April 03, 2018 (Ballantrae, ON) – Each time for the last six or seven years, I’ve said I’m not going back to race HOTN due to multiple mechanical, bio-mechanical and a few wrong turns that led to three or four 2nd-place finishes, and four broken ribs last year. And this year was no different until organizer, Ed Veal, twisted my rubber arm and once again I was on the start line on Easter Sunday which doubled as April Fools Day to race the coldest 90km Hell of The North I’ve ever done – the 10th annual event to boot.

The race started off super easy and the first serious attempt at a breakaway was easily off the front. The group had no rider at all interested in really doing anything until 23k into the race when the pace heated up as the small battle for Boag Road began.

The lead rider, Sean Mackinnon, had about a 2:30 gap at this time. This section is about 2km long and ranges from impassable to sketchy at best. This year I’d say it was “just worse than sketchy”, as you could still carry lots of speed due to frozen ground, but along with frozen ground there was lots of frozen water to potentially remove you from your bicycle.

I managed to ride this section fairly well and only last year’s winner Andrew Bradbury was with me on the exit with Eric Box, Sjaan Gerth and Mark Brouwer in close pursuit. At the end of the section the leader, Mackinnon, now only had 15-20 seconds.

We had 15km of road until the next trail section and the five of us started to roll together keeping the gap steady to the leader. We hit the trench which is about 10km long and is mainly a rough gravel/dirt road. The problem was that up towards the lake it was snowing and the snow nicely covered all of the ice which meant riding any line was pretty much guess work.

I went to the back and talked with Eric who agreed that trying to ride full gas in a group was risky and maybe we should just go hard but not too hard. Just as we finished that chat Mark went to the front and drilled it, and this lasted about a minute until he crashed lost control went off the trail into a ditch full of cold water and smashed his head on a tree.

We all stopped and got Mark up and made sure he was ok to get out of the trail. We then pretty much just rode tempo to be safe and decided to start racing once we got out of that section. Mark unfortunately flatted and pretty much had the worst 3km of a race anyone could have. Once back on the road the four of us regrouped but now we were down 2.30 or 3 minutes at 55 km in. We rolled hard and lost Eric at 65km and Andrew at 75km.

Now it was just Sjann and I left with Sean at 2:20 up the road, and 15km left in the race. Sjann was riding really strong and coming up the next trail section with 14k to go he put in a big dig and I barely held on. We were now coming to the entrance to the second last trail section and he accelerated again and blew right by the course marshal and missed the turn. I’m gonna say I was too tired to yell at him and leave it there.

The next section usually is one of the easiest but this year it was 80% covered in ice and super tricky. I felt if I rode the remaining dirt sections fast I could catch Sean as he’d lost two minutes during the first one. I rode the section really well and caught Sean towards the end and got a small gap coming out of the section. It was only 15 or 20 seconds so I just went 75% until he caught me and got ready for him to attack, as I assumed he would try.

Sean did launch the second he made contact. I got on his wheel and he went again. We finally got a mini truce going and both did small pulls until we hit the next section with 7-8km to go. Sean tried to get into that section first but I gave it all I had and made it in ahead of him and just put the hammer down.

I figured I needed a 20-30-second gap out of this section and rode it almost totally clean aside from a small toe dab on the descent and came out with a 20-25 second lead. Sean closed a bit on the last and shortest section with 4 km to go so I put a hard effort in again and had 30-35 seconds on the exit.

There was now 3km of road left with a few kickers. I gave it everything I had and basically blew up with 900m left and crawled home for the win. It was a very strange race as for once, there was no gong show for me – meaning no mechanicals, no wrong turns and no bio-mechanicals. It was my April Fools victory after nine years of givin’er.

And if you want to relive this type of excitement come check out the Tour of Pelham here, in 2 weeks.

Finally I have to thank my pit crew Craig MacEachern, and my family for delaying the Easter egg hunt until I got home later in the day – results here.

The Heck of the North 70km titles were won by defending champs Paolina Allan (Highgate Racing p/b D’Ornellas) and Mike Little (Ascent Cycling p/b Neworld Cycle) while Annie Nanowski (Bateman’s Bike Co. p/b Cloud9 AV) also defended her title in the women’s 90km Hell of the North race. – ed