Canada Cup 2nd Round – Bromont, QC

Jul 8, 2009

Source: Simon Gauthier

As known by the people who have raced it in the past few years, we rarely get it easy when it comes to racing in Bromont. This year was not an exception with ongoing torrents of rain hitting the mountain randomly through the weekend.

Read on to follow the deep muddy action.

Unlike the other Canada Cup weekends, we are used to training until Saturday, and then race on Sunday. This year’s race format was a bit different; only 1 day of open practice on the track and then racing on Saturday. The weather forecast for the week prior to the race showed up to be quite accurate with temperatures of 15-25 degrees Celsius, heavy winds, showers and even blue skies popping out for few seconds. Just to let you know I’m not kidding, Bromont headquarters shutdown the whole mountain on Monday to prevent trail degradation…

Waking up Friday morning with a bit of hope wasn’t enough to clear off the dark clouds above our heads though. While walking early in the pits after we had set-up our booth, it took only a few seconds to witness everyone had their mud/rain bike set-up going on pretty seriously.





Through the day, we’ve seen people switching from spikes to regular tires, regular tires to dry ones… let’s say pretty much every tire set-up has been tried out due to the heavy/thick mud sticking to the tires, causing tires to slide off the slick rocks and off-camber rooty sections on the track.


At one point through the day it became so dangerous to train on the track that a lot of athletes and teams decided to stop and wait until there would be no more massive traffic jams in techy sections. Fast riders would come in steep sections with serious momentum, and then would be forced to try to stop and not hit everybody standing on the course sides… To top it off, a few riders needed the medics help to make their way to the bottom of the hill, being injured so bad they could not bike it down. Let’s say we’ve seen lots of quad and ambulance shuttles from Bromont to the Hospital!

Video by bikervince101:

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Since the track is almost exactly the same as the one riders are going to hit at the World Cup in 3 weeks, we saw Sam Hill and Mitch Delfs rip the track apart all weekend long. With such big names attending the Bromont Canada Cup this year, you could definitively feel the high level of pressure going on.

Race day was no difference in regards to weather, so riders had to face track deterioration plus cold, icy winds and fog up top while waiting for their race runs. Lots of rain-proof set-ups were used for the grips, goggles and gloves as you can witness on the pictures below. Bike trainers were rocking up top, helping the riders heat their muscles and gain top physical preparation to hit the track.



I made the way up to the top with Devinci sponsored rider Andrew Mitchell, so I spent myself a few minutes getting my ass blizzed out while snapping a few shots before the riders would disappear into heavy fog.


The 3 last riders were respectively Andrew Mitchell, Mitch Delfs and Sam Hill. As soon as Sam was on track, I nervously chair lifted my way down while trying to hear the commentator’s voice yelling out the scores.





Once at the bottom I notice a crew of photographers and fans around Hill and Delfs, so I figured they took respectively first and second place. Third place was taken by Neko Mulally from Specialized/TeamAmerica.






Ladies were also rocking the track with quite surprising confidence.


Pinkbike’s own Trenton Zoobkoff came in 2nd in Junior Expert, in the same split second as first position. His performance would have given him the 9th position in the Elite’s men category… way to gooooo!! Unfortunately Andrew Mitchell and Kyle Marshall did not make their way down the hill as safe as Trenton, both crashing pretty hard. Drew was even taken directly to the local hospital thinking he would need to get stitches on his right forearm, but instead turned out he cracked his right heel and hurt pretty bad his right hip. Still, he should be in mint shape to race the upcoming Mont-Sainte-Anne and Bromont WC’s. So we all wish him the fastest healing possible.

After tons of crashes, tires swaps, muddy goggles, flurries and cold weather, the weekend is now in the books and everybody is now prepping up for the upcoming National Championships in 2 weeks, then will respectively follow the 2 World Cups.

See ya’ll next time, Peace Out!

Enjoy a few random shots!





-Simon Gauthier

www.devinci.com