Location: Chilliwack BC, Vedder Mountain

Date: Sunday April 30th, 2023

Race 1 is in the books! What a great first race to kick off the season, the vibes were high, and you could feel the excitement and anticipation from all the riders, volunteers, sponsors, and organizers. Official practice went off on Saturday, it was smoking hot at 28C which was really the first real summer feeling day, the body was not yet climatized to the heat which I think was felt by a lot of the riders. Thankfully the weather was looking better for Sunday; overcast and even calling for a little rain which was honestly a relief. This was my first time ever riding Vedder Mountain and I left wondering what I haven’t been here yet as the trail network is amazing. We were lucky to have some moisture in the ground during the race weekend which allowed for amazing track conditions.

Being somewhat local to Chilliwack, 2 of my fellow New Brunswicker’s and I went to sample the goods the weekend before the race for some practice laps. We quickly realized how great the trails are and how good the conditions should be for the race weekend. As the race tracks and stages are not communicated to the riders until the Friday before the event, we looked up previous races and tried to ride as much of the Vedder Mountain “classics” to give ourselves the best chance for race weekend. Vedder mountain also allows shuttling which was a huge help to conserve energy and maximize the number of laps we we’re able to complete. This being my first race this year with little to no prep due to bike issues (broken frame) I needed all the laps I could get.

How was the race??

Sunday was an early wake up call, 530am wake up at our campsite followed by a hearty breakfast. We made our way to the parking lot at Cultus Lake where each rider must park and pedal up to the venue for registration at 7:00am. The race officially started at 7:30 with Pro, Expert and U21 riding out at the same time. The first pedal up was the service road for stage 1/5. To my surprise, I was also asked for an interview prior to taking off. This year McElhanney is sponsoring the series and people were pumped to see someone from the company racing the events. Catch the interview in the recap video!! For being so early in the morning, my god was it HOT out, this is especially tough to manage with how long these races are (ingest electrolytes ASAP). The pedal up was good, and I felt physically and mentally ready for stage 1. Stage 1 went well but the track was pretty loose and took a bit to get comfortable. I knew quickly that my pace wasn’t quite there and with limited prep stamina would be an issue later in the day. It’s a long day so you have to manage as best you can while trying to get a good time at each stage. I noticed early in my run that a lot of people before me ran off track in the tight turns, you could see the lines pushing out and sure enough I got caught up in a rut outside the main line and tipped over, I jumped up quick and moved on, but my water bottle cap broke off and got splashed with cold water the rest of the run. Was kind of refreshing actually but there goes some crucial H20 until I make it back to the aid station. I did have 2 other water bottles on my bike and in my pack so no stress. Overall had a good stage, focused on being smooth and tried not to get too caught up with going fast, ultimately the tip over and my lack of pace cost me. FUN stage altogether though!

Following the long first stage, the climb starts over from the bottom up to stage 2, for this climb you had to take the climbing trail all the way to the top (I noticed some riders didn’t and that’s total BS... but what can you do I’m racing my own race). I had never done this climb and turns out its loooooooooong. Stage 2 was short and sweet and pretty flowy. No climb in between stage 2 and 3 so it was straight into stage 3 after that. As I mentioned, McElhanney is sponsoring the series and each race has a dedicated McElhanney stage, how sweet is that!!? I was excited for this stage as it was full of turns and jumps and right up my alley. Well maybe I was too excited... Was running good at the start and came into a turn a little too quick and double tire drifted into the berm and luckily it caught me and spit me out. I thought to myself “damn I got lucky there”. Well, I didn’t learn my lesson and came in too hot again a few turns later and this time the berm gave way, and I was on the ground covered in dirt. I got separated from my bike and had to run back up to get it, my seat was sideway when I jumped back on, and I had to twist it with my knees as I continued onwards and tried to regroup. That was a costly time mistake, and my heart rate was through the roof which led to feeling very tired at the end of that stage. I knew that mistake was going to hurt my time. On top of that, the McElhanney guy crashed on the McElhanney stage... damn that sucks!

Oh well, back up the service road for stage 4 and 5 and no time to dwell on the mistake. The last climb was long but at this point of the race I’m settled in and just kept pedaling up to the top of tower road. This was the last climb of the day and stage 4 and 5 followed each other. Stage 4 was a fun one and had a few uphill’s which I wasn’t able to maximize, this was about 5 hours in and as I stood up to pedal the uphill section I felt my right quad cramp and lock up, that pretty much meant that was the end of any sprinting for the day. I had to sit down to pedal which was frustrating as you can feel the seconds go by. That said, I was still PUMPED for stage 5. The Vedder Mountain classic, Black Hawk Down. Super fun trail with a bit of everything. The crowd was awesome on this one and it was pretty cool coming down the trail and hearing people hollering and chainsaws going off while you go down the steeps of the trail. I have to admit, halfway down I was TOAST, I was basically just participating for the last bit of the trail and hanging on. Lots of arm pump which made it very hard to squeeze the brakes, so I had to slow the pace down significantly to make it to the bottom safe which at the end of the day is the real goal.

Overall, the weekend was a blast! Vedder delivered the goods and with it being my time racing it I can see why it’s been a crowd favorite over the years! Ended up 13th on the day out of 15. Not the result I was after but with a tip over and a crash and little prep. I’ll take it. Moving on and building from here.  

Next up: Fire in the Mountain Enduro in Kelowna May 14th.

**Thanks to everyone supporting the program this year. Big props to the other NB boys wearing the jerseys this weekend.

Francis Long with a huge 7th!! And Mike Barnhill with a 4th in his age group and first race ever.  

Check out the race recap and interview: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/video-and-race-report-canadian-enduro-league-rd-1-vedder-mountain.html 

Strava from the race: https://www.strava.com/activities/8986672771 

Some practice GoPro footage: https://www.youtube.com/@thenb3682 

Website: https://www.nb3.ca/ *** In the building stages but check out the extra activities on here**

Location: Kelowna BC, Smith Creek Trails

Date: Sunday May 16th, 2023

Race 2 - “Fire in the Mountains” in Kelowna was a scorcher!! An extremely hot day on the Smith Creek Trails network, with all proceeds going to the West Kelowna Professionals Fire Department Charity. HUGE props to all the volunteers and West Kelowna Fire Department staff who were racing themselves or working the event. This was my first time attending this can’t miss event. I was able to make the trek to Kelowna the weekend before to ride a few of the trails and get a sense of what the conditions would be like, and the conditions could not have been any more different from one weekend to the next. Imagine this, the Okanagan got hot and dry … The conditions the weekend prior were fantastic - the ground had some moisture as the region had experienced significant rain for the last few days. This led to some grippy and fast trails. Fast forward to race weekend and everything changed - trails were LOOSE, DRY and SLIPERRY. Oh, and did I mention it was HOT? (32 degrees Celsius to be precise) This made for a tough day on the trails but nonetheless a great time was had. I signed up early for this one and as it turns out I accidentally signed up for pro, AKA the elite class and was up against some very stiff competition.

Practice

We arrived in Kelowna on Friday morning and went straight to the trail network for some practice laps. As the course map came out the Friday mornings leading up to the race, I was able to map out what my practice day looked like. The previous week I got to ride a few of the trails that ended up being on the course map so that was a bonus. I had ridden 3 out of the 6 stages last weekend so my game plan was to ride the next 3 that day and take a rest day on Saturday in order to be as fresh as possible for the race.

How was the Race??

Sunday morning came quickly, but with a rest day by the hotel pool on Saturday and a nice big free continental breakfast, I felt as good as ever. Our start time wasn’t until 9:30am which was a nice change from the early start at round #1, but I worried this would push us later into the day where the temp would be getting hotter, and it did! The climb trail was a little over an hour to the top and it didn’t take long for the heat to set in. Stage 1 was Motobomba, which was also the McElhanney stage. This stage was full of turns and ruts and I knew there was a high chance the turns would be blown out and my god were they ever. I can say that I was consistent with my previous run on the McElhanney stage for round #1, unfortunately this meant the McElhanney guy crashed on the McElhanney stage… AGAIN! As predicted, some of the turns were non-existent and I pushed straight through and washed the front. To make matters worse, I punctured my front tire with a sharp branch when pushing into the turn. I quickly got up and tried to hustle down the stage while my tire still had some pressure, but I could hear the air coming out. My tire sealant did a decent job to keep the leak rather slow, but my front was feeling like a wet noodle as my tire was getting softer by the second. Luckily the bead held until the end of the run. The thing with biking is that it’s a big community driven sport with lots of comradery and true to this, my competitor saved my day and had a plug kit at the bottom of stage 1 (Note to self: purchase plugs for next round). We were able to get the plug to work but just barely. I pumped some additional PSI into my tire to keep it more firm in hopes to keep the plug in which worked but trust me when I say firm tires and traction do not mix! While making for a slippery ride, this solution helped get me to the bottom of stage 2 and 3 where I could further assess the repair and swap the tire if needed. Overall, I was happy with my ride on these stages but man it was survival mode. My front tire was all over the place, and I was losing traction over and over. I felt like Bambi on Ice for those 2 stages but made it down and my tire survived. I checked everything over and was pretty happy with the repair job - the plug had settled in nicely and the sealant had done its job bonding everything together. I reset my pressure to normal and went up for stage 4 hoping it would hold up the rest of the day.

Stage 4 was going great, and I was feeling smooth and finding the flow of the track until I came around a turn and a fairly sized rock was sitting right in the middle of the track waiting for me. I was committed and leaned over and couldn’t do anything about it - my front tire hit the rock and I was on the ground again. Someone must have clipped the side of the trail and dislodged the rock into the track. Man... what a bummer! In that moment I was pretty frustrated and knew this was a costly hit to energy levels that were already starting to run low in the heat. Crashes or tip overs are so draining and it’s tough to get your heart rate to settle in those moments, but I was thankful everything was ok and that my bike was fine. It’s tough putting these days together run after run, especially as the day goes on, but there’s nothing you can do except re-focus, finish out the stage, and move on.

After surviving stage 4 I was excited for stage 5 and 6. Stage 5 is a black diamond trail with some jumps and flowy sections running on both sides of a canal down at the bottom. Stage 6 is a blue flow trail that you can really open the speed on. I was happy with how stage 5 went but I made a mistake near the bottom sliding out and going slightly off track. I didn’t feel like I lost much time, but off-track excursions aren’t usually recommended for speed… Even with that mistake I had a pretty big grin on my face after stage 5 having a blast getting down! I would recommend this trail to anyone that rides the trail network in Smith Creek (“Feel the love”, check it out) Finally I arrived at stage 6 for some fast flowy turns that led straight to the parking lot! Last big push of the day! It can be tough to make up time on flowy trails since everyone can go pretty fast on them, but I gave every last bit of energy I had to get it done!

Overall, this weekend was great and another awesome event. Can’t say enough about how well this event ran! Something like 20,000$ was raised for the West Kelowna Fire Fighters Charity!! With the 2 crashes and struggles with my tire I was happy with how my day went. I felt like I rode a lot better and felt stronger than round #1 even though the result didn’t show it, a tough 33/38 in Elite. The silver lining was that my time, even with the 2 crashes would have landed me 12/69 in the open category. Certainly, still have a lot of work to do to get back to riding at my best, but I have some positives to take away from this weekend.

Next up: Valemount, BC, July 16th  

**Thanks to everyone supporting the program this year.

Check out the race recap: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/video-and-race-report-canadian-enduro-league-round-2-fire-in-the-mountains-enduro-kelowna-bc.html 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CsUl7NKPIoc/ 

Strava from the race: https://www.strava.com/activities/9072979463 

Some practice GoPro footage: https://www.youtube.com/@thenb3682 

Website: https://www.nb3.ca/ *** In the building stages but check out the extra activities on here**

Location: Valemount BC, Valemount ’n Bike Park 

Date: Sunday July 16th, 2023

Race #3 for me this season was actually round #6 of the series and was located in the small mountain town of Valemount, BC. I had been looking forward to this race all season, I had never been to Valemount and always love visiting small mountain towns. For sure, this race was not close! We travelled about 8 hours North with my truck and trailer, travelling through Kamloops and then North towards Prince George. There had been some low-key buzz about Valemount and the trails up there, I think I can speak for other riders in the series that everybody was anxious to get up there and see what Valemount had to offer. This town is surrounded by massive mountains and the mountain bike park is just a few minutes from “downtown” and I have to say that for me, this place lives up to the hype.

Now with that said... I’m probably super biased as I mentioned above I love small mountain towns and the communities that make them what they are, but the trail network really had a bit of everything. Flow trails, technical downhill, jumps etc. The climbing trails were also super scenic and flowy and kept you engaged on the way up, rendering it a perfect spot for the Canadian Enduro Series to visit.

Practice

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and checked in to our campsite right across from Mount Robson. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the mountains; I’ve been in BC for 10 years now and I still get caught just staring at them. I was so pumped to be out in Northern BC and have the chance to see some new areas, but we were quickly met with some smoky skies and couldn’t see anything. Our campsite was across the street from the base of Mount Robson, and we could only see the coffee shop. Unfortunately, the smoky skies would stick around most of the weekend.

The other very unfortunate thing was that I sprained my wrist pretty badly in late June in a training crash in Kelowna. This wasn’t just a tip over either - my front tire slipped out in marbly and dry conditions, and I did the classic “stick your arm out to break your fall” and that was that. Luckily, the X-Ray in June came back ok, and nothing was broken. This was a relief and I focused on resting and exercising with my physio to try and get things back to normal for the next block of racing in July. However, this meant I hadn’t been on my bike for 3 weeks, but I had managed to sneak in a good 100km gravel ride the weekend before to get my legs back.

We were committed to making the trek out to least give it a go for the race, plus we had planned a couple extras days to visit the surrounding area. Friday morning was practice day, and I was recklessly optimistic about how practice would go. I warmed up my wrist the best I could, taped it up and shuttled up the service road to ride some laps. It felt pretty weird at first but as they say, “it’s just like riding a bike” and comfort came back pretty quickly. I did a few laps of the stages and stuck to the smoother lines to try and manage my wrist. Things were going well so little by little I started upping the pace and jumping stuff (and here comes the BUT) but… I was really starting to lose my grip near the end of the run. Not exactly ideal. Pain was manageable so I decided to ride stage one start to finish which was no doubt going to the longest and gnarliest stage. I figured if I could manage this top to bottom after having ridden 3-4 laps already, then race day should be ok. This is when reality started to settle in. About 2/3 of the way down I could not handle my bike like I wanted and was more or less hanging on with 1 ½ arms and felt like I was riding in a sea of potholes. I couldn’t hold my line and would fatigue pretty quickly. I knew then and there that this wasn’t going to work but being optimistic and having planned Saturday practice as a rest day, I wasn’t ready to make the call just yet. Saturday came around and nobody would be surprised to hear that my hand and wrist did not feel good. It was basically friends off between my wrist and the rest of my body - my hand and wrist were not pleased about my practice day adventure…

Anyone who knows me well, knows how badly I hate backing out of something. I can confirm that I was without a doubt the most annoying person to be around on Saturday. Thinking out loud about what I should do, changing my mind every 5 mins and pacing around the town in thought.

Conversations on Saturday went something like this:

• How’s the pain when you ride?   Eric: It’s fine I can manage.

• Can you hang onto the bars?  Eric: Well, technically yes. For the whole day? Eric: Next question.

• Does it hurt now?   Eric: It’s been hurting for 3 weeks. What’s the difference.

• If you race, do you think it will be worse after?    Eric: Statistically speaking, most likely yes.

• So, you probably shouldn’t race right?     Eric: Probably should.

And that continued until Sunday morning…

Race Day

Surprise surprise… I felt like crap on Sunday morning. Opening and closing my hand did not feel the best and my parking lot excursion jumping off curbs was difficult. You’d think it would be easy to decide, but I was still hanging on in my head. Ultimately I knew the best / right decision was to sit this one out. What really made me decide was that Crankworx is around the corner and that’s been a bucket list race for me, so I didn’t want to miss out on that. So, I finally I made the tough call to not race.

I was super bummed, but decided I might as well volunteer for the day and help out where I can. Well as it turns out Sunday morning, the lead rider bailed at the last minute and the crew needed someone quick. The lead rider is the first guy down the course, you make your way down each stage and report back to the team, checking out the track conditions, testing out the timing loops, looking for down trees on course etc. The crew at The Canadian Enduro League asked me if I could do it, I didn’t bring all my gear but luckily I had my bike and helmet with me and let them know I could do it. This meant I could still ride, contribute towards the day, and not have to worry about going fast or making my injury worse. Cool deal really! I got shuttled up to stage 1 in my shorts and t shirt and off I went. It was pretty awesome to have a look behind the curtain at what goes in to making an event like this work. There’s so many things going on behind the scenes that racers don’t see. Hats off to the crew at The Canadian Enduro League for doing this every race weekend!! I cruised through each stage and the conditions were awesome, a little bit of rain the night before making some sections slippery but for the majority of the stages the conditions were mint! I reported back to the team and confirmed the timing loops were set, and the race was on! I have to say that truly turned my day around. I continued with the volunteering all day doing a bunch of different things. I was at stage 4 sending riders down and chatted with a bunch of riders before they dropped. You bet I was telling them about McElhanney too! Pretty cool hearing from all the different riders and their backgrounds, I definitely gave a few people some pep talks prior to dropping in, stage 4 was a tough one and everyone was sweating it. Another thing I did was help out at the aid station giving the riders food and water etc. That was a blast too and you are literally EVERYONES best friend. If you ever volunteer at one of these events, that’s a fun spot to be!

All in all, the trip to Valemount ended up being a blast. Some highs and lows without a doubt but just goes to show sometimes other opportunities come forward if you just stick with it. I would highly recommend to anyone looking to get into the racing or bike scene to check out a Canadian Enduro event and volunteer if you get the chance. Any day riding bikes and going out in the mountains is a good day!

Next up: Crankworx Whistler – Canadian Open Enduro – National Championships, BC, July 30th  

**Thanks to everyone supporting the program this year.

Check out the race recap: https://www.pinkbike.com/u/canadianenduro/blog/video-and-race-report-canadian-enduro-league-round-6-valemount-bc.html 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CvA1UqaS0sP/?img_index=1 

Strava from the race: https://www.strava.com/activities/9463769872 

Some practice GoPro footage: Check my Instagram in the coming weeks.

Website: https://www.nb3.ca/ *** In the building stages but check out the extra activities on here**

Location: Whistler BC, Crankworx  

Date: Sunday July 30th, 2023

July was a busy month and with 2 races which were more or less back-to-back, 2 weeks after Valemount, it was time for the biggest race on the calendar: The Canadian Open Enduro - Crankworx Whistler! This race is the Canadian National Championships and all of the country top enduro racers in the country come out trying to claim the title. Being a part of Crankworx is something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember, I’ve been watching Crankworx since its inception in 2004. This is back when you had to be a pretty die-hard mountain biker to even know it existed, especially when you’re a small-town kid living in New Brunswick. I think we had finally caught up to “modern life” and this thing called high speed internet had finally made its way to Rusagonis, NB. But streaming wasn’t a thing yet, so you needed to do some digging online, wait for the year end DVDs to come out, or stand at Chapters for hours to read through some magazines to get your info on the mountain bike scene out West. Since being out West, I’ve gone to Crankworx every year with some buddies to enjoy the show and this year I was going to be a part of it. Well… I certainly was doing everything I could to be anyways.

If you remember a short 2 weeks ago, I was dealing with a pool noodle of a wrist and had to back out of the Valemount race. It took that whole first week for my wrist to recover from my racing attempt but it finally started to feel better. The other thing that unfortunately had to be crammed into these 2 weeks was moving out of our house and into a new townhouse a couple cities over. As if this month wasn’t enough of shit show, we had to cram this move in between the 2 races because our rental house was being sold and this was pretty much our only window. As life would have it, it turns out I had one of the busiest weeks of work (that engineering / construction thing I do) so far this year working 10- and 12-hour days and moving till about 1am in the morning each day… Massive thanks to my friends for helping out doing all the heavy lifting since I wasn’t exactly useful when it came to that with my noodle arm. Luckily by the weekend we had settled enough to operate and catch up on some rest. Monday came quickly and knowing that we were leaving Thursday for Whistler I had to see where my riding was at to figure out if I could even race. Wednesday night I made my way to Seymour Mountain to give things a go. I was able to find a really good wrist brace used by some top motocross athletes and it turned out to be a huge help. Now the only problem was the fact that I hadn’t ridden at all for nearly 6 weeks since the wrist injury and pedaling up the hill was super tough! I was beaten down after the first climb and was riding horribly down the tracks, this SUCKED and mentally got to me. Regardless, it was time to pack up and head to Whistler. I have to say I felt a lot better once I started driving up Thursday - every time I pack my bike and head to Whistler I’m like an oversized excited toddler (well I’m actually always like that but something about the driving up the Sea to Sky gets me amped every time,) I will never get tired on that drive.

Practice???

N/A …. Well somewhat anyways..  Friday was bike park day with the boys! No pressure, all fun and consistent dirt merchant laps. If you know, you know! I had a bit of the Whistler flu, which everyone seems to get on the first night. This was a huge day for me though, I told myself Friday I would spend the day to figure out if I was even going to be able to ride let alone race. Considering the shattered confidence, I experienced on Wednesday night; it started ok out. I did a few easy laps testing out my new brace and tweaking my suspension to try and reduce the impacts. The luxury of the bike park is doing multiple laps quickly since you’re going up in the lift and not pedaling up for each lap, so we got a few in pretty quick and things were looking up. The only caveat to this was that we were mainly riding jump laps which allow you to rest in the air, and not technical downhill stuff. My logic was let’s go hit all the bigger stuff so 1- my confidence and bike handling comes back 2- I can rest while riding and 3- holy shit its fun! This 3-phase plan + my robot looking wrist brace started bringing me back to life and the possibility of racing was now starting to look better. I ended up having a pretty good day, but in all reality bike park laps and race runs are not apples to apples.

Official race practice was on Saturday and truthfully, even with a decent day Friday I still had no idea if I could manage a full race day. Both Francis and I opted out of practice to rest, as we were nursing some injuries. I should mention that the stages for this race were massive - it’s only fitting that Crankworx was going to be an absolute beast of race. The stages were long and gnarly mixed in with a few solid bike park tracks, and would feature the longest stage EVER in North American racing to date. If you’ve skied Whistler, think the peak to creak lap from peak chair down to Creekside. That was stage 3 on Sunday and no doubt was one I was worried about. Turns out as we did a deep dive on each stage Saturday morning, that I had never ridden half of these trails. I had already climbed up to stage 1 before so at least I had an idea what I was up against as far as the pedal up goes. The other thing we found out was stage drop times, this was news to me and something that I hadn’t experienced before.

Basically, to sum it up, you have specific times you need to drop at each stage and if you’re late pedaling up, you get docked time, if you’re consistently late or more than 10 mins late (if I remember correctly) you’re disqualified. Well.. That made me nervous! I was on the struggle bus just 3 days ago, doing ¼ of the climbing and riding we were about to do Sunday. Mix that in with tracks and features I had never even set eyes on before and I was going to be racing most of the race blind. It took me a bit to digest all of that, but luckily it was time to watch the freeride event Saturday afternoon known as Joyride, so I didn’t have to sit thinking about it. This is an all-time crowd pleaser and although this year had big weather delays, the show got me pretty fired up.  

Following the event on Saturday it was finally time to make a call. I have to admit I was nervous; life had been absolute chaos up until this point and I don’t like making excuses, but I had some good ones loaded up that I think anyone would think are valid.

That said, I knew 2 things for certain; 1- I’m going to regret not giving it a go considering I can ride and 2- If I start, there’s 0% chance I’m quitting, and you’ll have to drag me off that hill.. So, it was GO TIME!

Race day

Sunday morning came around and even with a house full of 10 guys, I got a good sleep and took to the living room floor for some warmup stuff, food, and coffee. It’s always tough to eat before these races, you need something significant to get you through most of the race then you survive off snacks. We made some pretty hefty breakfast burritos the night before, so we figured we were set and had a decent start time at 9am so no crazy rush in the morning. Our Airbnb was also pretty close to the first 2 stages which meant a few of our buddies were also going to hike up to cheer us on which was going to be pretty sweet!

Starting off, I knew what to expect for the pedal up to stage 1 and stage 2 as I had gone up that way before, it’s definitely not an easy pedal up but mentally when you already know what to expect it brings a level of comfort. Stage 1 and 2 themselves we’re going to be physical and certainly get the day started off with bang, I had already ridden the track for stage 1 (Hey Bud) and stage 2 (Dark Horse) was the next trail over and although I never rode that it was going to be somewhat similar. I pushed pretty good on the pedal up constantly looking at my watch making sure I was on time as they are strict about drop times as I mentioned above. I got there on time but barely had time to settle my heart rate down before the lady at the start gate was yelling my number. Just like that it was time to get racing.

Stage 1

This stage had a pretty spicy drop into a rough landing full of rocks and roots, there’s a sweet spot you have to land in which is pretty far down and you have to gap this rock. I knew this since I looked at this drop before but had actually never hit. Right before I dropped I told myself “If I feel good coming up to it and speed feels good when I see I’m going to hit it”. The thing was I didn’t quite remember how far down from the start it was and next thing I know I come around the turn and see that I’m directly lined up with no options to skip it. That got the blood flowing! The landing was a bit rough and then straight into a hard left turn. The rest of the run featured many rocks and roots and a few heavy pedaling sections. Lots of fans down near the bottom of the stage cheering on which is always a boost.

Stage 2

Stage 2 was similar and with a lot of steep chutes with 1 or 2 smooth lines, I was pretty conservative entering some sections, you definitely don’t want to crash in those sections. Of course, you never want to crash, but these sections in particular would be rather unfavorable. Usually when you first ride a trail you scope out the available lines and think how best to get in and out of that particular section - this race was all about adapting on the fly. There was a pretty significant crowd cheering us on here too which was awesome, including two of my buddies freaking out in a turn when I went by which made me laugh in my helmet! Thanks for the support boys!

Stage 3

This was the stage everyone was pretty much dreading, turns out it was the longest stage in North America EVER. After a little traversing out of the woods, we got to the village and jumped on the lifts which gave us a nice little breather. We had to go up the lifts all the way to “Top of the world” a trail from the top of Whistler mountain via peak chair. We would be riding this and other trails all the way down to Creekside in one go down some black and double black diamond trails. This was demanding to say the least. (Please wrist don’t quit on me now I’m thinking). I was able to find some pretty good flow, jumping and doubling my way down “Top of the world” which I was pretty stoked on. The trail has super chunky rocks and edges everywhere, if you’re not careful its easy to get a flat tire, so tire management was also part of the game. I was slowing down as I was nearing the end of the 1st trail and trying to take a mini break and breathe before the next bit of chaos. Once I got to the 2nd half of this massive stage, it basically felt like I had never ridden a bike before, my arms got very pumped up and my front tire was just going into all the brake bumps which were basically potholes. I was trying to use 2 fingers to brake at one point because I couldn’t squeeze any harder but that was worse because I couldn’t hold the bars. It was pretty chaotic the rest of the way down and I just slowed up and survived it to be honest, got passed by 2 guys at the end but I just waived them by.

Stage 4

Back up the Creekside gondola which again was a nice little breather and let my arms relax after that wild ride. Now it was into the more bike park style trails to wrap up the day. The trails in stage 4 we’re a good mix tech and flowy BLUE trails on Creekside. More stuff I had never ridden at all, and I took it pretty mellow through here too knowing stage 5 was a long one to close out the day. Not much to report here just made my way down this stuff.

Stage 5

The final stage of the day! For stage 5 it was more bike park stuff the whole way down which was sweet. The tough part at this stage is the mental gymnastics you have to figure out in the moment. Basically it’s “Holy shit, finally I’m at the last one” V.S “the reality” which is that you have another pretty long stage ahead of you and it’s got some gnarly sections in it and …there is 100% chances that it’s dusty with some completely blown out turns coming up. Oh yeah, I also never rode any of these sections before either. I have to mention though, there is one thing you can count on with bike park trails, and it’s that they are well built. You know the features are safe and built with intent. There was a bit of a line of people to drop as our drop time was still a few minutes away so another little rest opportunity. Generally speaking, I was happy with how I rode, I definitely lost some time in a few sections just not knowing lines. Taking turns from weird angles and hitting compressions everywhere. The last few turns got a bit loose a few times but sliding around in turns is fun and gave me a little boost. Came around the last turn near the Joyride course and GLC and heard the same banging pot I heard on stage 1 and 2. Tristan was somewhere, couldn’t see him but I could hear him as I came through the corral at the end. Happy guy at that point.

I found my guy Tristan (who we were calling the team manager all weekend) and the legend had a couple cold Kokanees in his bag waiting. Francis was about a half hour behind me all day as far as drop times, so we knew roughly when he should be coming down. We hiked up a bit to do the same routine as he ripped through the corral and ended his day slipping and sliding down stage 5 with a rear flat.

It was absolutely celebration time after that, we both kept it together all weekend with no crashes and it was pretty sweet to have finally checked this off the list!  

A little break before the final race of the season, unfortunately, I’m missing the most fun race of the year in my opinion, Sun Peaks, Kamloops BC. But I’ll be racing the final stop in Bromont, Quebec at the end of September. Looking forward to a couple weeks of rest before getting back at it for a few different trips and one very long road bike race! Stay tuned.

Next up: Bromont, QC, October 1st   

**Thanks to everyone supporting the program this year.

Check out the race recap: Weirdly no recap?  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CvdcPNfPb_w/?img_index=1 

Strava from the race: https://www.strava.com/activities/9552867119 

Location: Bromont, Quebec

Date: Sunday October 1st, 2023

Introduction

Fresh off the Whistler Fondo road bike race a few weeks prior, it was time to jump back on the mountain bike bust out the French and gear up for a gnarly race in Bromont. As this season would have it, my jam-packed schedule had me flying even further East to New Brunswick the week before the race. This would equate to not a lot of seat time, but my day one homie Luc was getting married and there was no missing that. Luc I know you’re reading (at least you tell me you read) so congrats again! After that absolute shaker, I flew back home to BC mid-week to get a few days of riding in Vancouver and dial in the bike before hoping back on a plane to Montreal. 

Now this flight pattern seems like a stupid idea, and for the most part it was, but logistically with all the other variables coming into play during those couple weeks, it was the easiest and cheapest of options. Surprise, surprise, post wedding and flying coast to coast to almost coast back... I was tired and jet lagged arriving to Montreal Thursday night on race weekend. However, I did myself a solid and booked an Airbnb right on the resort, I could see the chairlift from my balcony. Friday morning came around and I cruised into town to the local coffee shop (Café 1972) which by the way, like most of the small businesses in Bromont, is operating out of an old house converted into a coffee shop. 

But no time to be a tourist today, saving that for later, back to the Airbnb to build the bike up and hit the chair lift. Luckily for me, a friend of a friend and local shredder Kyle was also up in Bromont for the weekend, so I rang him up and had a tour guide to shake off the cobwebs. 

Practice 

I linked up with Kyle at the bottom of the lift for 12pm. Kyle and his buddies have been riding Bromont for years and with the course mapped out as of Friday morning, I showed it to Kyle and said take me here. We did a few laps, and I quickly remembered my last time in Bromont over 15 years ago, it was super rocky and technical. Funny to think we came here on dirt jump bikes with just a mechanical back brake and went down this stuff, you’d have to pay me to do that today. The boys had been riding all morning and took an afternoon break, but I kept going as I only had 2 days to pre-ride everything. The first 2 stages we’re going to be gnarly, we did a couple laps of Stage 1 which featured sketchy rocks (LOTS of rocks), plenty of off camber roots, some fast doubles and even a pretty sizable step up that you’d see in a jump trail in Whistler!! I was pretty stoked about the big jump, they had 2 option lanes taped off, one that went around the jump (aka lame and slow) and one where you had to hit it (aka fast and fun). Typically jumps this size aren’t on an enduro stage but this track was a proper DH track. Stage 2 was the old-world cup DH track in 2008. That truly says something about how burly this track was, definitely lots of lines and not somewhere you want to fall. I knew stage 1 and 2 were going to be key to get dialed for race day and I wanted to make sure I knew the lines to keep speed up to do all the jumps, hitting every feature is crucial to keep the pace and to get a good stage time. 

On my way back up the chair for another go at stage 1, I was sitting with 2 local kids and as I got talking to them about the mountain and the race, I quickly learned these 2 we’re known local shredders. One of which raced his way to a great result at the US Open DH race the week prior. Perfect I thought, let me follow these guys down and they can show me the fast lines. They agreed and were absolute legends stopping in areas and letting me know what was coming. Fired up for a lap, we went down stage 1 which is a tech double black trail and as we entered into the woods. It was immediately clear these 2 had been down this track a few times, they were flying! Jumping over rocks and roots and catching these little transitions and downsides you wouldn’t even see if you were looking for them. They were definitely quickly gaining on me, but I kept them in sight enough to see where they were going. As we made our way down the rocky tech, I’m finding some nice lines and flowing pretty good. We come through a steep section, and I can see a rock garden coming up as we are about to exit the woods, my guy in front of me sticks to the right edge of the trail and hits a small little kicker and gaps the whole rock garden!  What a fantastic idea I thought, instead of death griping through these stupid rocks just skip them all together. I had the speed and saw his line going in, so I did the same thing. Smooth sailing! I gapped all the rocks and landed perfectly. Mere milliseconds after this nicely executed move, I then proceed to fly though the air this time without a bike and my view is quickly changing from the sky to the ground and back again a few times. Once that rollercoaster ride was over and I caught my breath, I saw the 2 guys behind me with eyes coming out of their goggles and managed to ask how it looked from back there. Apparently as bad as it felt! 

Luckily, other than losing my breath and a couple scrapes and bruises, I was totally fine. Turns out when I jumped the rock garden I landed just a bit too far to the right of the trail and stuffed my front tire into a small hole in front of an off-camber rock. Basically, ended up with the same outcome as putting a large stick in the spokes, front wheel came to a dead stop and that was that. My bike took a beating, but I managed another lap to shake off the crash, but my front wheel was super bent, and my rear brake wasn’t working very well. We rode the same trail so I could tick off a few other features further down the trail. I also wanted to hit that big jump, so I knew what that felt like. I ended up hitting it a few times, it was just too fun. Felt pretty weird in the air the first time with my wobbly front wheel.  I didn’t know it then, but this would be my last lap of the weekend. 

Went back home to my Airbnb just minutes from the lift and started making a list of that I needed to fix on the bike and what I needed to ice and tape up on the body. Took a trip to the bike shop and loaded up parts and tools I couldn’t bring with me on the plane and some Advil’s, medical tape, ice, heat pad. Turns out my bike was pretty mangled, looking at my front wheel I was laughing that I took another lap on this wheel, probably wouldn’t hit that big step up like that again.. oops! Got the wheel mostly good and packed it in for the night. Woke up Saturday to find out I must have hit my hand pretty good; it was sore Friday and I iced it a bit, but the swelling came in overnight, and I was quickly met with the reality that I might not be able to ride. 

As I started going over the rest of the bike, I noticed my brake had leaked overnight, getting brake fluid all over the rotor and significantly less brake fluid in the line which equates to air in the brake line. My rotor is also pretty bent. To make matters worse, as I start taking my brake off the handlebar the bolt breaks with half of it still screwed in meaning I won’t be able to put it back on. My grips were destroyed, and I also noticed the end of my handlebar is broken off. Horrible morning so far! Now these are all things you can repair, but as I’m working on the bike all morning (with 1 hand) and practice time is just melting away thoughts of not racing are creeping in. Not only am I looking at a fat price tag to get the bike rolling safely for Sunday. I’m struggling with my hand. I got things working ok minus the back brake and went back to the bike shop looking to price out a new brake. I took my bike with me some I could ride around town and see how things felt before lighting my Visa on fire at the shop. That thing had been swiping more than a new divorcé on tinder! I knew in the back of my head that morning that the likelihood of riding Sunday was not in the cards. But it still took me all day to make up my mind, certainly tried everything I could to line up. I got a lot of steps in pacing the living room. I took one last trip to the shop in the late afternoon to price out a few more things I knew I needed and went for another ride around to see how my hand felt before buying stuff. I could barely wrap my hand around the bars, I rode down some stairs to see how bumps felt and although I made it down, riding 6 stages like that just would not work. So that was it really, made the tough decision to sit out yet another race. Tough pill to swallow after travelling all the way here. 

****How I felt about my situation next page (Rated: PG-13)****

Sunday – Race Day 

Tough morning! Bad sleep! Yet I’m still in my head I’m thinking there’s a way to make this happen, surely there’s a clinic that would give me a cortisone shot in the hand, maybe I can tape my hand to the bar (kidding) … I’m more or less just annoyed at the whole situation, BUT even if any of those things worked my bike was still out of commission as I hadn’t bought the necessary parts to race Saturday evening. This ended up being the right decision obviously! I reached out to the Canadian Enduro crew and let them know I was up volunteer again. I think the crew felt bad for me and put me on stage 4 which was way at the top and had the absolute best view on the mountain. I would be the start marshall, bouncer, hype man, motivational speaker and as it turned out bike mechanic for the day. Being up there solo for a while setting things up at sunrise and taking in the view and all the fall colors was actually such a nice thing, it took away a lot of the frustration and feelings of defeat from the day before. At least I knew I did everything I could leading up to the race and now I just get to enjoy the day. I say bouncer because I had to turn away so many people away from the trail early in the day that didn’t know the race was going on. 

I also got the opportunity to chat with many of the locals, I was having fun with it asking people which language you want French or English, this is a bilingual stage. Some of them told me about riding in BC and on some trails that I knew very well. Others told me about the history of the mountain and how it ended up where it was today. I was lucky enough to come here when I was in high school for a day of riding, so it was cool hearing how things had changed since then. Once the racers started rolling up to the start, I switched to being the hype man, making sure people we’re stoked after the huge stages and climb they just went through. One guy showed up with tire issues that we were able to sort out before he dropped. I was dying to be out there, but being in the mix and helping out with the day is definitely a rewarding experience. I say it a lot but the culture in mountain biking is the best, everyone is always just stoked and fired up. Even if everyone is competing against each other the vibe is always fun and loose! Everyone wants the best for everyone else. I think it’s something we all share being on the bike, especially in a race or event. Everyone knows things are about to get crazy when you drop in and there’s always a respect there because you know the other people are going through those feelings too. Ended the day closing out the stage and letting the locals know the track was now open. Beer and poutine time! We we’re in Quebec after all, the home of the poutine. 

Season wrap up. 

So that wraps up the race season for me. This was the first season I tried to compete in multiple rounds and score some points. My goals were to ride new trails, travel the province, get more racing experience, understand how the events were run, stay fit, stay consistent, meet new people, and essentially participate in this pocket of the mountain biking scene. Looking back, I think I achieved all of those and although some tip overs, mistakes and nagging little injuries may have kept me from good results, I’m happy with the effort and happy with my riding throughout the season. Having raced a few Canadian enduro events in the past it’s great to see this side of the sport growing, the enduro scene in Canada is thriving and a lot of fast racers and coming up. 

Lastly, and to my surprise, the series points and final overall standings were released, and I ended up third on the season! Stoked to see that for sure! I’ll be the first to tell you I was not the third fastest guy but hey you need to line up and race to get points, and you can only race who’s there. I will say this on the overall; travelling to the races, staying healthy, staying consistent and simply finishing each race whether that’s racer or bike are huge tasks. Especially when you have a full-time job!! Practicing and training to maintain fitness throughout the summer also needs to be mixed in there somehow and crushing lap after lap on the local trails to get your body used to physically withstanding the demands of a race day is time consuming. You need to want it! “C’est pas donné” as the French would say. So, stacking overall points and getting a good overall finish on the season most definitely speaks to that. 

So that’s a wrap for racing. Already working towards next year’s plans and excited to switch it up a little bit and get some redemption at a few races, for now time to hit some jumps and take photos and ride simply for the love of it! 

Thanks to everyone for helping this season and for supporting the program this year, learned a lot and excited to take that and move forward. Will be sharing some previous trips and “offseason” riding with the NB 3 crew to keep showcasing the rad things this crew is up to! 

Cheers, 

Eric

Thanks again to everyone supporting the program this year. 

McElhanney 

The Woodwork Co. 

NB3 

RynoPower Canada 

Next up: Off season shred!!

Check out the race recap: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/video-and-race-report-canadian-enduro-league-round-8-bromont-qc.html 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyrUb3nyKxl/?img_index=10 

Strava from the race: N/A  

Some practice GoPro footage: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy7eCDkuzu6/ 

Website: https://www.nb3.ca/ *** WE HAVE MADE PROGESS. CHECK IT OUT***