June 4, 2005 — The MTB Canada Cup XC at Hardwood Hills tomorrow has an all-star lineup for this tune-up to the MTB Nationals next week. On the men’s side, they’ll be world-cup contenders Roland Green (Kona-Les Gets), Seamus McGrath (Haro), Andreas Hestler (Rocky Mountain/Business Objects), Kris Sneddon (Kona-Les Gets), Ricky Federau (Gears Racing) and Peter Wedge (Kona-Les Gets) duking it out with Canada Cup contenders Marty Lazarski (Rocky Mountain/Business Objects), Derek Zanstra (Bay Cyle), Guido Visser (Cycles Lambert), Rodi Lega and many others. On the woman’s side, there will be the top contenders from last week such as Jaqueline Mourad (Scott/Redbull/Exceed), Mical Dyck (Terrascape Racing), Catharine Pendrel (The Bike Barn), Jean-Ann McKirdy (Rocky Mountain) and Emily Batty (Gears Racing) with possibly some suprise additions.

The course is new for this year, starting in the Hardwood ski area and immediatly crossing #6 line road. The course features more sustained climbing and descending, giving racers a few seconds of rest. It’s primarilly singletrack making passing difficult. After a few loops in the woods, the course heads back across the road and returns to the ski area.

Another quick loop gives racers some short punchy climbs and descents, ending up at the top of the BMX track. A quick jaunt down the BMX track where style points are given for clearing the doubles, across the bark-mulch, up a short climb and down the famous “bone shaker” completes the lap. The course should take around 30 minutes for the men with five on order, and four laps for the woman. The weather today is typical Ontario, rain, then hot sun, now clouds. The forescast calls for some hot temperatures tomorrow which may play a factor in this intense race.