Monday, May 17, 2010

First Mountain Bike Race of the Season DONE!!!

Last Sunday was the 9th annual Skookum Salty Dog 6 hours Enduro Mountain Bike Race in Salmon Arm BC. The race course linked various trails of the South Canoe Trail System. From steeper climbs, fast single track descents, logging roads and of course slightly technical sections, the 10.5 km track was a lot of fun to ride for all level. This is a family oriented event with kids, youth, adult team and adult solo categories, which also makes it a great event for the first timer! The Salty Dog sold out really early this season with over 400 registrations in the different categories.

Day of the race:

At 8am on Sunday, cars were already starting to pile in the field adjacent to the trails. The tents were starting to get set around the start/ finish line area and racers were starting to get excited… the pros were busy adjusting their light weight steel horse, others were already talking about the after-race beverages... People were smiling, joking around, hanging out with friends, which made for a great pre event atmosphere. Just after 10 am we all rolled down to a further start line in order to give some distance between the riders. There was some excitement and butterflies as this race was the first one of the bike season for me! A few cheers to fellow racer later, it was “Go Time”! We climbed a nice steep and dusty logging road to gain the first section of single track and that’s where the fun begun… 6 hours of mountain biking! On a race like this one, it’s really hard to know who you are racing against because of the many different categories. It’s really easy to get carried away. As riders were passing or getting passed, lots were cheering and or teasing, which helped keeping the mind away from the growing pain in the legs. As the clock was ticking, racers crossing the finish/start line were covered with more and more dust which made for really funny faces… we were all really dirty!

The fastest men solo expert was Brian Cooke with 9 laps in 5:42. The fastest women solo expert solo did 8 laps in 5:57. As for me, I finished 1st of the women solo category with 8 laps in 6:08 which makes me second women overall. Congratulations to Joal Borggard (from ski mo racing) who finished 25th in his category and his friend Kevin who came in second. Also congrats to Audrey Ayotte and Julie Gamache (team Poutine) who had a wicked race and finished 2nd in the women team category!

For full results: http://www.zone4.ca/results.asp?id=3035

More details on the event: http://www.skookumcycle.com/salty_dog

The Skookum team did a great job once again at organizing the event, which was a huge success. A big thank you to all the volunteers who did an amazing job at cheering racers and helping out.

Special thx to Skookum’s Tom and Greg for the team jersey, the yummy apple pie and the good times! Next Skookum event will be in Revelstoke on the 10th of July for the 2nd annual “Get Rev El Stoke”. As for me, some skiing and biking in the week to come!