You want me to go where? And ride my bike too!

Just as I thought that my season was going to start winding down for the year, I get the news. Me and my XC bike are going to Italy to compete at the World Mountain Bike Championships for Canada, yippee. My first trip to Europe, and it didn’t really sink in until I boarded the plane in Calgary due east to Toronto. A short four hour flight, nothing to it, and the seven hour flight to Zurich wasn’t that bad either (of course being bumped up to first class didn’t have anything to do with it at all, none what so ever). Though, as per usual for me and plane trips, only about an hour and half of shut eye was managed, in between free wine and an old Star Trek movie.Once in Zurich, all I wanted to do was brush my teeth, change into sometime warm and cozy and hunker down in the airport with a bunch of my other traveling companions and wait out the six hours 'til the bus would come to pick us up. The was the plan anyways, but it’s not a stellar feeling waiting at the baggage claim area, while everyone else you’re traveling with grabs their stuff and you watch the last three unclaimed bags go around and around and around, just in case you didn’t recognize yours the first two times. AHHHHH.

Okay, no problem, just file the claim and see what they say. I find out that my bike box has taken a little vacation and has decided to go check out Frankfurt for a couple hours, then maybe it will decide to come to Zurich in about five hours…good. But my clothing bag is awol, no info or record at all, what kind of system is this; "check back in a couple hours" is all I get. Time to purchase a six swiss franc espresso, eigth franc sandwich and a four franc bottle of water (the Swiss franc is almost even with the Canadian dollar), a tooth brush and toothpaste and just wait.

Just over five hours later I pick up my bike box, huge relief, all my important stuff. Who needs underwear anyways? Our group is doing another rider pick up at the airport the next day, so maybe I’ll find an extra bag of clothes lying around then. Shortly there after our bus arrives with a little Italian bus driver yelling at us in Italian to hurry up and put our bags on the bus, then off we go. After getting lost in Zurich and doing a couple laps around a tower of Smart Cars, we manage (an hour later) to hit the highway in the direction of the alps, Swiss alps might I add. Wow, what an amazing view.

After a series of insanely steep and narrow switch backs with no shoulders or guardrails, a quick pit stop (that we had to beg the driver to make), we pull up to the Italian – Switzerland boarder four hours later. No one is patrolling the crossing, so we just roll on through and within 20 minutes pull into the small, cold and wet mountain village of Livigno. Thus, over 25 hours after boarding the plane in Calgary and maybe two hours of sleep, I finally arrive to what will be home for the next 10 days.


After a couple of very restless nights and zombie like days, I think I finally overcome jet lag (8hours is kind of tough). But not as tough as the course that they have laid out for us, man you don’t feel pain like that very often. They start us off by sending us straight up a steep, long climb, part way up one of the ski hills. After climbing for about five minutes on double track, I finally hit the first single track. This singletrack consists of some pretty tight and fast corners, a few really gnarly and rooty chutes, made even more treacherous by the rain, and of course some long lung and butt busting climbs (it was all I could do to get up some of those climbs in my granny gear – need more gears). After riding through the front yards of a few homesteads on the mountain side, I am popped out at the bottom of the mountain and follow a river for over a km back to the start/finish area on a rough, grassy trail. Here I think that you’ve finally done one lap, not too bad, WRONG, that’s only four km.


Up and over the main city street on a large metal bridge built just for the occasion, through downtown Livigno and straight up the ski hill on the other side of the village. This climb turns out to be probably three times as long as any of the other side, steeply switchbacking right up the grassy mountain side. Once I hit the tree line I started to breathe a sigh of relief , the worst has got to be over, only to look up and was hit with an even steeper and more technical climb through the tress. Once I finally did reach the top, after more than 12 minutes of climbing up this mountain, I meet my reward. Super stellar, smooth, fast and twisty singletrack descent, one where you can just let the breaks go and fly.

I hit the bottom of that close to 5 minute descent with a huge smile on my face, which quickly turned to a “you got to be kidding me!!” kind of look and all I can do is laugh. My goodness this is going to hurt come race day, and I pop it back into granny gear (love my granny) and start grunting my way up the mountain again. The final and probably shortest of all of the climbs, maybe 30m, brings me right into the front yard of this little house, where this little old Italian man was chopping wood and cheering me up the hill. From there it’s all downhill, down a dried creek bed, about a km of grassy course along the other side of the river, back to the start finish. All in all, 12 km of pure pain with the occasional pleasure thrown in. Taking over 60 minutes to complete my first pre-ride, it was the kind of course that almost makes you want to switch over to the dark side.


Wednesday, I get to kick back and watch the team relay, and Canada has a title to defend. Thursday has the junior men and women’s races. Friday is the U 23 men’s and Saturday is the DH and 4X qualifying. Sunday is the elite xc men and women’s, trials and the 4X finals. So it’s an action packed week with lots to do, watch and eat.


The elite women’s race, my race, on Sunday has 82 starters, which is close to double the largest field that I have ever competed against, and my stomach is doing flips, summersaults and absolutely every and any other trick in the book that it can think of. With two and a half laps, I know it’s going to be a really hard race. Being plate #61, I was lined up in the 6th row with 10 to a row. When the start gun went off, that race started really fast and I soon found myself very near the back of the pack. The first steep climb, under 1 km into the race bottle necked like crazy and everyone but the first 10 people were forced off their bikes . The first half lap was pretty interesting and pretty slow. Everyone waiting in line through all of the single track, as patient as you can be during a race, trying to get around each other pretty much to no avail, it was pure madness. After the first half lap, I found out that I was in the top 70, (wow thought I was doing a little better than that), with only 2 minutes separating myself from the top 30. Slowly through out the next lap and a half I picked people off (this was a really good course to blow up on especially on the long, never ending climbs) and once found myself in the top 40. However, with less than a half lap to go, I hit my wall very painfully. Loosing a couple of positions immediately, but holding off a group of seven until the last flat, rough section back to the finish. Here, the group surged past me, and while I was able to hold the last wheel for a couple hundred meters, they eventually dropped me. Finishing within 30 seconds of the train ahead of me, I ended up in 49th position, and just 21 minutes off of the leader, Gunn-Rita Dahle. I am very happy with my result, not too bad for my first World Championships, but I’ve got to find 20 minutes in me somewhere for next year (which rumor has it is in New Zealand).

Now, for a couple of days rest, a nice massage, some TLC for the bike and then travel to Milan to catch a little plane to Glasgow. Fort Williams is the next stop on our agenda, World Cup Finals, and I’ve heard that it’s a fun and really technical course, more my style.

Ciao,

Mical Dyck

I'd like to thank Terrascape Racing, Calgary Cycle, Trek Bikes, WTB, CCA and my parents.

Editor's note:

Mical Dyck is the 2004 and 2005 Canada Cup Elite XC Women's overall points champion. She is the Alberta XC, Cyclocross and Hillclimb champion for 2005 as well. The next week in Scotland she finished in the top 20 at the World Cup Finals-her third top 20 of 3 World Cup races in 2005. Best of luck in the 2006 season.

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