Cory Wallace places 20th at the 2014 UCI mountain bike marathon world championships

Current national mountain bike marathon (XCM) champion Cory Wallace of Victoria and Tim Carleton of Toronto lined up against a strong international field of mountain bike marathon riders at the Cascades MTB Park in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa on Sunday.  Wallace and Carleton represented Canada against top talents, such as 2013 MTB marathon world champion Christoph Sauser (SUI), German cross country champion Milatz Moritz, former cross country world champion and 2012 Olympic gold medallist Jaroslav Kulhavy (CZE), and two-time South African national XCM champion James Reid. The Canadian, however, didn’t have the luxury of their teams’ support.

The 12th edition of UCI mountain bike marathon world championships proved to be a gruelling race.  Factors such as weather (the South African sun is unrelenting, even in winter),  a lot of vertical gain (no less than eight climbs with a minimum gain of 250 m) and a decent amount of singletrack, provided for a proper challenge to the best of XCM discipline riders of the world.  The 95-km race, laid out as one 74-km loop and one 21-km loop, was won by Czech rider Jaroslav Kulhavy, with a time 04:15:57.  Wallace finished in 20th place, with a time of 04:35:26, and Carleton finished in 64th place, with a time of 05:27:16.

“The start is just crazy,” Wallace said. ” There was like 80 guys just going full tilt. You don’t know where your heart rate is. You’re just trying to keep it upright. My start was pretty good.  I stayed top 40.”  Cory was seeded 31st by race organizers, giving him a front row seat to the hot start. “By mid race I hit my rhythm, and I started picking guys off.  I [passed] 15 or 18 guys in the last 40 km, so that was nice.”  Jump to the video to hear Wallace share more about the race to his top 20 finish.

Tim Carleton enjoyed this year’s experience at the UCI XCM worlds.  This was his sixth appearance at worlds.  “One of the better marathon courses I’ve raced,” Carleton said. ” Just lots of singletrack, varied terrain, a good amount of elevation change.  I wasn’t riding up where I wanted to be, but I was still able to get in a good group and cruise around.”

At about 40 km into the race, Carleton had a mishap with his water bottles. “After the feed zone, I go down a bumpy road. I look down and my bottles are gone.” Later on in the race, Carleton was fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of a random act of kindness by a South African rider (David Low), who offered Carleton his bottles.  “I’m pretty sure I was feeling the lack of hydration after losing both water bottles in the last 20 km.”