The Nimby 50 is quickly becoming one of the go to races here in Canada. At just over 37km long the distance is manageable and the riding is unforgettable as it takes you up to some terrific views over the beautiful Pemberton valley before sending you down a fairly gnarly xc decent and eventually onto some tough rolling terrain to the finish . 1 lap is hard, 2 laps would be unreal for a Marathon race which I’ve been trying to convince the organizers of doing one year in a Nimby called “Cowboy up”. 
For now the 1 lap still leaves us riders with a bit of energy to enjoy the great BBQ after on the acres of North Arm Farm. The setting is perfect situated below the craggy Mt Currie, and the food is fresh, apparently local and some even right from the farm! What makes the Nimby really cool is the organizers have put an Enduro into the race, which is a 6 minute + timed descent down Overnight Sensation. This adds a race within the race and makes it interesting to see how us spandex laden xc guys stack up against some of the local dh and freeride specialists in the area. My Kona Hei Hei dualie was chomping at the bit to tackle this rough technical race.
Good buddy Dave Mcnaught and I camped out the night before up in the mountains at Mosquito lake. Thankfully the lake didn’t live up to its name. Dave was our Kona Mechanic the last few years so it was great to get to catch up and bring back some old memories sitting around the campfire telling stories. After a jump in the lake to wake up in the morning it was back off to the valley to gear up for the race!
This year the race was pretty quick with World Cup podium guy Max Plaxton around to set the pace. I stuck with him for the first part of the 100 switchback climb before he slowly pulled away, .2 seconds every switchback to be the first up to the Paraglide launch about 1:30 ahead of myself. Behind me were Ricky Federau in his baggie shorts and t-shirt, and XC Canada Cup guy Evan Guthrie from Kelowna. These two are possibly the two best downhill xc racers in Canada and had me pinning it up the climb so I could gap them enough before the enduro section down overnight sensation. Luckily I had big enough gap to hold these two off on the descent (which they finished ranked #1 and 3 on). From here it was 45 minutes of punchy climbs and great fun over some technical rocky terrain before rolling into the finish line at the farm. Plaxton had a good ride to take the win in just over 2 hours with myself coming in 2nd, 2:30 minutes behind, followed up by Ricky and Evan a bit later. 
All in all it was another great weekend at the races and a real treat to be back racing in Canada as we do have the coolest courses here! The Nimby organizers (Terry Evans, Russ Wood & Dean Linnel) are big mountain bikers themselves and put up a descent prize purse to help support us racers which we greatly appreciate. They give back to the trails here as well and deserve a lot of respect for the effort required to pull off this event every year and what they bring to the sport out here on the west coast.
Back to Victoria for the week for some last few days of training before heading over to Europe to tackle the 4 day Alpen Tour in the Austrian Alps. The build up continues towards the World Marathon Championships in South Africa at the end of the month…!