Paris à Ancaster

Very fun race lots of crazy sections. I started about 200m and 150 people away from the front due to the seeding but managed to pass enough to get myself into the top 50 by the 5 km mark which was the separating factor of the race, a crazy box sand for a hill. After the Hill I found myself in between the second and third groups on the road. So I decided to stop working and let the group behind catch because this was inevitable. I waited and then along with Kiernan Orange and two guys in their mid twenties we made the jump to the second group where I met up with Andrew Decal we kept jamming as a group and Kiernan fell off after a messy turn where the initial gap was just too much, this was relieving because he was in my category, but a little sad because he seemed like a nice guy and had come along way to make a decisive mistake like that. We soon came to an over hanging tree where I did an Indian Jones roll with my bike under it and did a quick cx hop back on to gain a few spots before a crazy muddy shoot. From there to the next Muddy shoot is a blur in my mind of trails and road. So we get to the second one I fly down and then get violently stuck in a hole where Im hit in the back wheel (avoided using the phrase rammed from behind) and pretty much frozen in an endo for 5 seconds I escaped by falling over and kept going. The result of this or so I believe the spot where it happened was this: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=creHkaz_fmc 

My wheel was knocked about 3 1/2 feet out of line :P. A hidden message about Noah MacCallum to by my dad  in the video :P I started flying by people while looking back and seeing Andrew doing the same as me at about the same pace. We came by a line of young Hamilton MTBer's who I gave a big wave and graciously excepted their cheers. I see my dad on a little rise and hear "1 km climb next" so I started going and Andrew soon caught and passed me along with four others, and at this point I have no idea how much is left and after losing a bottle and my calfs and knees spazing. So I need to stay seated to avoid having nothing left at the top but as it turned out the top was the finish so kinda disappointed that I wasn't more familiar with the course and could of probably gone top 15 if I would have killed myself through the cramps. But you live and you learn. After we waited for everyone to finish and then, under sponsorship duties, needed to put flyers on cars for the Lake to Lake. I then meet this guy:  

            

He is a hardcore unicyclist with this 35' wheel! But all and all good day I aimed for top 50 and got 18th so well inside my goal. I am going to round this out with a wonderful selection of photos from my dad. It starts with portraits at the start then a couple ground shots then the finish. Pretty funny.