Yep – I predicted it on the Whistler Bike site that it would be the hardest race I would ever do. And I was so right.

Last Saturday, I lined up with 180+ other women to open my morning up with a vicious hot lap down Crank It Up, only to be followed up with an afternoon in 30 degree heat on Whistler’s West Side trails. It felt like I went into a vortex one day of not being registered for this event and I woke up on the other side registered and struggling through Danimal. Seriously – why did I say I would do this thing?!

Crank It Up was ok – I don’t think I could have done much else in my run than what I did. I was certainly taxed by the end and I made fewer mistakes than I did in my 2nd place showing at the last Phat Wednesday on the same trail. This time we rode all the way down to Heart of Darkness, and I know from experience that I can be really fast on that section-  my run felt pretty clean. Honestly, I’m not sure what else I could have done to be faster – I rode my Vixa (with my “bike park conversion kit” on it – Maxxis Minions, 40 mm stem, my Aurum’s front wheel and DX pedals instead of XTR) and pedaled my ass off. I’m more impressed by Kathy Pruitt than ever – I think after the last Phat Wednesday she wasn’t pumped with her 3rd place so she got her clips out and pedaled World Championships style – and won the DH portion (and the overall in the end!), which is pretty mind blowing, if you ask me. She also beat me by enough of a margin on CIU that I wonder if I should have even pedaled more (is that possible?). I guess 2+ seconds is relative to the fact that the course was 6 and a half minutes long for us. Phew. Strand was 3rd and she said it was hard too…

Lena Martin photo. Looks like she was chilling in the back of the crowd before the XC start while I was foolishly parked right at the front - you can barely see me right at the top on the right hand side in all yellow facing the group. I thought I'd have time to get more into the middle but alas...I did not.

I felt sick all day (especially after maxing out in CIU) and was sure it was a nerve thing so I tried to be super sensible with eating before the XC stage. I ended up accidentally putting myself in front of the pack at the start of the race and was horribly ill pretty much right into the first climb. I guess it was just one of those days when most of us would have been happy to call it a day – but I couldn’t. I thought if I fought through it for the first 3o mins I’d start feeling better but I started trainwrecking super hard the longer I went – water didn’t help and supplements were out of the question. I had to stop at the second climb to try and pull myself together – at that point I was ready to fall over and was cramping everywhere so pedaling was becoming impossible. 99er was exactly the gong show I expected (people flailing everywhere), Middle Danimal was absolute torture under the circumstances and when I got to Dylan Wolsky and Todd Hellinga the first time at Sproatt I was ready to pass out. I figured into Danimal South I’d get myself together but the illness got worse and I was flailing harder. I was just about to deek out and head home at the bottom of THC before the climb started again when I found Gunner right at the final climb and he wouldn’t hear it. So I kept going…READ MORE!

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Just got back last night from a big week on the Island. Darcy Turenne’s See Jane Jump festival went down at Mt Washington, which was just a few days after I finished another weekend with the Dirt Series. Coaching biking is pretty sweet – I meet some great people, show them some sweet skills and get to hang with other stoked professional riders who live a similar lifestyle to mine. The Dirt Series was great (as always) – full of people and tons of laughs. See Jane Jump was a first for me – Strand sourced the coaches out and I was asked to join a task force of National Champions, World Championship athletes, Dirt Jump and Freeride queens and all around shredders. Mt Washington had so much snow this year that they didn’t have as much open for us as they wanted to – but it was still a rad time and I had fun on their trails for sure.

Dirt Series shredders line up for another rad weekend in Whistler.

Blurry outtake from the train of women walking bikes and gear onto the ferry. Strand, smiling as always.

See Jane Jumper Marie smashes a corner while the other girls look on...

I really enjoyed the tone of the SJJ event. While Darcy still worked to engage sponsors like Norco and Oakley for prizing and tech support, the event felt very grassroots, super inclusive and very chill – I could tell she was really going for an event that celebrated women in the sport of mountain biking; coaching on the trails was a nice complement to the whole thing. It was also a great opportunity for Gunner to rock out with me on the trails after the camp and then we headed to Cumberland, BC. READ MORE!

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A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hellinga and I got together so he could finish writing and reviewing the 2012 lineup for Norco. I’ve been on the Aurum since mid-June so I was pumped to do some photos and talk about how much I’ve enjoyed riding the bike…I would even venture to say it’s been a game changer for me…

The 2012 Norco Aurum eating up the chunder on Afternoon Delight. Todd Hellinga photo.

Thanks Todd for your hard work and effort on this. Gunner even pre-ordered his after hearing the boys at the shop rave about their protos and seeing what the Aurum did for my riding. This bike really is something special!

Todd Hellinga's photos of me for the NSMB Norco 2012 Line write-up.

-Leishner

Back in 2009, part of my job with Gravity Logic was to travel the world seeing different bike parks. I also had the opportunity to travel to a few different facilities and deliver the Instructor Development Program (written and implemented by the Whistler Bike Park’s Mike Johnstone and Tom Radke), which gives new bike instructors a streamlined method of how to teach mountain biking to other people. The first IDP I ever delivered was at Sugarbush in Vermont.

The course took place in May of 2009, right after the Vermont Mountain Bike Association’s annual mountain biking summit.  I remember there being more rain that year than they had seen in some time, but we did our best to ride under the circumstances and found trails at Sugarbush to run the course on regardless. The place is beautiful and the guys on the course were super fun to ride with – I mean that especially about Kyle Anderson. We bent the rules a bit and allowed Kyle to take the course at the ripe age of 15 and I distinctly recall being overwhelmed after getting to know him. He was a shredder on a bike, humble, soft spoken and approachable. I remember  how much he reminded me of my best friend Pete (who came to Whistler with me from Calgary three years ago and now works on the bike park trail crew) and I vaguely remember telling Kyle that he was bound to be the kid that Sugarbush’s camp participants would beg to ride with for years to come. I was doubly emotional, to say the least, when Kyle’s mom emailed me a few months after the course to tell me he had been diagnosed with cancer after feeling a bit funny after a bike crash in the park. After battling bone cancer for a year, Kyle passed away last year.

Kyle Anderson is being honored at the Sugarbush bike park tomorrow in the area of the park that is taking his name. Bike camp kids, family and bike park management will all be on hand to honor his memory. I wish the best to his family and the kids who will grow up shredding in the bike programs of Sugarbush, Vermont.

Instructor Development in Sugarbush, Vermont in 2009. Kyle Anderson (white helmet) is shown as being "tested" by me in the back left corner. John Atkinson photo.

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Been soooo busy these days and I’m scared the summer is going to slip straight through my fingertips so I’m doing everything I can to reign it in, ride as much as possible and take a picture or two along the way. I’ve decided not to race tonite for the Phast Weds…I haven’t missed a race this season but I figured this would be the ideal week to miss and do a big pedal instead. There just haven’t been the days available in the week to take the time to do xc missions with work and bike park and something had to give. I think missing just this one will be ok.

Amy and I shot together last night in the bike park and it was a lovely time. I was actually not pumped on getting out there and riding for photos (trying to ride for fun these days) but I felt committed so I went. Man am I glad I did. I like spending time with Amy – she’s got a great outlook, sees things through eyes I do not. We stumbled on some great stuff and her b-roll even looks worthy.

Bluezium bangers. Black flies and climbing in trees.

And why not throw in some sweet shots from the Whistler Alpine last Monday? I did a wander around while I was responsible for answering our Bike Park dispatch cell phone (pretty nice program, really) and took some shots. It was pretty nice to have access to a nice day…for once.

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Been a bit of a busy weekend here in Whistler since the last Phat Wednesday.  I’ve been workin’ like a madman at the shop and in the bike park. Thought I’d throw some photos out there to fill y’all in on what’s been up.

Seb Fremont, Phat/PhaSt Wednesday boss extraordinaire told Gunner he should register for the Warrior Dash.  Synopsis: 5 kilometers of running (Gunner hasn’t run since high school) with different “obstacles” in between: i.e. running over flames, swimming through a mud bog with barbed wire on top, climbing walls, sliding down water slides…seriously check out the site if you wanna know more. I made fun of him for the total of two days of training he had before he went…and then he smashed it out of the park. There were just under 4 THOUSAND people participating…they run people in heats of 500 all day (the vibe there was incredible and people were so pumped).  Gunner (or Andrew Funn, as he was called on the results – no kidding) finished 4th in his heat of 500, 10th in his age (the guy who won the whole thing was in Gunner’s category) and 47th overall. Not bad, I’d say. I am totally doing it next year.

This is what it looks like when 500 people run up Blackcomb's Main Line all at once. Torture fest.

This is what 47th place looks like. Not half bad.

No big deal.

I assume this is what not winning feels like. Ew.

-Leishner

I just would like to state, for the record, that riding all of Angry Pirate and then riding Samurai Pizza Cat and then riding Ho Chi Minh is like a heart attack (even though I’ve never had one, I imagine it feeling like that).  I find it super hard to find flow on upper Angry Pirate, which is fine because its janky-ness makes you feel like a real rock star on the lower stuff. Anyway – Gunner made me promise to do my best and just make a point of having fun, which I did. Strand and I had some jokes in the start and made the best of a bit of a wait (thanks so much to Bernie and Tracey and Colleen for making it happen in the end), but it was Claire who handed our asses to us in the end last night. Can’t complain, though, cuz it ended up being a fairly decent result for us three Canadian DH Girls: Claire #1, Sarah #2, Katrina #3. Now I can return to my goal of a Ho Chi Minh free summer. So far I’ve been failing at it miserably.

Phat #4. Claire, Sarah and Strand. Not bad for a 4 minute lung burner.

-Leishner