I also just got home from Panorama BC. I was there for 2 weeks with CCN teammates Taylor Smith and Jamie Hill as well as my partner in crime Bryden Rigets. Our home away from home was the quite comfortable CCN trailer which we parked in the upper parking lot on the mountain, a very convenient place to be! We were there for two races: the Canadian National Championships and the second race in the Canada Cup series.
The riding there was a lot different than that on the North Shore – lots of hard packed dirt covered with piles of dust, some wide open fast sections, and only a few roots and rocks. The course itself was fun and had a good mix of riding – fast bits with lots of ever growing braking bumps, a good pedally section in the middle, and a couple of technical areas to round it all out. Being so dry the course didn’t stand up too well with all the riding and just kept getting rougher and rougher.

putting the "train" in training
I did quite a few practice runs for the Nationals and totally underestimated how rough it was – by seeding my arms were pretty spent, and by race run I had even less. My seeding run was decent and I finished 3rd after Micayla and Casey Brown. Race run was another story though, as I couldn’t stick most of my lines and hit a tree hard enough to spit me off my bike. I was rather disappointed with my result – 8th, but that’s how it goes sometimes! I just helps to fuel the inner fire to do better next time! Congrats to Micayla who slayed it and won!!

The Canada Cup the following weekend was much more satisfying for me as I learned from my previous mistakes and took it a bit easier during practice. I also felt better in general on the course – more relaxed and fluid on my bike, and spent a bit more time in specific sections of the course rather than doing top to bottom runs. I managed to get a run in with fellow Canadian DH girl Becca which is always good fun!

My race run went relatively smooth and felt worlds better than my race run the previous weekend. I had a blast and finished 2nd after Miranda, and as a little bonus I went faster than I had so far that entire trip! I have a little cycling computer attached to my bike, just a simple road bike one that shows speed, distance, and time. Up till my race run the fastest I’d gone was 53.4km/hr, and in my race run I managed to get up to 55.5km/hr!
My bike felt amazing the entire trip, which was a bit surprising considering how rough the riding was and the amount of bike time I had. Thanks to James at SuspensionWerx for giving it an awesome pre-trip tune up! Also a big thank you to the rest of my sponsors for all they’ve done to keep me out riding on such a sweet set-up! And last but not least special thanks to Phil at CCN for the use of their truck/trailer. We had a great time in our little home!
