Despite being in the midst of a six-stage road bike race, Jasperite Cory Wallace competed in and conquered a 100-mile trail bike race, July 20.
Initially, Wallace didn’t realize the overlap between the Cascade Cycling Classic Road Race and the High Cascades (HC) 100. The mountain bike race began at 5:30 a.m. and the road race’s fifth stage took place in the evening on the same day, so rather than picking one or the other, he competed in both.
“The [HC 100] course is a lot like Jasper, actually,” said Wallace. “It’s like doing the Valley of the Five, but 130 km of it.” Due to hot weather, the trails were dry and dusty and “the snow melted enough that we got up the alpine for an hour and a half.”
Kona teammate and least year’s HC 100 winner Barry Wicks pulled out of the race early due to a crash that resulted in a broken collarbone, leaving Wallace and their other teammate Sean Babcock to push on.
Wallace and Babcock rode in fifth and six positions for the first couple of hours, and at one point fell back more than five minutes from the lead group. “The legs were floundering a bit after the 190 km effort the day before, but I knew I had to win this one,” Wallace wrote on his blog.
He felt it was only right to pull off a victory for his sidelined friend, Wicks. Wallace pedaled through the pain and slowly picked off the riders ahead, including leader Christian Tanguy, and crossed the finish line with a more than three-minute lead and total time of 7:39:54.
After a three-hour recovery, he began the road race’s fifth stage in downtown Bend, but was pulled soon after for not meeting the 25-minute mark, thus disqualifying him from the next day’s final leg of the race.
“I have never been first and last in two separate races in one day, but now that can be checked off my life list,” he wrote.
He wants to compete in both races again next year because “it would be rad to make the Cascades Cycling Classic/High Cascades 100 double.”
Wallace’s next race is the Trans Rockies, which began on July 27 in Fernie, B.C. and ends Aug. 2 in Canmore. “It’s about 2.5 hours a day of a lot of single track biking,” he said. “It’s the last year it’s going to happen, so it should be fun. It’s the closest to home I get to race every year.”
Wallace’s other upcoming races include the Canadian Cross Country Marathon Championships, Mongolia Bike Challenge, World Solo 24-hour Championships, and the Crocodile Trophy.
He appreciates the support from Jasper and his sponsors, including Freewheel Cycle, Wild Mountain, The North Face, and Kona Bike Co. To keep up with Wallace and his biking adventures, visit his website at www.corywallace.com.
Sarah Makowsky
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