Mical Dyck on her Pan Am Experience

Wearing the red and white of Team Canada, Mical Dyck raced to a fifth place finish at last weekend’s Pan American Mountain Bike Championships in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Dyck, 28, races out of Alberta for Trek Canada. After taking a few days to recover from the travel, racing, and heat of Guatemala, Dyck answered a few questions about her racing experience.

How was your race?
My race went pretty well, I’m happy with the result (though a little disappointed that I lost the sprint finish to the Columbian girl) and how I rode. Due to organizer race logistics, we didn’t end up making it to the venue until about 30 mins before the start of our race, so we only ended up with a very short warm-up. Off the gun, Willow took off and gapped the field quickly and we were left chasing for the entire race. I road behind Mary for the first half of the lap, then Heather passed me on a long steep climb and was in 4th place for the first 4 laps, 5-20 secs off of podium the entire time. In the final lap the Columbian girl was climbing amazingly strong and would catch up to me on the climbs, and I would catch on the descents. It was a great battle between us the entire final lap, she ended up in front coming out of the last corner into the short straight away to the finish and I couldn’t quite close the gap, losing 4th by a wheel length. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been in a sprint finish at the end of a 2 hour race, it was awesome, made me push myself harder then I would normally push myself.

Tell us what it was like to race at the Pan Ams? Did it feel different from the other racing you do?
Pan Ams was a neat experience, a lot like a Canada Summer games or something like that. All teams staying in the same hotel, bussed too and from the course (with armed guards) and all meals provided. We got to eat some pretty neat and tasty and some really not so tasty Guatemalan food…..to which many of the Canadian team, myself included, ended up getting travelers gut from. It was really neat to get to race against girls that we normally wouldn’t get the chance to race against and to race in a place I probably wouldn’t go to otherwise.

Lessons learned?
Lessons learned…haha, don’t eat uncooked veggies.

What do you think of Guatemala?
Guatemala was neat. I’ve never been that far south before and it was really cool to get to see that part of the world. Unfortunately I didn’t find Guatemala City very attractive, way too busy, very polluted and lots of garbage everywhere. We didn’t get a chance to go site seeing or exploring too much, I would have loved to go hike up the volcano and kick lava 🙂

What’s next for you?
I’m home for a day and a half (2 days of travel home…uggh), and tomorrow (Thursday) I fly down to California for Sea Otter Classic. Due to the amount of travel I’ve been doing in the past couple of weeks I was really hoping to not race this event, I’ve done it 4 times and the appeal of Sea Otter has kinda worn off. Right after Sea Otter I am flying out of San Francisco with teammate Peter Glassford to Europe for the 2 World Cups, the first being in Dalby Forest, UK and the second in Houffalize, Belgium. After that….a couple weekends off 🙂 Off to pack!!!!