Catharine Pendrel

                                                          I love it when I get the chance to do races in BC.   Not only because they always offer amazing riding, but I love the atmosphere at the races and seeing all my favourite BC riders.   This weekend Keith and I headed to Pemberton, BC Friday to pre-ride the Nimby Fifty course we’d race Saturday.    It’s a rugged and demanding course with almost an hour’s worth of singletrack switchback climbing ((100 Switchbacks) followed by some of the gnarliest descending I’ve ever raced…especially when you’re seeing it for the first time in the race which is what I did 2 years ago.   The course then gets hard!   After that you have to tackle World Cup tough climbs to get to the super fun and a little scary No Err descent, ramble on, Mobey Dick and Dark forest. We had an awesome fast ride and then a delicious dinner with the race organizers Dean, Russ, and Terry as well as their wives and fellow racer (and unofficial Olympic teammate

Warning: Blog entries are my way of working through races, brevity not guaranteed. My teammate Katerina Nash rode an amazing race this weekend.   She demonstrated grit, fluidity on the bike and took risks for the win.   The win seemed assured for her until crashes the final lap.   Such is bike racing.   Nothing is ever sure until you cross that line.                                                                      Photo: H Boue The race got off to a good start.   I learned from the week before and chose my passing places more wisely and was in a decent position coming through the start finish.   We wound our way through the town of La Bresse towards a climb of several minutes, pretty rare on a world cup course these days.   The climb switch backed its way up the mtn, the last minute traversing baby head rocks that required good timing and smooth power delivery to not slip up.                                                    The course crisscrossed

But why must I relearn the same lesson as if it’s the first time?   Yesterday’s World Cup race in Nove Mesto Na Morave, Czech Republic was good, but fell short of being fantastic through a combination of being too impatient early on and too patient later on. After a fumbled start taking forever to get my pedal, but luckily avoiding two huge crashes I was in the swarm.   A couple minutes in however, I saw some opportunities to move up by taking the inside of corners.   I got chopped once, but didn’t learn and tried to go inside on the next corner as well.   This time I was forced off my bike and running and lost precious spots.   On this course every rider between you and the front is dangerous as the descents offer little or no passing.   By the time I got to the start/finish line at the end of the start loop I was still 18 riders back and 52 seconds. Charge.   With large gaps formed between riders it was hard to make headway.   I was able to make up 10 seconds