Catharine Pendrel

The Test of Metal in Squamish, BC is always one of my favourite races. The race sells out on January 1 st in about 20 minutes, but luckily they still let elite riders in on race day. This year over 1100 racers ranging in age from the teens to the seventies signed up. This was the 15 th anniversary of the race and festival weekend and all 15 past male race winners were brought back as well as many of the female past winners. The weather was perfect and the course only slightly slower than the previous year due to weeks of rain leading up to the event and i had been talking smack to a bunch of guys leading up to the race so the competition was going to be fun. The great thing about the Test is the people. This includes the fans out lining the streets with sprinklers, out on the trails, often only semi-clad and the people racing alongside you. The whole community gets into the race and make it loud and vibrant. Afterwards there’s a big BBQ and lots of local parties. T

the always popular and useful lesson on how to fix a flat tire! talking suspension Delicious appies from La Baguette. If you're driving through Revelstoke you have to try their chocolate almond bread, or gelato, or .....the list is long Brendan Macintosh from Flowt bikes invited me down to participate in my first women's mechanics course last week with a bunch of great gals from Revelstoke. With over 20 women attending we broke into three groups all lead by female instructors. Amanda taught them how to change a flat tires, I discussed on the trail maintenance and flowt's resident wrencher Theresa, got into the nitty gritty of more in depth mechanics. We started with great appetizers and ended with fun door prizes and some Luna bars. Every year the night get's better so you might want to keep an eye on Flowt shop events. http://www.flowt.org/Flowt_web_page/Home.html

Martin, the pants have been censored out Km and Logan Deb Ellen and me Aaron and Pete Catherine and Matt Mike Nick Me going gray Barb looking very chic

This weekend our household headed to Salmon arm to ride the Salmon arm Sicamous traverse. It was a fantastic ride which ended in one of the best single track descents I've done. For you locals and trail hunters, we parked in North Canoe and road up to the trail head by a combination of road, trail (salty dog) and ski trails...and maybe some bog short/long cuts circles. Once we found the trail head we had huge grins. The single track was way more than we expected and well marked. We cruised the twisty singletrack for over an hour before a long switch-backed descent (34) dropped us out on the highway just west of Sicamous. From there we cringed in the draft off of Matt as he pulled us back to the car at 32km/hr on our mtbs for 30 minutes! Great day!

Catherine is leading the Canada Cup Series. I'm leading the World Cup. Not too shabby.

Keith and I had pretty much the perfect weekend. We headed down to Pemberton last friday after work for a weekend of camping and riding. We camped at Nairn Falls, and although it rained all night, the air felt so good and we slept awesome. After a week of 6hr jet lagged sleeps I got 9hrs our first night tenting and 10 the next. We did realize in the morning that out tent fly wasn't as waterproof as it once was, but we stayed warm and mostly dry. That morning we raced the Nimby fifty. A combination of Pemberton's new and established trails. After a controlled start and some fire road climbing we worked our way up an 11km, 1hr single track climb. The trails were beautifully made and lead us to some stellar descending down rock faces and twisty forest trails. The second part of the course was tough. A lot of steep climbs greeted tired legs, but lots more fun descending was also to come! The event capped off with a party dj'd by papa Josh, burgers, salads and drinks. The