The town of Canmore located in Alberta, Canada will host the 2012 world 24-hour solo championships on 14 September. For the event announcement American endurance icon, Tinker Juarez, visited the snowed in venue.
Earlier, organizers of the solo 24-hour world’s hosted a contest to ‘Train with Tinker, Cory Wallace and Leighton Poidevin.’ And as part of Juarez’s visit he, the four contest winners got on their road bikes at the Ascent Performance Lab in Canmore along with Wallace and Poidevin, to start training with a benchmark stationary bike time-trial.
Juarez pulled away from the group early on, and held on for victory, while 24 Hour veteran, Leighton Poidevin of Canmore, cruised in for second place. The event proved an opportunity for everyone to see where they stand next to Tinker who is currently logging 30 hours of training a week, with frequent 6 hour long rides on the roads surrounding his home in Whittier, California.
After the test, Tinker and Cory Wallace each climbed aboard a dogsled and dueled it out on Main Street as part of the Canmore Winter Carnival festivities. Wallace, the reigning Canadian 24 Hour Solo Champion from Jasper, Alberta took the win with Tinker finishing close behind.
On the run
Later on that evening, fans and fellow racers from the 24 Hour racing scene gathered at the Drake Pub for a ‘Q&A’ session with Tinker, Cory and Leighton.
The topics of the discussion, included: 29ers versus 26ers, nutrition, pacing, lighting systems, seeing things in the dark, and the domination of Australian rider Jason English who has won the 24-hour solo world’s twice.
Everyone sitting in on this discussion caught a rare glimpse into the minds of these three elite endurance riders. And they all left with some insight into each other’s strategies for this year’s world championship showdown.
Juarez found a new teammate for the street dogsled races