Wallace takes first at Moustache Madness bike race

Despite nary a hair on his face, Jasper’s Cory Wallace has taken the top prize at the Moustache Madness Alberta Cup championship cross country mountain bike race held during the August 28-29 weekend.

After his stellar finish in the xc race (he beat the second place rider by over 11 minutes), Wallace wasn’t done yet, and in the longer, privately organized Much Yeah Marathon race the day after Saturday’s provincial race, he finished first once again. 

“It’s good to help the race grow and just bring the competition up to a new level,” said Wallace of his racing in Hinton. He said that he was pretty happy with his finishing times and he hopes that it brings out more racers next year to try to beat him.

“This is one of the best courses in the whole province,” said Wallace, who is also one of the senior organizers for the racing weekend. “There’s no reason this couldn’t be a national race too. It’d be great to see that happen.” 

Approximately 80 riders, from kids under 17 to those 40 years old and up, came out to race on the Saturday, while the next day’s marathon ride (which organizers call more of a ‘weekend warrior’ event) brought out similar numbers. Organizers said that this was the best attendance in the racing weekend’s entire history.

The Saturday race was also the final race of the season for the Alberta Bicycle Associations 2010 Cross Country Provincial Championship series. The series is made up of numerous races around the province over the spring and summer. Racers earn points in each race they compete in, which are then tabulated to crown an overall champion. At Hinton, there were numerous cheers like ‘It’s the end of the season, leave it all on the line right now.’ While Wallace won the Hinton race, the final results from this spring and summer’s race season to crown the overall Alberta Cup champion are still being tabulated. 

The Hinton cross country course is a 9.5 km wilderness run with long single-track sections, swooped up descents and a grinding gravel climb back to the finish line. Riders in the races run numerous laps over the course before calling it kaput. Wallace called the course one of the hardest tracks in the entire provincial championship series.

While the race is serious, it’s also an excuse for mountain bikers to get silly.

“The results will be accurate and reliable, but the real reason for this weekend is to determine who has the best moustache in the Alberta mountain biking scene and those that win will be rewarded!” states an organizing document about the race from 2009.

“This is a real mountain bikers course which will challenge the best riders as it has ample climbing for the fitness freaks yet plenty of technical areas to keep the weekend warriors entertained. This is what mountain biking is all about and we are confident that the riders will agree this is one of the best all round/hardest XC courses in Canada,” states another organizing document about the race.

The course was in part designed by Nathan Froehler, a senior organizer for the weekend’s bike racing.

Froehler said the race first started in 2001, but it took a break in the middle of the decade only to start back up in 2007, once Cory Wallace really started pushing to bring it back and keep it going. Since 2007, Froehler said the race has brought in more and more people every year it goes on.

“It’s a bit of a hike for a lot of people from Calgary or Edmonton to get out here, so we are looking to set some standards that sort of set us apart,” said Froehler.

Part of setting the race apart means adding the second day or marathon racing onto the championship race, and then holding some kids’ events too. Froehler points to the Death Race marathon in Grande Cache, Alberta as an example of what he’d like to see happen in Hinton. There, 1,500 people come to watch and partake in an event where, along with the marathon racing, bands play a stage, vendors sell a variety of wares and, in general, there’s a more festival like atmosphere.

As for the Canada Cup national designation for the Moustache Madness race, Froehler said “I think it could happen.” It would require more organization, more sponsorships, a larger profile for the race and a lot more work to really bring it to Hinton, he explained, but it would be pretty awesome to have.

“The quality of the course is there, for sure, but it’s just a bigger deal, so really, it kinda comes down to spending more time working on it,” said Froehler.

Wallace, who is also pushing for the Canada Cup in Hinton, said that 2012 is the date he’s hoping the national race will come to Hinton. He’s also planning on entering. You are warned.