quite dusty. I was relieved that it wasn’t super slippery and this gave me confidence going into the next 3 stages.
The liaison to stage 3 was mostly flat, going 10km around a lake to get to the Creekside zone of the bikepark. I was curious of why they chose the route they did, I thought there must have been an easier way to get to the chairlift, but I guess they wanted us to get in some scenic road riding in! The directions weren’t all that clear, and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to make it over there so I pedaled pretty hard just in case I took a wrong turn or something. I made it to the bottom of the chairlift where the feed station was, stocked up on some food and went up the lift. One thing that annoyed me was that we had to stand in line with the normal bike park riders. Usually there’s priority for racers, but for some reason there wasn’t and the line ups were pretty long. Being a weekend in Whistler, it was pretty busy and I was getting really nervous that I would miss my start time. Fortunately I made it up the lift and down to the top of the stage with a few minutes to spare.
Anthony feeling strong at the top of Stage 3
Stage 3 was where problems started happening. I noticed the same bolt had come loose so I again had to take my wheel off and tighten it. This wasn’t a big deal because I had time, but if I hand’t, it could have come all the way out on the next stage and my race would be over. I noticed it was a lot wetter on this side of the mountain, so I took it a bit easier, but not easy enough. The roots were really slippery and there were a lot of them on this stage. I crashed 3 times on that stage and got passed by my team mate. They weren’t horrible crashes, but enough to cause some discomfort for the rest of the day, hitting my shins on all 3 crashes. I was frustrated at the bottom but knew that there were still two long stages left, so I pedaled on up the stage 4.
After tightening the bolt that came loose again and getting a little bit of a relaxing break, I dropped into stage 4. Everything was going quite well and I rode a bit more cautious and it paid off for the most part. I landed a blind step up gap perfectly after going super deep in practice and almost riding off into the bushes and made it to the traverse without any issue. The traverse was more exposed and was a lot more slippery than the other sections of trail and I slid out and crashed on a high line I eyed up in practiced that had a big root in the middle. I was a bit tangled up in my bike and lost a lot of time trying to get back up and running again, and almost got passed by my team mate on the long fire road climb. I was going to let him pass, but when I looked back he was still too far behind me. I finished the stage annoyed again, but relived that I didn’t have to pedal or rush up to the last stage because it was all lift accessed.
At the top of the final stage, it was pretty cold, so we all huddled inside the bathroom building at the top of the Peak Chair taking turns drying out our gloves on the heaters. I was pretty nervous about the bolt that kept coming loose on my bike because the final stage was almost double the length of anything else we had raced and it had almost come completely out after the first two stages. I borrowed some electrical tape and wrapped it around the bolt as tight as I could so that if it came loose, It hopefully wouldn’t come all the way out. This worked.
After making my way to the start line on the other side of the suspension bridge, I was partly relieved and partly nervous about the last stage because of the top part being so physical. I knew that once I made it past that part, I could flow my way down to the bottom.
The top of the trail was weird, we had to race down a fire road into the top of the trail, which you could see a long ways down, so It made me a bit dizzy going from a super fast fire road, to traversing down trying not to get too close to the edge. I made it through most of the top part no problem, but for some reason on a corner, I went over the bars. I wasn’t expecting it or knew what happened so It was pretty painful and took a while for me to get up. By the time I did, I could see my team mate catching up while I was getting back on my bike. I knew that the fire road sprint was coming up so I mentally prepared to get passed. I took the lower part of the climb easy, trying to tuck and hold as much speed into it as I could and went harder as I got to the top. I kept looking back ready to pull over for Anthony to pass, but he never got that close. I continued on and tried to put as much room between us as I could in the next sections. During the traverse near the bottom of the TOTW trail, my shifter cable broke, and I was stuck in my hardest gear. I wasn’t too bothered by this because I knew there wasn’t any mandatory pedaling left. I flowed through the Garbozo zone and hit all my lines really fast and was happy with how things were going considering what had happened so far. Unfortunately, as soon as I got to the bottom of the Garbonzo zone and to the top of the main bike park zone, my chain got caught up on my frame due to no tension in the cable. This made it impossible to pedal at all and my cranks were stuck in between up and down and flat. Not ideal! I flowed through the bike part section of the track as best I could and tucked down to the finish line.
Overall, I wasn’t as happy with how I performed this race. I struggled a bit more on the climbs than I thought I would, and didn’t seem to recover that well in the time before I dropped into the stages, except for the last two. During the first two climbs, I was having doubts as to if I wanted to keep racing Enduro while grinding up the steep fire roads, knowing that I wouldn’t have a lot of time at the top to recover. I had a lot of stupid crashes, nothing too major as far as injuries go, but enough to be really sore the next day, not the best way to start off Crankworx. The only stage where I can say that I really impressed myself was stage 5. I got a bit sketchy in practice on some TOTW sections but dialed it back during the race and was able to carry a lot of speed through the flatter parts without expelling too much energy, which I was struggling with in practice as well. Maybe it was the fear of being caught up and passed again? Maybe it was the relief of pressure after I wasn’t able to pedal and accepting it?
I was happy that I finished my 3rd EWS with no major injuries or mechanicals. Even though I was unhappy with my results, looking back, It was a really good experience to be pushed that hard and gives me even more motivation to be fitter, stronger, and faster for next year.
