Ripping the Legend on the MOON...
Our tent, gettin' er done...Hey Everyone- BC Cup#2 "Race the Ranch" Kamloops has come and gone and it was another successful mission for Team Trident. As Banshee Distribution Canada, it is our duty this season to promote and support the brand, shred the gnar on our Legends and offer Tech Support to anyone who needs it- and holy cow, did people need it. The Ranch was a fiercely hot and dusty battle filled with sneaky sniper lines, self-replicating ruts and bomb holes and a whole lot of spectacular exlplosions.
The "Moondust" of Kamloops renders friendly chase-and-tag training tactics impossible- if you follow your buddies' back wheel too closely (and by closely I mean within 30 whole seconds) you can't even see your front hub- then you have to try breathing the stuff. Plenty of riders young and old encountered chainguide issues, suspension failures and plenty of brake issues- the dust simply ruins the performance of your major systems within hours of arrival. This track is different from others in that it changes every single lap- the dirt is hard packed in places but has roughly half a foot of Moondust hiding the nastiest holes and cross-ruts.
Scoping out lines is difficult because you can only stay in the sun for so long- we're a Team of woods folk remember, being based on the Shore we're used to a protective canopy over roots and rock that stay put! Practice came down to basically identifying the pedal sections (and there were many) and then isolating the places where you, personally, had issues 'statistically' throughout practice. By Race time, it was a whole new beast for everyone, and I'm sure few racers experienced the same track...
Race day was pretty wild- we only got in one practice lap, totalling roughy four or five for the whole weekend. As we'd never been there before, our Focus was simply on putting in an overall solid performance with as little spills or mishaps as possible. Dalen put together a solid run with no falls for a time of 3:28 in Master Men. I had one super-lame wash-out on the creek gap in the upper zone and nearly ate it on a *brand new* full-face helmet-sized bomb hole at the bottom of the course just after the wallride corner for a salvaged time of 3:17 in Senior Men. My girlfriend Michelle, the smallest of the Senior Women's class (And Team Trident) racing aboard her extra-sweet super small Legend, had two podium-killing crashes in the upper course finishing 4th- but managed a wicked crowd-pleasing hip-jump straight into and through the G-Out Annihilator run seen below- two previous ladies had eaten it HARD face first at about 30km/h roughly 60 and 30 seconds prior... Please note the shirtless dude in the background- in frame two, he's surprised... by frame three he's like "WHAT THE...!!!!!!!" as she blew past. The crowd was roaring for her, but of course we were only screaming at her to pedal harder... ah, teammates eh? The Legend is unstoppable!
Here she comes...(Camera missed the air, she's just landing there)
Ripping the section- you can't see the hidden ruts and holes...
And WHA-BAMM!!! She nails the G-Out... buddy in the background is freaking out. Most riders (Myself included) had most of their problems in the upper track, but the worst accidents came in the G-Out section. Only one rider was evacuated for the weekend, we all hope he's doing OK. All in all, a successful Weekend for Team Trident- racers and pit crew included. We managed a lot of repairs, spread the 22 Pride Vibe and had a great time. Our next race is Round 3: Arduum Challenge (Mission, BC) which will see Team Trident return to the gnarly steeps and roots that we call home. Less Pedaling, MORE GNAR... See you next time.
-Zac Smith, Team Trident
