Battle Creek Showdown, Cypress Hill 2017. 3rd Place !!

Another great MTB race and family camping trip. This time I raced with Amit in a team of 2. The format, a 4 hours mountain bike race. The course a 8kms loop with almost 300 mts of elevation gain. Single track almost all the way; 21 min uphill and 11 down. We headed out on Thursday night since Cypress Hill is about 4 hours drive from home. Amazing oasis in the middle of the prairies, unbelievable weather with high of 30c. We camp there with Russ and family, Amit and family and of course my kids, wife and mother in law (every one with a training partner for their level, my mother in law was walking at least 5 kms every morning along the lake with Thelma; Maria was running with Anne and Jody; Russ and I were swimming across the lake every day, and Amit and I racing our bikes Saturday morning.
We came in 3rd place and had an amazing performance, I always think I could have race faster and harder but at the time it feels like I am going as fast as I can... The race started at 10am and ran until 2pm. The cut off for the last lap was 1:30pm which we were able to make without any issues. Amit did the first lap in 33:50, I did the second lap in 32:14, he did the third lap in 33:42, and I did the fourth in 32:20, he then did the fifth in 33:49 and I did the sixth in 32:39, he managed to do one one lap (7th) in 35:07.
I was racing on my single speed with a 32/19 gear ratio, perfect for that course without any regrets !!!
The race was super well organized, with 100 racers which is a great field and excellent post race buffet. During the race a DJ was tuning great music, they also had TONS of bacon, water melon and an amazing crew of volunteers to help with everything.
When we finished the race we headed to the CAMP restaurant for the post race, totally worthy, again 5 starts buffet (I could have stay and eat the entire buffet....). After that I went back to site and headed out with Russ to swim across the lake (as it has been tradition lately on every lake). We shilled at the camping site for the evening and next morning managed to convince Amit to swim across the lake ( I don't know how we convince him, but I had an extra swim suite and he went for it !! He barely survive, but cross the lake and swam back as well.
I can't remember how many laps I did in the campsite with Lucas, he was riding his bike day and night, we even went to take a shower at 10pm without lights!!! little guy is definitely a cyclist. In our way back to Calgary Sunday afternoon we stopped in Tiletown and had lunch in the trailer.. it was at least 33c (way too hot for me), but the roads were good and the drive home was calm without any major delays.
Next year we are coming again for sure. In the podium we got a swag bag with Chain Lube, a T-Shirt, Jerky Beef, and a huge bag of sweet corn --:)  














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