Mount Bromont, Qubec Canada

Posted on Wednesday August 05, 2009 by Tristan Cowie

Sup 'merica. How are things going down there? It's pretty good fun up here. Well except for the internet. I finally, after four days of trying was able to get something other than Google and Facebook. For some reason those are the two that worked. Don't ask me. Anyhow, it's been fun chillaxing in K-Bec for the past couple of days. The course is alright, the past three times I rode it I felt like a little girl on her first prom date. I was all over the place! It's been raining off and on for the past few days so that's making the slow, technical sections even sketchier. There is however, a section on an old dual slalom track and you know I'm "givin 'er". I finally was able to clean all of them today, albeit it was not very pretty. I start at 2:30 but I doubt I'll even be in the camera at the start since I'll be at the very back. My number is 119 so I know that there are at least 120 people in my race and all of them are going to be starting in front of me. Awesome. So since I was feeling a bit girlie I mounted up some Specialized spikes (Storms)and I'm sure they'll hook up since my boy Scrub "Sam" Hill rode them to a win last weekend at Mont St. Anne. Blah, blah, blah. On to the race. It went pretty well, considering that I got called up second to last out of an 120 rider field. I left our house/barn thing about 2.5 hours before the start and by the time I made it over to the course I just had some light sprinkles of rain but by the time our 2:30 rolled around it was a full on pouring, pinned rain storm. Awesome. Raining actually made the course better since it washed off all the mud from the previous races and cleaned everything up. I had my Storms on so I could pretty much ride everything out there without too much trouble but some parts were still probably faster to run. Had a bit of a rough start trying to get moved up in the pack and probably only pulled back 10 spots or so. I was suffering pretty bad on the climb but my skillz were tons better than the Euros so I could pull back stuff in the woods. To make a long story short, I lasted four laps before getting pulled with two to go. Somehow or somewhere I passed most of the Americans in our group (Travis still swears that he was in the middle of trail and I rode right over him) and finished up 71st. Ethan was the only one from our group that made it one more lap. It was pretty cool to see that we were all right there together and it just depends on what day someone is feeling good. I was pretty glad that I got pulled since I'm pretty sure my bike was about to quit working as well. Monday was a late start and a three hour drive down to Ludlow, Vermont punctuated by gas stops, me getting lost once or twice (the only time I've gotten lost the whole trip!), me hitting on a cute gas station attendant, and some wicked good ice cream. I am staying in Ludlow for one more night before Travis and I are driving over to West Dover and getting a condo for the rest of the week. So until then, enjoy. Tristan