Eastern Canadian Adventures - One Canada Cup, two World Cup XC races and a hairless cat.

My last adventure was a 3 week/3 race trip in eastern Canada. It was for a Canada Cup at Hardwood Hills Ontario, then two World Cups in Quebec. The first one was in Mount Ste-Anne and the second WC was at a new venue in a little town called St. Felicien. I would be traveling with a whole new group of people that I know but have never really traveled with before. My fitness was good going into this trip so I was hoping to race well.Hardwood-
I flew into the center of the universe aka Toronto on Thursday, got a rental car, a big Dodge Charger. Then I picked up Roddi Lega and Tim Heemskerk(dutchie) when their fight came in 1hr after mine. Now I know we had a big car but we had 2 normal sized guys and Roddi, then we have 3 bikes and 3 gear bags. So I used some of the Kayak tricks I learned over the winter, I brought some kayak straps with me and we just strapped a bunch of gear on the roof it was quite a site, sweet Charger with a couple hockey bags on the roof.


We drove for 1hr to the place where we were staying and I was a little skeptical about the “Hostel” we booked, but it was wicked, the guys are really clean in the kitchen so it was great - if you don't clean up your dishes Roddi will spray you with orange juice. The race went OK but I was pissed. Derek Zandstra won, Mike Garigan was second and I was 3rd. I need to win these kind of races and I didn't so it was not so good. Hardwood is all single track and it's hard to pass. And we are racing at the same time as the Women/Juniors. So it was a real gong show. “uh rider up......... uh rider up........Can I please pass?........Please?..........ALL RIGHT MOVE you &^%$ stupid Mother &^%$ YOU ARE HORRIBLE - GET OFF THE TRAIL!” No just kidding I was real nice to everyone. Anyhow Derek won over me and Mike by like 20sec. I was not so happy with my race but what can you do, I will be better next week at the world cup.


MSA-
So we packed up the Charger Jit style with 2 big hockey bags on the roof. Ah but then we put a full bike on top of the bags, on top of the car. And Me and Stef Widmer drove 8 or 10hrs from Toronto to Quebec city. We picked up Sandra Walter at the Montreal airport. We stayed at nice place close to the hill and Sandra had this stove top espresso maker and it was unreal. The morning was so good. I was loving it, espresso and CMT on the TV. The morning's were my favorite time of the day. Sandra and her espresso left on Tuesday and Roddi and Dutchie moved in on Wednesday.

Roddi was in a bad mood and was not riding well so he made a top 10 reasons why he is sucking here it is:

1. I had a stomach issue for the past 2 weeks (Dier Rear).
2. As soon as #1 went away I got a cold.
3. It’s just that time of the month.
4. Baby fat.
5. I have to travel with golden boy Ricky Federau and his positive attitude is pissing me off.
6. I broke one of my high heels.
7. Roomie Stef “Salty Head” Widmer yells in his sleep and it scares my care bear.
8. Tim says, “you must need more coffee”.
9. There are no Fruit Loops in Quebec.
10. Country music


The course was the same as last year and I felt good in training leading up to the race. I had an OK start and was in the 40-50s after the start loop and moved up to 26 at the end. I think I could have done 2 spots more but I messed up right at the end when I tried to pass a guy and got stuck in a sand trap and had to sprint and I, Ricky can't really sprint. So I am some what happy with the race but I will get better for Felicien. I need to. I need to get a top 16 to get into the Olympic pool.

St-Felicien-
I was now staying with a new group for this one. Marty “Poland” Lazarski and Andrew “doc” Watson. Marty booked our Accommodation and it was going to be a house 10km away from the course, all is good right. Marty was busy giving the Polacks a tour of Quebec city, so me and the Doc went to get the keys for the house. When we got there, it was some family's house and they just put up a tent trailer in the driveway and just slept in the trailer.


They were fully in the house the whole time and cooking cakes and doing as they please. I slept in a 10 year old girl's room, I kind of felt like Michel Jackson. We got half the fridge and 1 shelf in the pantry. They had a bald cat and it was so ugly. We complained a bit and got some money off but it was still not wicked. It was like a home stay but we had to pay $1200 bucks for the week.


The race venue was a small ski hill in the middle of nowhere and there was a 10km gravel road to get there. It looked real bad but then we rode the course and it was unreal! The best course I have ever done, no joke. 6.4km per lap. Little bike park, uphill climbing in the woods with roots, technical down hill single track, some fast berms, it was a real man's course. “I'm a man”. So I took to the start and didn't want to get stuck in any of the bottle necks and did OK but I lost like 1min stuck in traffic I rode a good race and moved up the whole day and finished 21st - about 1min out of the top 16. great eh?


St F. has 1500 people in it and I think everyone came out to watch as there were so many spectators - it was very cool. My travel home was crap, that's what you get with Air Canada, I guess.

Now I'm off to Brazil!

-Ricky