Provincial Course Teaser

I know this guy, his name is Thomas. Thomas built some trails. Thomas met a couple guys named Adam and Sean. Thomas designed the provincial course. You are going to either like him or hate him once you ride it.

I went for a hike yesterday with the Molly Monster. Since Mountainview is not a public cycling venue I thought I would be nice to all those that will not get a chance to see the course before provincials.

Of course pictures do not do justice to the course. It's a tough loop but it will be a hell of a lot of fun. You can click on the photo to make it larger.


The Start. This is only in the first lap. Going up, way up.


The rest of the laps take the singletrack climb to the top.

The halfpipe, pictures do not show how steep it is.

From there you are at the top of the hill and head into Downfall. This is my favorite decent at Mountainview. Bermed corners with some rollers. Of course your heartrate will still be spiked from climbing up and it's a physical downhill that turns right back up to the top. There is no recovery spots yet!

Going back up




This is where we head in to the rock garden.

Yes there will be some doubletrack in the course. Up till this point it's all singletrack.


We start to go down again

I'd forgotten about this trail section that links to the creek bed climb. From there it's back up again on a doubletrack climb.





Rip through some fast rolling corners till we come to this. Yes you can launch off this rock.



Rip down Donny's Drop which is a series of bermed switchbacks then to the closest thing to a recovery section. Of course it's the section that is perfect to big ring.

Decisions, up the rock or not.






We hit some of the off camber singletrack. Lots of short steep climbs mixed in.


Unfortunately the most of the last climb was not available to be photographed. More so it was to hard to actually show how steep it was and all the switchbacks. Did I mention the roots and rocks?


Everyone will be happy to see this sign as they finish their last lap.

Thomas has definitely designed a course worthy of championships. It's got everything from the steep climbs of Kelso to the rocks of Buckwallow and the fast bermed singletrack of Albion Hills. SingleSpeeders are going to work hard here. It is rougly 8 km long and some of our fastest club racers are running 25 minute lap times. If you go to http://www.mountainviewmidland.com/ and go to the Series Results, the last 2 weeks have been on this course.

This is also one of the best spectator friendly courses. There are lots of places where you crisscross close to other sections of the course. Just to remind everyone that they can preride the course at the weekly series on Thursday night. It's $8 and there is a BBQ afterwards. There is also the Saturday before. Besides that all you can do is stare at the photos above since Mountainview is on private property. Sorry.