The last few years I’ve really missed racing and missed all the energy around the events as well as the minutiae associated with training, dialing in the bike, prepping the bike, planning, obsessing, etc. With so much energy going into school and work I’ve sometimes felt a little lost unsure if the path is the right path. Doing a few races here and there help significantly to re ground me and energize me in general. Every ride reminds me how much I love mountain biking, but races remind me how much I love racing. It’s certainly not solely about the competitiveness, though there is enough there to get me to do stupid things like trying to pass when there is no reason and no good place...

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A trio of North Bay mountain bike racers competed in the Downhill Mountain Bike Provincial Championships on the challenging course at Blue Mountain Resort in Collingwood earlier this month. The Ontario Cup Downhill Mountain Bike race series is made up of six events spread across various ski resorts in Ontario. Racers descend a defined course individually using 'downhill specific' mountain bikes. Dave Drenth, riding in the over-40 masters division for Cycle Works and Giant Canada, finished sixth at Blue Mountain and completed the season in second place overall with finishes ranging from first to sixth throughout the series. He finished second and fourth place respectively, which put him in first place overall in the Ontario Cup standings for Hardtail and ninth in senior expert downhill. The event attracted more than 150 competitors from across Ontario to experience the varied terrain and high vertical that Blue Mountain offers.

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