Mont St Anne World Cup

It was pretty sweet not having to travel after Nationals. Too bad the week was full of rain. I get enough of that on the west coast, no need to throw more at me on the east coast. Lame. So the big debate (for a tread nerd like myself) was tire choice. The course was sloppy and wet in the woods but as soon as the sun came out it would dry up pretty quick in the open sections. Lucie from Kona brought in some new tread for me as my old tires were not hooking up. After testing them out I had my mental flow chart established. No rain: small block 8. Rain: karma. Rain the night before but dry when I woke up: half and half. But at 11pm the skies opened up and absolutely dumped its load on us. I hadn’t added “tropical monsoon” to the flow chart but my guess was no morning sun was going to dry that up by 11am. Go with the karmas. I turned my brain off and tried to go to sleep but the postDH “Bleu Nuit” rave in the village was going strong and I could hear the DJ until about 6am. 

Everyone had assumed that they would shorten the number of laps from 5 to 4 with the downpour the night before. Even 2 mins before the start girls were whispering about it. But they stuck with 5 laps so it would be a long haul. I had a great start! Almost no effort and I was sitting in 5th on the first start loop. First climb a few girls were starting to swarm but I was still top 15. When we hit the first singletrack and it was a mess. A long line of girls in the mud. Georgia Gould (Luna) snuck by on foot but then everyone tried to duplicate and the holes closed up. Once the course opened up things started to move a bit better. I was riding the technical pretty well and climbing steady, working hard to make up a few spots and ride in 9th. But I must have burped my front tire at the start of lap 4 because I started to feel it fold in the corners. I checked it on the run and it felt like I had enough air to get to the pits for a wheel change. But then I hit a rock on the descent and flatted. I ran to the bottom pulled over and got out my air cartridge to try the quick fix. Amanda Sin (3 Rox Racing) passed me. Damn. But the quick fix worked and I was on my way. I passed Lucie on the course and told her I would need a new front wheel. Not too bad. Not much time wasted and still top 10. I was feeling pretty smug but then I could feel that the tire wasn’t holding air and I rolled it and ate shit on the fast bumpy downhill section. A small hole in my knee, bruised ego and then 4 girls passed me. Not so smug anymore. I just needed to get down the hill to the pit. Alive. So I scaled back my speed and limped down. I made it to the pits and pulled into the Shimano neutral support and got a new wheel. At this point I was pretty bummed because I had worked hard to get past all these girls and now I needed to repeat the effort. I didn’t have that much energy left in the tank so could only muster 13th. My best world cup finish to date but hard to choke down as I was hoping for a top 10.