Whistler Cyclocross

Whistler Cyclocross brought an awesome double header weekend, with a very professionally-run race, fun atmosphere and a very unique course!

It all started out with day 1 of Whistler Cyclocross with a very mountain bike like course with a long run-up, multiple switch backs and then to contrast the mountain bike part, a windy ride through the town! I was racing elite women which went in the afternoon and gave me lots of time to pre-ride the course and help my sister work on her lines! In the early afternoon we were off and I was fast to clip in and first dismounted and up the stairs. Having five very strong women in the race meant you had to give it your all and had no choice but to "leave everything on the course." After one lap, the group split and I had to spend much of the race battling with the two ahead of me to the finish. On and off the bike, a crash here and there and after a 45 minute race, I finished in fifth place not too far off of the others, but had no doubt that Sunday would be a better day!!


My sis and I (Kaelen) Pre-race warm up
Photo By: Clint Trahan

The course was then changed for day two, with a little more flow (less switch backs) and a bit of a shorter hill. Once again, I rode some warm-up laps and after rocking out to some Katy Perry, we were off. I had a fast start, once again, and held my top 3 position for most of the race, chasing down the riders in front of me and being chased by one behind me! It was really aggressive racing and no one gave up until they crossed the line! And hey- I didn't crash!!! Coming across the line in 3rd place was definitely exciting for me, as I was racing against some very strong, elite racers.


Photo By: Clint Trahan

All in all, a hot, awesome weekend of racing, with a beautiful hotel right on the course, a very professionally run race, and loads of smiles all around!

Thanks to Whistler Blackcomb for hosting and running the event!! Thanks Jason at Loudenterprise for doing some mechanics on my bike before the race! :)

Also, thanks always to Local Ride Racing, Cycles Lambert, Kicking Horse Coffee, Golden Ears Physio, Giant Bikes Canada, Power2Max and Cycling BC for the continuous support!

 Maggie
Photo By: Clint Trahan



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back on (the) Track

Image
Hello beautiful people! I have been pretty neglectful of my blog lately... so here will be my attempt to do a short recap of my year since my last blog after my crash in Copenhagen. For those of you who have read my other blogs you'll notice I'm not great at condensing content so this will be today's challenge to not write a novel (also to not use a million exclamation points... that one might be a bit far fetched)! So the last chapter ended with me in the recovery process from my broken face and prepping for my first block of road racing in California. All in all, Chico and San Dimas Stage Races went much better than I would of guessed, especially considering my February endurance block kind of fell off the track (no pun intended). Following California, I hopped on a plane back to Quebec to meet my new Macogep-Argon18-Girondins p/p Mazda teammates. Do the whole team photoshoot, sponsor dinner, become instant friends and some serious bonding on a 26hr drive down to Arka...
Read more

Junior Track World Championships 2016

Image
5 weeks away from home, 3 different beds, 3 crashes, National and World class racing, 12 amazing teammates and probably most impressively, a bronze medal in the women’s omnium at Junior Track World Championships! After Nationals, me, Erin, Cam Fitzmaurice and John Willcox piled into a car with our bikes and drove 5 hours to Milton, Ontario, where the next 2 weeks were spent training at the 250m velodrome. The training was intense, with usually two sessions a day and included some longer road rides to keep the endurance up. As well, we did lots of team pursuit work on the track to get me, Erin, Ali Vanyzendoorn, Devaney Collier and Laurie Jussaume up to speed as the first Junior Women’s team pursuit team Canada has sent to Worlds in around 4 years. We grew very close over the total of 4 weeks that we lived together, and had a blast building our relationship as teammates and friends, as not many of us knew each other too well before this. Card playing, nail painting, baking and a trip...
Read more

January European Track Adventure

Image
I can't believe it's already almost March! The past two months have blown by, but everyday has been so full and impactful that I could probably relate every single event of every single one of the past 51 days from memory. My last blog post ended with me sitting in the small air bnb in beautiful Gent, Belgium, just days out of competition. By the end of that week, I had resurrected my jump and bunch racing legs and was race ready! The first day of the Belgian International TrackMeeting consisted of a Points Race, where I rode a safe race, but needed to have more confidence in my abilities and trust that I had great form to do better than the 9th place I ended up with. That night we put together a last minute Madison pairing of Chiara Consonni (ITA) and I and we dove right into the race with our first ever exchange being on lap 2. Probably one of the sketchiest Madisons I've ever done but we got through it, not missing an exchange and finishing on the same lap as ...
Read more