World Cup Action and National Championship Update
WOW!! Its been a few weeks since this thing has been updated. A lot has happened since the last update, 2 World Cups and National Championships to be Exact. Does not sound like much but each requires a lot of attention to detail and mental stress. So to say the least i'm pretty haggard.
I'll start with the first World cup which takes us back to Canada land for Mt. St Anne World cup. This is my Second year racing up here in the U23 category and its still hard!! Well racing never gets easy but the World Cups are really hard. After 8 Hrs of driving i arrived a few days early to check out the track with its new woods sections and format. Yup... Same as usual. Hard, Technical, Physically demanding and really demoralizing at times. A good course for my Anthem X 29er to keep the wheels locked to the roots and rocks of Mt St. Anne. The race came to soon as i wasn't ready to slide around the track after evening rain storms. Having trouble the days before with fatigue and sub par technical riding i knew it wasn't going to be a good showing. My intuition was right and it was a struggle off the back at the start and on the third lap a broken chain ended my race to finish. Bummer!!!
The next weekend brought me back to the states for my "home town" World Cup in Windham, NY. I say home town because i live 20 minutes from the venue so its close enough. I was determined to get a better result in front of my home town. A beautiful track, dry weather and team camaraderie with Forrest (who raced his first WC in the Junior Category) and Jordan hanging out the week for extra team support cheering Forrest and I onto international stardom... LOL. In the end the race was a success starting last row i managed to work my way from dead last to mid pack in short sub 90min race. I was actually pretty excited with that. Legs were feeling happy again just in time to fly to Sun Valley, Idaho to race U23 National Championships.
National Championships...Sun Valley, Idaho!!! What a race. 5 laps up and down Bald Mountain. The track is straight forward, up the ski mountain on a fire road with a gradient almost to steep at times to ride a bike up and then down a sketchy single track decent with marble like rocks sliding underneath your tires, oh ya and your at 6000-7500 feet of elevation. With no change from the previous year i felt better prepared to expect to suffer up the steep fire road climb. the start was really good for me. i actually got a proper call up (front row!!) which actually helps for pacing up the first climb because you don't have to play catch up and burn your legs up in the first accent. nothing really exciting after the first lap. I found myself in 7th and 8th position for the whole race and with no sign of moving up i settled in for a top 10 finish after 2 laps. Coming from sea level and riding on the edge from the start the last thing you want to do is bridge big gaps mid race and blow up. I think everyone had that idea as the order after the first lap didn't change for the top 10 riders. I was gunning for a top 5 placing out here but 8th place isn't bad for a flat lander. Everyone ahead of me was a rider from Colorado or has been training at altitude for this race. I'm HAPPY with my top 10. Well deserved after a long spring of racing.
That all i got for now. Three weeks of racing abroad got me craving some local race action. Root 66 and some Enduro racing on deck for the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
~Seamus
I'll start with the first World cup which takes us back to Canada land for Mt. St Anne World cup. This is my Second year racing up here in the U23 category and its still hard!! Well racing never gets easy but the World Cups are really hard. After 8 Hrs of driving i arrived a few days early to check out the track with its new woods sections and format. Yup... Same as usual. Hard, Technical, Physically demanding and really demoralizing at times. A good course for my Anthem X 29er to keep the wheels locked to the roots and rocks of Mt St. Anne. The race came to soon as i wasn't ready to slide around the track after evening rain storms. Having trouble the days before with fatigue and sub par technical riding i knew it wasn't going to be a good showing. My intuition was right and it was a struggle off the back at the start and on the third lap a broken chain ended my race to finish. Bummer!!!
The next weekend brought me back to the states for my "home town" World Cup in Windham, NY. I say home town because i live 20 minutes from the venue so its close enough. I was determined to get a better result in front of my home town. A beautiful track, dry weather and team camaraderie with Forrest (who raced his first WC in the Junior Category) and Jordan hanging out the week for extra team support cheering Forrest and I onto international stardom... LOL. In the end the race was a success starting last row i managed to work my way from dead last to mid pack in short sub 90min race. I was actually pretty excited with that. Legs were feeling happy again just in time to fly to Sun Valley, Idaho to race U23 National Championships.
National Championships...Sun Valley, Idaho!!! What a race. 5 laps up and down Bald Mountain. The track is straight forward, up the ski mountain on a fire road with a gradient almost to steep at times to ride a bike up and then down a sketchy single track decent with marble like rocks sliding underneath your tires, oh ya and your at 6000-7500 feet of elevation. With no change from the previous year i felt better prepared to expect to suffer up the steep fire road climb. the start was really good for me. i actually got a proper call up (front row!!) which actually helps for pacing up the first climb because you don't have to play catch up and burn your legs up in the first accent. nothing really exciting after the first lap. I found myself in 7th and 8th position for the whole race and with no sign of moving up i settled in for a top 10 finish after 2 laps. Coming from sea level and riding on the edge from the start the last thing you want to do is bridge big gaps mid race and blow up. I think everyone had that idea as the order after the first lap didn't change for the top 10 riders. I was gunning for a top 5 placing out here but 8th place isn't bad for a flat lander. Everyone ahead of me was a rider from Colorado or has been training at altitude for this race. I'm HAPPY with my top 10. Well deserved after a long spring of racing.
That all i got for now. Three weeks of racing abroad got me craving some local race action. Root 66 and some Enduro racing on deck for the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
~Seamus
posted by Giant Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Team at
9:00 AM
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