It depends where you’re reading this but in Mt St Anne it’s 3.00pm in the afternoon. I arrived late last night after getting lost several times on the 4 hour drive from Montreal and ended up sleeping in the car (just like the good old days) but more of that story later.

It’s Tuesday here and things are pretty quiet at the moment with hardly any teams or riders here yet. The track opens for foot inspection tomorrow and training runs on Thursday. Anyway I sprinted up the track for a quick squint at what was going on.

The start ramp throws you into some super fast wide open sections straight down the piste.
The tape then guides you into the woods for a brief spell before spitting you back out on to the piste. This is where you encounter the first obstacle, a rare Canadian plant. A track official was busy consulting his botanical A to Z to see whether or not he could hack it down or not it. Don’t be surprised to see some red tape or a jump over this leafy specimen.

You can picture the track as a Victoria sponge cake made up of layers. The fast open sections are the sponge and the wooded sections are the filling, jam and cream. Actually maybe lasagne would be a better description, or perhaps a Battenburg.
Anyway, basically the track darts in and out of the woods the whole way down.

The ground or jam filling if you will, varies between grassy piste to soft/soggy earth then to rock slabs.

Although the track scoots through the woods there aren’t many gnarly roots to deal with. The most technical aspect appears to be the rock gardens. Some of the man made berms seem a little on the soft side, so if it rains things could get sloppy.

If I was a weather forecaster and had to do a summary of the track I’d say:
“In summary a fast and flowing track, not too technical.”

I’m just going to sprint up to the 4x track to get some snaps, back soon.

Mont Sainte Anne World Cup:The Track