So yesterday I entered the Canadian qualifier for the UCI Pump Track World Championships! Conveniently for me, this was being held at a newly opened, Velosolutions-built pump track at Sicamous, just 25 minutes up the road from where I'm staying in BC. At first I was just going to watch BUT then I found out I could enter. So, two, short practice sessions later, that's what I did.
There were ten riders in my over 40s " Masters" Class. The first timed run went ok until I saw the finish and instinctively lunged for the line, as I do when racing. However, the finish line was on top of a roller, so I threw myself off balance and went down - idiot!!
Thankfully there was no serious injury, and I had gone down after the line, so it didn’t affect my time. The second timed run felt better but I clocked almost exactly the same time. That left me in 8th place, so I just squeezed into the quarterfinals. I was never going to beat the other guy (he went onto win) but really wanted to beat my earlier times. Things were going well for the first outer loop but I slightly messed up a turn on the inner loop and lost a bit of speed, so failed to record a pb. A little disappointing but still glad to get where I got and walk away with a smile on my face. Overall, a great experience and I now need to find where my nearest pump track in Japan is!!
So THAT was the last event of my trip - my sixth in two weeks. Am feeling tired and sore this morning, so am happy to call it a day, not to mention a job well done. I fly back early Wednesday morning, so am going to partly dismantle the Redline (carbon Flight XXL) and start repacking it in the Odyssey bike bag that I also picked up in the States. It’s been an expensive but fantastic trip!
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