The Organ Grinder

Q: What is the Organ Grinder?
A: A 5 hour enduro mountain bike race put on by the BowCycle Cyclemeisters.

I had a great day out at the Organ Grinder out at the Canmore Nordic Centre this weekend. I managed to complete 4 laps (48km) in 4 hours and 33 minutes. This is the longest I have ever rode my mountain bike and there were a few lessons learned as this was my first “enduro” mountain bike race. After I was able to pre-ride the course on Friday I actually had nightmares about two of the sections “Laundry Chutes” and “Devonian Drop” but, when race day came I conquered my fears and rode them! This was one of my goals and I was ecstatic!

The other goal I had was to not go out to hard but yet I did. I had to again re-learn that if you go out to hard that you will slow down as the race goes on. I did stay happy though as I looked forward to the fun technical sections but, like I said, I did get slower on laps 3 and 4 - so I have to work on that. There was also a lot of climbing on this course which left some athletes wobbling and falling over on the steep climbs and muscles and lungs burning!

One crazy thing that happened on race day was that half way through the race they notified us there were bears on the course! Many racers actually saw her and her cub but, thankfully I was not one of them.

It was an extremely well organized event with amazing volunteers! I can't thank the volunteers enough - they cheered, they sat in the forest at the technical sections, directed and even fed us! Thank-you!

Next weekend I am racing the Summer Solstice Mountain Bike race and I can’t wait to be racing my MTB again.