Weekend Preview: Pan Am’s and Pro GRT in Port Angeles
Canada's fastest head to Mexico and Washington while Island Cup heads to Snowden
Well with the snow rapidly melting across the country, weekends will soon be all about racing once again. Downhill and cross country season continue for the pros, who are already well into their globe-trotting race calendars. Mexico and Washington host international and national racing. Closer to home, Island Cup continues it’s perpetually-early XC race calendar.
Pan American mountain bike championships – Aguascalientes, Mexico
The UCI continental championships for the America’s takes place this Saturday, April 6 in Aguascalientes, Mexico. With plenty of UCI points on the line, this is an important opportunity for the Canadian team to start the drive to Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualification. A rule change from the IOC means the women have the opportunity to send three riders to the Olympics for the first time. To do so, Canada must stay ahead of the United States in the national rankings. That means Canada’s coaches will be doing plenty of math over the next year as they try qualify the maximum possible spots.
This weekend, though, it’s just about racing. The venue looks like a mix of loose dust, rock faces and the invisible but ominous elevation factor. Aguascalientes sits at 1,888 m elev. Check out a mini-preview of the course from Catharine Pendrel below:
NW Cup #1 / US Pro GRT #2 – Port Angeles, Wa.
Closer to home, Canada’s gravity racers will be in Port Angeles, Washington. There, they’ll be honing their speed ahead of the first downhill World Cup of the season in Maribor, Slovenia. The first round of Northwest Cup downhill racing is the second stop in the US Pro GRT series, which started with the Tennessee National at Windrock Bikepark. Canadian’s were fast at the first round, with Rachel Pageau winning the elite women’s race and Ethan Shandro leading a Canuck sweep of the junior men’s podium. Shandro slid through the thick Windrock mud so fast he’d have placed fifth in elite men.
Pageau’s back for round #2, as is Miranda Miller and a host of other Canadians, as the venue is just across the border from Vancouver and Vancouver Island. This weekend’s race takes place at Dry Hill, which almost looks like it might live up to its name for racing with only a few millimeters of rain in the forecast for the weekend. Maybe.
Island Cup – Campbell River XC
While regional racing season is fast approaching in other parts of Canada. On Vancouver Island, there’s already been two weekends of XC and an enduro. It’s back to skinny tires this weekend as the Island Cup heads to the Campbell River XC. Racers will take on the mostly very fast, occasionally very rocky and technical trails of Snowden Demonstration forest.
