6-25-07 // Online Exclusive: Mt. St. Anne WC XC Report

The Men's XC race at the 2007 edition of Mt St Anne World Cup. Racing begins... Colin Meagher

So the course is a hell of a lot of fun. But since it’s mostly singletrack interspersed with sections of car-lane-wide trail punctuated by a beautiful buff ribbon of dirt smack dab down the middle—position going into the woods after the main climb is pretty key.

So the theory is that you do the short start loop—a high speed parade around the venue, pin it on the main climb—an evil little gravel road that the legs-and-lungs crowd loves ‘cause it requires absolutely zero technical handling skills, and snatch the “hole shot” by being the first one into the woods, or are close enough to the lead rider to be able to make a pass on one of the wider sections of the course between the singletrack sections. But since the singletrack in the woods is fairly technical—strewn as it is with liberal amounts of roots and rocks, lubricated a bit here and there with a greasy, peanut-butter-like mud, being able to hang close to the person in front of you becomes a bit of a trick. Good thing the ladies have 5 laps to get the passing zones figured out, and the men 7…

The ladies:

Well, the ladies started rough. The beginning of the start loop featured a nasty wreck that put a lot of the top riders in the hurt locker—Kiara Bisaro had a nasty collection of tire track and chain ring shaped bruises on her backside—but she’s a modest young lady, so no photos of that!

Sabine Spitz leads the way. Colin Meagher