Saturday we awoke not so bright and not so early to do some pre-riding and check out the GasGas demo ride. After a big breakfast (bacon, eggs, hashbrowns - thanks Champ!) we headed off for a lap. The A course was about 10km of some of the nastiest singletrack this side of Erzberg. Roots, rocks and slimey uphills littered the treacherous course. I tested out a trials tire for my first lap to see how it was. The trials tire worked well but my clutch has been on the way out for a few weeks now so things weren't perfect. Once back from the first lap I headed over to see Dave from GasGas Pacific who had brought me new plates for my clutch. I installed new plates in my Rekluse clutch while Malcolm and Victoria demoed the new Gassers. I've been a fanatic of GasGas bikes since 2005 when I got my EC200 so I was eager to hear their opinions of the new bikes. Both Malcolm and Tory came back with huge grins on their faces after testing out the bikes. Malcolm loved the smooth power and quick handling of the EC300 while Tory fell in love with the EC250, its plush suspension and perfect power output. Poor Victoria was also upset as she just bought a 2008 KTM250XC-W last summer. Looks like the KTM will be for sale sometime soon! After the clutch install and demo rides it was time to fuel the beast (aka eat lunch). Some hot dogs, sandwiches and bananas were on the menu and promptly scarfed down. After lunch I mounted a Maxxis IT knobby tire to go for another lap. This time I rode with Malcolm, Jarrett (May) and Eric Demoulin, all of which race in the Masters (AA) class while I race Expert (A). The knobby definitely didn't work as well as the trials tire on the slippery rocks and roots, but my clutch was much better. About 2/3rds through the lap Eric hit a hidden rock and punched a hole in his clutch cover. He nursed it out to a logging road and back to the pits while Malcolm, Jarrett and I finished our lap. The knobby definitely worked better on the long downhills and the few sections with loamy dirt, but it was less than ideal on the rocky uphills and big roots that littered the course. Once back at camp I decided to give a new GasGas EC300 a demo ride as I will be racing one this fall at the eastern rounds of the Canadian Enduro Championship. All I can say is WOW. While I love my 2007 EC250 Six Days edition, the EC300 is the perfect enduro machine. The bike I rode was bone stock save for some hand guards and a skid plate. The 300 had typical GasGas suspension and handling (ie. perfect for me) and the 300 engine is a torque monster. I've never been a revver and prefer to ride my bikes a gear high and torque it through obstacles. The 250 does a decent job of this but the 300 absolutely excels at it. Even without a Rekluse clutch, it's pretty much impossible to stall the 300 (and this one had the 2k-2 ignition, not the heavy 2k-3 one). For technical enduro riding the 300 is the bike and I can see why they're so popular. I'm now planning on buying one either this year, or at the end of the year for next race season. I'll be getting the racing edition EC300 as I want the slightly stiffer suspension and a few other goodies. Who knows, maybe I'll get a Nambotin replica if I can get the money together. Anyone want to buy a 2007 EC250 Six Days edition with Ohlins suspension? Anyways, after the demo ride it was dinner time followed by bike, gear and body prep for Sunday. I mounted up the trials tire on the back wheel again too.
Sunday morning came early but I was excited to be racing the PN series again. I made myself a big breakfast - bacon, eggs, toast and a banana before heading off to sign-up. Through my Six Days experience, I've learned that if I want to race hard, I need to fuel both the bike and body. I always eat a big breakfast the morning of a race (especially if it's an all day enduro) then eat some more food just before the start. During the race I'll again try to scarf down some food when I'm pitting for gas to keep the energy reserves up. Anyways, after breakfast, I went through sign-up and technical inspection before gearing up for a pre-ride. I always try to squeeze in a 15 minute warm-up ride before the race start to get the blood flowing, muscles warm and hopefully get rid of any arm pump. After the pre-ride I waited what seemed like forever for the riders' meeting and then the start.
We finally got started around 11:30am - a full half hour later than planned. This resulted in my body cooling off and not being totally ready to race. Off the start I slipped on my first kick so it took me two kicks to finally get going. I was last to the first corner but quickly caught up to the pack on the first endurocross section. Then on a small uphill while pressuring the guy infront of me I accidentally hit neutral, losing my momentum and getting stuck on the hill. I eventually got going but by this time I was over 30 seconds down on the rest of my class and Vet Expert (which started a row behind me) was hot on my heels. I pinned it and started making ground on the rest of the expert class until an ill-fated rock knocked my chain off. I quickly got it back on the sprockets and continued on my way battling with a few vet experts as I closed in on my class. I started pushing way too hard early on and my arms started pumping up something fierce. It got so bad I could barely hang on and felt slow, though I was starting to catch guys in my class. Once I got to the really tough hills I caught some more guys, including some of the pros. Over the course of 3 hills, I passed 2-3 guys in the Masters class, and was playing cat and mouse with two more. My arms were still pumped up really bad so I eventually fell back a little bit trying to loosen my grip.
On the second lap I started to loosen up and lapped a ton of intermediates on some of the tough climbs. Bikes were scattered everywhere on the technical rocky climbs but my GasGas EC250 with rekluse clutch and trials tire worked flawlessly. I climbed up the hills with relative ease compared to the those with knobbies and never had any boiling over issues. One the third lap I finally started riding like myself as my arms relaxed and I settled into a good pace. I started passing more people though my chain again fell off when I hit another rock. After lap 3 I was sitting around 4-5th place in the expert class and just outside of the top 10 overall. On lap 4 I put in a really smooth
lap and passed 3 experts and 2 pros in the process. I came into the finish of the lap to find a huge lineup of people waiting for the 3 hour cut-off, but when I asked how long, there was still 30 minutes until cut-off. I gassed up and headed out for another lap in 2nd place in the expert class and up around 6th overall. About a third of the way through the lap I took a bad line choice trying to pass a lapper and got stuck on a nasty up hill. I had to turn around, then got stuck again on my 2nd attempt. By this time all the guys I had passed on the previous lap were passing me back so I finally found line up it and gave chase. I managed to catch 2 of the experts and one vet expert, but there was still a few other guys that eluded me. I finally crossed the finish line sometime later to find out that 2nd place in the expert class was less than 2 minutes ahead of me. After spending well over 5 minutes getting up one hill I was really annoyed by this since I would've had 2nd expert in the bag. My final result was 3rd place expert and around 9th overall on the day. Not too shabby for one of the toughest PN races of the year, and my first time back racing the technical PN circuit since October last year.
Once the race was over we packed up everything, headed to awards to collect some hardware (I got my 3rd place trophy and Tory won the womens class) then hit the road. We arrived back in Cawston just before midnight where I crashed at Tory's place for the night. In the morning I packed all my stuff back in my truck and drove home to Rossland where I was greeted by cold weather and snow. Ugh.
I'd like to thank GasGas Pacific for all their help, including pitting for me and giving me some fresh riding gear. I'd also like to thank Fasstco again for their continued support and the best bars on the market. The Squamish Dirt Bike Association deserves a big round of applause for putting on a gnarly race that challenged even the best riders in the country. Finally, I really need to thank Malcolm and Victoria Hett for letting me hitch a ride with them and stay in their trailer. It was a great weekend that I won't soon forget.
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