CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

So after the double header in Canmore, was once again, another race in Canmore, The Canmore Mountain Bike Festival. This was one of my favourite races of the year as it is a unique format where it has a eliminator, super-d, and the cross country race. I knew that I was not very good at the eliminator, but it was still a lot of fun where I ended up 6th. The super-d was the event that I was super excited for as I loved riding technical terrain, I ended up 11th, right in front of Sean. The next day was the cross country race, and I was quite nervous, I was hoping to be able to make it to the podium, but I knew it would be a hard race with lots of other fast guys around. I ended up in 5th place, it was nice to take a top 5 result, but being over 4 minuets behind was a little disappointing. In the end it was nice to come away with the overall winner for the expert men podium.

After was the big trip to Canada Cup #4 and Nationals. I had been waiting for this trip for a long time. For the first race I was crazy nervous not knowing what to expect starting from the very back of the pack , the start was waaaaaay faster than what I had been used to, and it was a narrow start which made it difficult to move up the pack, but once I got into my own rhythm it was awesome, the course was a lot of fun with a technical rock section, and a nice drop. It was awesome wearing the Alberta kit, I remember this one spectator always yelling “ALBERTA!!” which was an experience that I had never had before, it was really cool to know that I was representing the whole province of Alberta. I ended up 14th.

Nationals. This was the biggest race of the year, I knew I wasent in the contention to win, but I was excited to see where I was at compared to other people in the field. the course was a lot of fun with everything from technical rocky downhill, slippery technical climb, and nice flow sections. On race day it was raining really hard, which was nice since I love the muddy races. Once again I was at the back on the start line, but having a long wide uphill start I was hopeful that I was going to have a better start. So off the start, I went really hard which paid off as I was sitting in the top ten, during the start loop it felt great, but in the first few sections of the single track, this guy who tried to squeeze by me took my handle bar and wiped me out, this meant that I would be once again trying to race from the back, as the race wore on I found myself beside Carter from Fernie, he was a accomplished racer who had been killing it in the Expert category winning the race in the Canmore Mountain Bike Festival. As we rode together I felt great as I was able to keep beside him. On the second last lap my rear tire had burped on the rocky descent and started losing air, I had never flatted this whole season, and of course this was the race for me to get a flat, so I rolled up to the pit, the ABA coach Matt Hadley rushes to help me, but with the mud getting into the threads of the rear thru axle, it felt like it took forever to get it right, as around 5 minutes went by I saw my race pass in front of me. On the last lap I managed to catch 2 people, but I was no where near where I was. I was disappointed in the result, but I had sooo much fun, it really reminded me of how much I love this sport, just riding in the mud, not caring about anything but just me and the trail in front of me. This was one of the greatest experience I had ever had.

Mountain Bike Provincials. Coming into this race I was excited to be able to ride the trails in Bragg Creek, and I loved it, it was soo much fun the trails there, since they started the Junior Men start behind the other groups, there were lots of people to make my way through. It was still lots of fun once again in the mud, this made even the simple double track sections a big challenge to make our way through in the deep mud. Overall it was a fun race and nice way to finish off the season with the win.