Rider's Perspective: Skinny Tires At Crankworx

After the Windham World Cup it was now Mission: Crankworx. Immediately following Windham I packed up, drove to Albany, NY and settled into a hotel for 11 hours before flying back to Kelowna. Monday's travel took some 14hrs door-to-door. Flying across the country and gaining time is easier than loosing time, but with multiple connections and a late start to travel, the day was long.

Tuesday followed with a ride in the land of smoke - the Okanagan that is. Forrest fires all over the interior led to a substantial amount of smoke inhalation. Good thing I was heading out Tuesday PM to Whistler. Only a few prep days before Friday's final Canada Cup race, which was the deciding race for the overall series. I was sitting second heading into the event.


The race went great! Geoff Kabush and I separated ourselves early in the first lap and rode together for 4/5 laps before he attacked me. Tried my hand at following his move, but the bumpy trails and fatigue got the best of me, and I was only able to hang on ~20 sec behind. This ended up being my best Canada Cup finish this year and sealed the overall title for me. I've been chasing the title for a couple years after having been 2nd, 3rd and 5th before. It was a shame that Cam Jette, of Scott-3Rox, was unable to put up a fight for the title after breaking his wrist in Windham.

Trailforks.com


Pretty happy to have shown consistency all year and taken the title for Norco Bicycles, at home, in BC, during Crankworx with family and friends there. Huge thank you to everyone supporting me along the way, it's truly amazing and I'm very thankful. I was able to stand on every podium of the series this year, which is a first for myself.


XCO Results
Canada Cup Overall

Usually that is all the racing for a weekend as an olympic distance racer. But this year our Canadian National Marathon Championships were taking place the following day in Squamish. It sounded a little crazy and also fun, but it was more crazy and less fun than I had thought!

There were some serious contenders taking part that had sat out the previous day's Canada Cup, which put some of us at a little disadvantage. We started pretty mellow and definitely "eased" into the race. After about 20 min a group of five had formed off the front and rode together for the better part of 1.5 hrs before the race splintered. The group was made up of Kris Sneddon and Cory Wallace of Kona, Geoff Kabush of Scott-3Rox and Evan McNeely/myself of the Norco Factory Team.


On paper Evan and I had a good situation, but our legs didn't agree. There were bits where the race was mellow and relaxed, but then times of big efforts. Not going to lie and say I felt alright, I literally felt like a sack of hammers. Slowly I fell off the pace and tried to put on cruise control after about 2 hrs. The race was 3hours and 50 minutes for myself...ouch. It went from race, to cruise control, to a Sunday stroll, to damage control, to holy crap how do my legs keep spinning with these cramps!?

I was loosing my focus and drive for the race after getting bounced around on the roots and rocks for hours. The arms were seizing up and cramping, so the downhills were becoming less fun and more "hold on for dear life!". The course was getting confusing out there and multiple times I actually stopped, walked back to the intersection of trails and had to see where the arrow pointed again! The brain wasn't as sharp at this point.

It was quite nice to have a little break here and there. Sometimes climbs approached and I just walked. Not even attempting to ride. When I flatted it was actually a relief to get a couple minute break, eat some more food and go to the washroom.

[https://www.trailforks.com/region/squamish/]Trailforks.com[/L]


Eventually I finished and the fish tacos at the line brought the life back to me. Hearing the stories from other riders that did the double race weekend, or what we call the "100%'er club" was quite hilarious. We were all cracked and sitting in a parking lot exchanging bits and pieces to make for the fun times that follow races. Memories were banked from this day and will be long remembered.

Whistler News
Marathon Nationals Results

Following the double race day there was a little Whistler Bike Park action on the agenda for Geoff Kabush, Peter Glassford, Marc-Antoine Nadon, Kyle Douglas and myself. We were now the super elite club of 100%'ers. You could call us legends. Whistler Omnium day 3 was one of the best days I've had in a while. A bunch of cross-country riders taking the chair lifts and riding downhill all day is something we soak in, as it's not a regular occurrence.


The best part would have been riding Top of the World, which starts at the top of the peak chair. It takes a chair lift, a gondola and another chairlift to get up there. The day was clear and the view went on for what looked like ever. Simply put, it was amazing. The pictures don't do justice.

Another couple days were spent in Whistler hiking into Cheakamus Lake, riding the majority of the EWS course and finally a day on Vancouver's North Shore before heading hitting the Norco HQ on my way home.

This was also a very exciting race weekend for myself, because my gramma has never seen me race outside of the Okanagan. Having her and my mom watch me stand on that Crankworx podium twice was very special!


Now the preparations are well underway before heading over to Norway and tackling this year's UCI Elite men's World Championships. Always an honour to wear the maple leaf at the season's biggest bike race. In other news I have officially gotten a spot into the Finale Ligure EWS, which I cam pretty excited about. Big thanks to Norco and the Norco World Enduro Team for helping make this happen.

If you want to follow these races make sure to check out my website: www.evanguthrie.com

Evan Guthrie
www.evanguthrie.com
www.twitter.com/evanwguthrie

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