Pedaling with Mettle

Catharine Pendrel...
racing hard for second.


One aspect of cycling that I admire are the tenacity of mountain bikers.

Your author doesn't do it because simply, I'm a roadie. But it doesn't mean that I don't love watching it. The riders are plenty tough to handle going up and down dirt tracks littered with every natural road furniture good Mother Earth can throw her way. It looks almost brutal watching them, inches, from crashing. I'll try not to think of it.


Julie Bresset...
second win with more to come!


Today was the Elite Women MTB#3 World Cup race in Offenburg, Germany. Twenty-One year old French rising star, Julie Bresset won 41 seconds over Canadian veteran Catharine Pendrel. Bresset is currently leading the World Cup and is a U23 rider. Unbelievable at a young age competing against the worlds elite women with an average age in their thirties & forties. Sabine Spitz of Germany is remarkable and going strong at 40 years old!

Pendrel loves this course and won here last year. Her second is the best placing so far this year. Compatriot, Marie-Helene Premont couldn't match the speed of Bresset and Pendrel, however she finished in a solid fourth giving the Canadian women a 2 & 4 placing.

I watched this incredibly fast and very technical race and marveled how anyone can ride so fast on this difficult terrain (entire race here). I'm looking forward to the next World Cup XC race coming this July 2-3 in Mont-Sainte Anne Quebec!

Marie-Helene Premont,
a solid fourth!

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