A little rant on dopers…

Back to racing

The morning of the MSA World Cup I realized that for the first time in weeks I was more worried about my competition than how my clavicle, back and shoulder would hold up to the work out, a sure sign that my body is well on its way to recovery.

MSA this year was not the course of years past.  Every year our race courses shorten to accommodate better filming and exciting race dynamics.  In MSA this meant that going to the far side of the course, up a wickedly steep climb, through some very techy woods and down a rock garden was too far.  Instead we would weave through the venue and village lengthening our approach into the tricky switch back climb.  The course raced very well and still had lots of great singletrack, but the course was less decisive a factor in the results…It was more purely about legs.

Katerina takes the win

On this day it was my teammate Katerina that had the legs.  As she had the last two World cups she raced with the lead group all day often determining the pace and making the race interesting.  After 12 years on the Luna team and 3 silver medals, Katerina finally scored her first MTB world cup win and helped secure Luna as the top team on the day.

My race was not quite as exciting, but I did have fun riding my bike!  My start was ok and by the switch back climb I was making up ground.  In the woods people were walking and some blocking so I tried to run around them on another route.  I ended up losing the 4 positions I had just raced hard to gain.  Ooops. This meant I was now behind riders I needed to clear to stay with the front and as we descended down the mtn and then went into a long singletrack woods section the front inched away. 

It seemed to take forever, but eventually I worked my way up in position, but just could never gain enough.  The leaders were too far ahead and without racers in between to use as lily pads, leap-frogging my way forward I just didn’t find that extra gear.  I had to race my own race and I feel I raced a good race, but I am always looking for a great one!  In the end I was happy with 8^th and the opportunity to be able to race in Canada and for Canada and Luna.