I don’t think it’s a midlife crisis. This distinct feeling of nostalgia does suggest otherwise, but sitting here reminiscing, I’m struck by a more upbeat feeling of revisiting fond memories than sulking in the past. In the last twenty years, a heavily weighted majority of my “fond memories” are directly linked to riding a bike, attending or competing in a race, and/or involving people I know because of something bike-related. On paper, I would be ok with someone calling me one-dimensional, due to the nature of my life intrinsically revolving around two wheels, but as the header of The Start Gate homepage says, “A Productive Obsession”…
At the moment of writing these lines, the 2025 Mont Sainte Anne World Cup is only a week away, which is definitely a sign that I’ve dropped the ball on publishing something relevant for the 2024 round. For the first time in my “Writing Career”, I’m not particularly bothered by missing a [complete and utterly fictitious] deadline I set for myself as a form of accountability. What made the last year a little different from the last literal-decade in which I’ve been attending World Cups at a professional level, is that I was only attending for myself really; I didn’t have an agenda beyond covering the event for TSG, which is always fun – but I didn’t have any daily deliverables, no overall timeline for a directive; the only requirement was to show up, enjoy the show, catch up with friends, and try to enjoy shooting just for fun.
I think it was a successful endeavor, especially considering it was kind of my last hurrah for the season before embarking on the insane task of rebuilding a 1860’s farmhouse I’d purchased with my other half, a two months prior to the event. With that massive undertaking looming in the background, the 2024 Finals at MSA were a welcome distraction. The weather was expectedly autumnal, the trees adorn in their classic seasonal flare, with a hint that we were pushing our luck holding an event this late in the year this far north in Canada. While it did rain for finals, again, the level of racing wasn’t stymied in the least, and everyone in attendance was treated to the world class racing they expected.
Skipping over the usual recap, those have come and gone at this point, I don’t need to provide a play-by-play, I’m going to highlight from a personal perspective why Finals was insane – but we’re going to take a quick trip down memory lane to get there:
The very first World Cup event I attended was in 2010, at Mont Sainte Anne, for the World Championships. I was a sophomore in college and made the trip last minute, at like 5pm on Friday, with the only directions I had available: literal printed MapQuest pages I hastily resourced from the library before pointing the ship [soccer mom van with the benches removed] north into the unknown [across the border into unlit backgrounds, signs in French, and a gut feeling I was on the right section of highway].
When I finally got to the venue, thanks to some friendly dudes at a gas station who were headed up the hill for the concert that was on that night, the band playing when I got there was fucking Pennywise! (This is back in the Velirium days, they had bands playing every night of the week) And I know that it was Pennywise from more than just the new friends telling me, their set was in full swing when I parked up and tried to discreetly parking lot camp. This was both thwarted by both the volume of the concert and the Paul Blarts roaming the lot probably looking for people like me, trying to sleep in their cars…I ended up moving the van down a little ways, towards what I have since realized is the trail to the waterfalls.
Up and at ‘em the next day, bleary-eyed, mildly confuse, seeking coffee and overall quite excited, I got my World Cup Experience underway. I honestly only really remember a slideshow of events from the weekend, but they will serve the story well:
- Standing next to the old hip in the open under the lift, I watched Greg Minnaar rip a sweet whip past my head, the Chris King BUZZ humming as he floated down to the landing.
- Watching Jared Graves disappointingly flat in 4x Finals.
- Meeting Jared, Damian, and some other folks randomly walking around the venue a few hours later… I have no idea who I was with and how that happened.
- Running into my buddies, Jeff Caley (now-owner of World Wide Cyclery dot com), Logan Mulally (now-wearer-of-so-many-hats at Frameworks), Matt Delorme (now-caster-of-flies-while-fishing-and-photos-of-the-same-as-well), and John Boy (iykyk).
- Rooming and roaming with the abovementioned crew and it being absolute shenanigans.
- Watching Finals.
- Sad: Neko got second. Fun: Troy won. Extra Fun: Sam Hill won gold while barely being physically healthy enough to ride a bike and Tracey Mosely scooped up her exceptionally well-deserved gold after a handful of silvers over the years.
- The After Party where Girl Talk played; Mitch Delfs literally shaking me while enthusiastically asking for a drink voucher(s), then when I came up empty handed, punched Matt Delorme in the balls and ran off into the crowd… literally the last time I saw that dude – I’ve heard he is doing well and still racing locally in Australia!
- Being approached by two very attractive Quebecoix chicks, and when pressed with the question, “Do you have the pots?” and subsequently answering, “Of course not, where the hell would I have gotten weed as an American??” I was then informed, “Oh, that is too bad, how you expect to get the girls?” as they turned and walked away. Classic.
- Micayla Gatto writing funny things on everyone’s forehead in the party tent.
I totalled my van on the drive home that Monday – a dumbass pulled out in front of me; the usual. I was fine, the other party of people in the other van were fine. It was crazy. I had to drive with the towtruck guys back to their shop (who was definitely shitfaced, it was a holiday weekend and I’m pretty sure the cops told him to just show up no questions asked and clean up the mess), where the dad of the towtruck driver gave be a lift to the border… I then literally walked through the border crossing with all my shit. My friends Jack and Mer picked up on the US side. Insane end to the weekend. Hilarious side note: I got an excused absence from my one class that Monday because I am a responsible college student, and I had to call out from my first day of work bussing tables at a pizza joint because of the whole, “Oops, my van!” situation.
[Record scratching noise] Landing back in the present, we can now close out this story using a crucial piece of information from that list-story: fourteen years after winning Gold in the Junior category at World Champs in Mont Sainte Anne [which he backed up in 2011 at Champéry], Troy Brosnan took his 4th UCI Elite DH win… after taking half the summer off to be home with his wife and new-born child; An absolutely remarkable performance and tenure in the sport for the man dubbed, “Mr. Consistent”. So, I think it is fair to say that seeing Troy stand on top of the podium again, at the venue of the first race I ever bore witness too, would yield some strong feelings of nostalgia. Romanticising this sport is easy when these are the kinds of storylines that get written into the annals. Troy Brosnan is one of those rare riders who has successfully competed through multiple generations of the sport, and continues to be at the sharp end of the results sheets twenty years on!
