The ‘cross season has begun and I was there. The Deadgoat Supercross took place in Cochrane and we weren’t smoked out or anything.

The course was on the seminary grounds (just up the road from Cochrane BMX) and I was impressed with how twisty it was, especially how they fit the course all together without needing to cross any roads. While there were the requisite barriers to hop(/dismount and carry over) it was not a very technical course at all. By the afternoon it was going to be hot (30C), but my race was in the Novice class at 9:30, when there was still a tiny bit of the overnight chill in the air1.

In our race there were 16 riders and I heard a mom yelling at her kid, “Remember it’s 45 minutes! Pace yourself!” I also took that advice2, maybe to my detriment as far as final results go. My strength on the course was the long uphill drags. After a back of the pack start I managed to overtake at least five racers in my five laps and pulled off a best ever placing of 7th3. I think I could have done even better if I’d worked harder at the beginning because I wasn’t spitting blood by the end. Success!

results

Podia

Open Women

  1. Ella MYERS4
  2. Susanne MCARTHUR
  3. Emma SCOTT

Open Men

  1. Shawn BUNNIN5
  2. Mark FAGNAN
  3. Sean GERMAINE

Expert Men

  1. Steven SOON
  2. Devin ERFLE
  3. Jared GERVAIS

Sport Women

  1. Charlie PITTARD
  2. Daniella BREWSTER
  3. Ella EIDSVIK

Sport Men

  1. Quinten MACKLEM6
  2. Robert MARTENS
  3. Caleb WRIGHT

Novice Men

  1. James CHALKLEY
  2. Matt DYCK
  3. Zachary BROMBEISS

my results

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  1. Because my race was at 9:30 I would have had to get up at like 4am to get to Cochrane if I drove from Edmonton. Instead, I drove down the night before to camp nearby. But I didn’t actually bring a tent. So I slept under the stars in Rocky Mountain View County and it was a pretty great way to take advantage of my winter-weight sleeping bag. ↩︎

  2. I am always terrified of blowing up spectacularly by using all my energy too early. Riding the first week of Wednesday Night Worlds had me feeling like I was spitting blood and that was only 25 minutes. ↩︎

  3. CrossResults says that my 8th out of 20 at Tubs on Tubs 2023 was still my best actual performance. ↩︎

  4. Second place in 2023 ↩︎

  5. Second place in 2023. ↩︎

  6. Third place in Novice Men in 2023 ↩︎