Monday, February 22, 2016

ROAM Coldsmoke Rando Race: Holeshot again!

Last year the ROAM Coldsmoke rando race was one of the events that suffered the worst from an extremely dry and warm season in BC. This year more than made up for it.

2016-02-19 Coldsmoke (5)

A very pleasant start temperature for the early start, and WHAM - holeshot again! It didn't last as long this time, with Eric and Peter quickly pulling by as soon as we got into the less tracked cat track above the warm up area.  Ben and Travis passed soon after, which left me fighting for 5th with Scott.  This, it turns out, was a really good place to be as Whitewater had received tons of snow the night before and no one had pre-skiied the course.  As I was heading up the last of the cat track, I could see Peter starting up the bootpack, and the word that came to mind was "wallowing".  By the end of the bootpack the chasers had caught up and there was a lead pack of 7 of us - the leader killing himself breaking trail, and the rest having a nice break.

2016-02-19 Coldsmoke (3)


The downhill was fantastic, as you would expect.  A bit of misdirection with the leaders let me get by, and I entered and exited the 2nd transition once again in first place.  Again, this didn't last long, and as soon as Eric looked like he wanted a chance to do some trail breaking I stepped aside and got back into the peloton rotation.  This pattern would continue the rest of the race, with the leader breaking trail until they blew a skin, at which point the next guy would take over.  Scott overegged a corner on the 2nd descent and destroyed a binding, and the third climb spaced out the group a little, with Eric and Ben doing the majority of the hard work.

Final results had me in 5th overall / 3rd Canadian.  What an awesome race.

2016-02-19 Coldsmoke (2)

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