The Robbie Report is a weekly feature on MTBracenews.com. Robbie Squire is the 2008 Junior National Champion and the newest member of the US National Team. Just two years ago Squire was racing as a Sport. In '08, his first year and only year as a Junior Expert, Robbie won the Junior National Championship. In '09 his first year in the senior ranks, the Utah resident will be racing with the U.S. National Under-23 Team. Each week Robbie will share his experiences with us. Join in as the 19 year-old Junior National Champion and first year Pro travels across the United States and Europe racing his bike and living out a once in a lifetime opportunity.

This weekend's race was the 5th World Cup stop in Bromont, Canada. This was by far the muddiest, worst weather, dirtiest race I've ever been in. Granted, I haven't been to that many races relative to the guys out there but I think that this race will go down in most people's book as messy.

After last weekend's World Cup in Mont St. Anne I drove down to Bromont to spend the week in the Canadian countryside. I stayed with the US National Team a bit off the beaten path of hotels but pretty nice all the same. It was a fairly short ride to some sweet trails and just a little bit further to the actual venue.

The local ski resort has a fairly extensive mountain bike program in the summer. Usually when I'm spending time in a new place, preparing for a race, it is a challenge to find trails to ride on. In this area however, there were so many trails the problem was deciding which one to ride in the limited amount of time I had. The mountain wasn't nearly as big as what I've grown used to in Utah but the trails provided some great riding. I eventually made it onto the mountain's downhill trails which were really fun and it turned a lot of heads when I cruised by on my Specialized Epic cross country bike.



As I mentioned above, it was extremely muddy for the race, which was a surprise after the hotel owner, and weather report seemed optimistic. It rained the first day in Bromont and made the course fairly muddy but not too bad. The weather report from the locals said that this was the last storm of the week and that it would be sunny up until the race.

After spending a week in Canada for the first World Cup, I somehow knew that despite the 10% chance of rain, there would be rain. So it continued to rain a little bit every day changing the course just a bit every time and mostly creating a lot of work once I got back from riding to clean my bike.

Once race day rolled around I was fairly certain that there wouldn't be any more serious rain before my race and that there would be only small showers, which wouldn't make a difference on the course. I was wrong. At 11 o'clock it started raining and just rained harder up to and throughout the entire race. The thirty minute ride to the venue from the hotel may as well have been a 3 hour ride in the mud because once I got there I was completely covered in mud and soaking wet. I looked as if I had gone swimming in my bike kit and I felt like it too. After getting to the venue I did a quick tire change to get something a little better suited to riding in the rain.

That start of the race was pretty typical and I didn't feel as good as I would have liked to going up the starting climb, which could've been due to a number of things but I battled as much as I could for position. In the process this Belgian guy started giving me a hard time. Everytime I would try to go around him he would hit, elbow, or shove me so that I couldn't get past. I was expecting this in a World Cup but this guy in particular was a real jerk. In one of my many attempts to get around, the guy threw an elbow and connected with my mouth managing to chip one of my front teeth pretty good. Strangely enough I didn't realize it until later in the lap. Then at about half way on lap one, I flatted. Somehow I managed to slice the sidewall of my tire and tear it off the rim. Once this happened I jumped off and took the "Shoe Lace Express" the remaining 2 miles or so to the tech zone where I could get a new wheel. It was in the tech zone when I realized I was missing my front tooth. Despite the tooth and flat I jumped back on my bike and started out on my second lap.

Although things weren't going my way I was determined to finish and not get last place. I rode extremely conservative not knowing the extent of the damage to my teeth and actually passed a few people before getting pulled with two laps to go.



I'm really bummed about this race because I thought I could do well in the muddy conditions and now I have to deal with my teeth. Luckily I got my tooth fixed two days later in Vermont and now I'm in the middle of nowhere Vermont getting ready for the National race in Mount Snow.

To Be Continued...

Robbie