Chris and I were pretty pumped to be heading over to race the MSA and Windham World Cups and then back to MSA for the Canadian National Champs. MSA was our first world cup back since 2010 so we were happy to be amongst it again. I’ve been working flat out too so I was excited to get a little “racing vacation” 🙂 The plan was to go into it with not too high expectations as we don’t have a tonne of race support and we are aware of what it takes to race at the highest level. However, we weren’t just going there to make up numbers, we were determined to do the very best we could as well as have some fun.

The track was dusty, wild and fast for qualifying. Besides struggling a bit with suspension set up as I have not had a lot of time on my new M9, I was riding good. I qualified 8th with quite a bit of room for improvement so I was stoked! I was excited to dial in a few more things for race day Sunday. But our luck seemed to turn as Chris had not one but 2 major mechanicals in his qualifying run and came through way off the back and out of the running for finals. Pretty devastating as he was so pumped to be back on one of his favourite tracks on the circuit and everyone seemed genuinely stoked to see him shredding up the mountain again. People even had wagers going on how well he was going to do…no pressure 🙂

We got bummed for a bit but refocused and Chris continued riding other tracks on the hill and made cutties in the parking lot while I practiced for Sunday. Lots of rain fell Friday night and Saturday afternoon. The track got a bit chewed but tacky and pretty decent conditions for the finals Sunday. I was riding really well until my last practice run, where I got spat out of a hole at high speed and pile drived my shoulder, head and left side into the ground. Typical!? Ahhh. I finished my run with jolting pain in my shoulder but still some adrenalin. When I got down, I assessed the damage and my shoulder was swelling already. I went to find Martin the Masseur  in the pits to see what he thought and if he could work some magic or something. There were no red flags so he taped me up and I popped some ibuprofen, had a quick bite to eat, checked over my bike and it was pretty much time to head back up for finals. I just tried to stay positive, keep moving and not stiffen up too much. I rode well considering but I had trouble holding on and pulling up on the bars in particular so I started braking a bit too much. I was pretty bummed when I got to the bottom as I knew I didn’t even beat my qualifying time but I was stoked to see my fellow Canadian shredders, Micayla Gatto and Casey Brown finish in 5th and 6th! I also finished in a pretty solid 12th.

The next morning I woke up really sore all down my left side. My poor huckers neck was back. Have you ever seen the size of my neck? It’s not very big and Chris makes fun of it. It still hurts a lot as I write. But my shoulder is the problem, really. It wasn’t easy but I decided that I didn’t want to race injured and that it was in my best interest to go home, heal up, work and make some money and look ahead to Crankworx and Worlds. I could race with an injury but I’m not really in it for the points or anything and it isn’t worth it for me to race half ass and prolong healing. I want to enjoy the rest of the summer riding bikes and racing, not being hurt!

Chris has continued on to Windham so wish him luck! Hopefully things go better for him down there.

Thanks for having us in your camper van Matt and thanks to all of our supporters and fans! Hopefully we can produce the goods for you sometime this season but we are always out there representing in any way we can. Cuz we love it.

Claire.