Arduum Challenge 2008 - Day 1

Today was the first of 2 Days for the Arduum Challenge on Red Mountain in Mission, B.C., Canada. A good buddy of mine (Dave) dropped off a new set of cranks for me in the early morning which I then installed with the kind of technical finesse only seen in F1 pit stops. My new Gravity Light cranks took a good pound off the weight of my bike and also provided a new BB that is super smooth.

I arrived at the race venue at a reasonable time in the morning, picked up my race package and headed over to the shuttle area.

The Arduum Challenge DH Course shown in RED in Google Earth 3D

The organizers had this race dialed and from what I heard in the morning things were running über smooth.

My first run I decided to ride and scope a bunch of the harder sections. I managed to find some lines I'd never thought of before and managed to get the rock drop under control.

On my second I did decide it was time to hit some sections with some speed and one in particular wasn't so good for me and I had what one witness described as a, "F@$%ing spectacular!!" wipe out that sent me a good 20 feet down a rock section in the air without my bike. I dusted myself off, and continued down cursing at the root that sent me for a ride.

The nice thing about racing locally is that you see lots of people you know and everywhere on the course I could hear people calling my name as I rode by.

On my 3rd lap, I put on my helmet cam and captured the trail on video so that I could memorize the course later that night while enjoying a cold frosty beverage.

A super mellow pre-run of the Arduum DH Course

This photo was taken during my helmet cam run. At the rock drop you can see the flash from the camera taking this photo. Photo by Stephen De Luca

I then did one more run on the course and called it a day. No major injuries and only one wipe out. I can't wait for tomorrow.