Josh & I decided early on this winter when we were planning our race calendar to be sure to not miss the Kootenay Krusher for another year.  The Kootenay Krusher is a 50 km single track mountain bike race at the beautiful Nipika Mountain Resort.

Along with guest Evan Wishloff (Pedalhead – watch for his guest post coming soon), Josh and headed out to Nipika Moutain resort.

Team camp for the weekend.

Most of the 25 km course paralleled the Kootenay River, with is turquoise blue waters and undulated up and down with a total of 800m of climbing for the 50 km race.  Rough and bump fun I must say!

Josh & Mike on one of the many sections of course with sweet views of the Kootenay River.

Pre-riding the course

Loving every meter of trail

Spectacular views of the Kootenay River

Get that guy a beer!

Chef Hines’ delicious pork steaks

Can’t beat the views of this place

Rocky Mountain Element & Instinct ready to rock

Off the start the start I went to the front and spun out my 32-11 gear as best I could and figured this was as fast as I would go to lead out the group.  The 1st couple of kilometres were on the XC ski trail, so there was lots of room to move around.

Starting out at Nipika

As the course turned a sharp right and climbed it’s way up, a few guys pushed the pace, including Peter Knight who put in a solid dig up the climb.  I knew the ski trail got steep just before entering the singletrack, so I launched an attach up the steepest pitch and entered the rough and bumpy false flat trail in 1st position.

From there I just kept the throttle close to the redline for a few minutes and I opened up a decent sized gap on 2nd position.  I never new what the time split was however I was able to get out of sight – which is almost more important.  It’s hard to chase down someone you can’t see in a race.

Lettuce Hamburger for the pretend glutarded

Sorry buddy, theme the rules

I had one minor crash up top on the ’15km’ loop of the course, where a moment of inattention resulted in washing out my front wheel, which evolved into me eating a Kootenay dirt sandwich.  I picked myself up and dusted myself off and got going again…slowly trying to find my rhythm.  It was a good reminder to always stay focused during the race and try to stop your mind from wandering to waffles and maple syrup.

This was thoroughly entertaining

Chillin’ before awards

Great loot for the win – Beer and a Pillow.  Drink the beer, then use the pillow – in that order

In the end, I won the race with a time just over 2:45 – setting a new course record.  For my efforts I received a rather large bottle of beer and a camp pillow to sleep the beer off with afterwards.  Riches in deed.

Fastest Man and Women on the day posing with Race Organizer Lyle

New Course Record

Josh scored some sweet swag too…a Magestic Horse decorative Flag.

This was a really great event and I plan to be back.  This is a great place to go where everyone can camp at the venue, enjoy a few brews around a campfire, and rip some sweet singletrack.

See you at the races!

-Mike