May 17/08 7:38 am - Bromont Canada Cup DH #1 Preview

Posted by Editoress on 05/17/08
 

Canada Cup #1 DH Preview - Bromont, Quebec

Our man on the course, Larry Ireland, has ridden the new downhill course at Bromont, and reports his impressions:

The course here at Bromont for the first Canada Cup of 2008 is fresh cut, loose and short. Riders are loving the new track despite the fact that it is slightly more than inconvenient, being on the back side of the mountain with little to no amenities.

The upper section is flowy singletrack on established trails, making it hard pack, fast and holding up quite well. The main technical feature on this course is a double rock slab step-down into a slippery off-camber rock face, where lines happen to be changing run to run. Rider after rider has slid their way sideways down it and ended up tangled in the catch fencing. As soon as riders clear this section, they are looking at an extremely fast in and out of the woods run to the finish.

The lower sections are fresh cut from about one third of the way down, and massive holes are starting to appear in the loose, loamy turns at the bottom. Small wooden jumps and erosion backfills are making some corners extremely difficult to carry speed through. The final exit from the woods is a large ditch gap to a flat landing on a fireroad, and into some muddy snow melt. Hopefully, some more thought is put into this section before the World Cup in August.

The final start list for the downhill will not be available until tomorrow mid-morning, because riders are still registering (and can register in the morning), however, we are told that there will be a sizable international field starting. The racing starts at Noon EDT, with the Elite categories expected to go off sometime after 2:00 pm EDT.

The weather is also in a state of flux, with today's great sunny conditions rapidly being replaced by wind and cooler temperatures. The forecast is for rain tomorrow.