Nationals Course

Late last week the park and course for the National Cross Championships was published and the course was looking pretty suspect and even worse the park was incredibly small and a parking nightmare. We decided stop by the park and look at the course and I was in shocked to learn that start was actually a downhill section with a 14 meter drop.

I took Aly's bike and Garmin and rode around the perimeter of the park. I did a little extra on top looking to see if there was some single track down the one side which added about 100 meters to my ride around the perimeter of the park. What I rode was on kilometer around but with the extra it was about 850 meters in total.


After getting home I realized that the start was in a parking lot and you would be going over a concrete curb at the end of the parking lot, descending down along a fence line with some scrub brush through a marshy area then along a fence line beside the soccer field. Then seemingly the course goes over the soccer field several times but the course map says that riders are not to ride over the soccer field.

The far side of the park has a play ground in the middle of it and there is a turn in the middle of the lower parking lot, which means that there will be no parking down there.

With the upper parking lot having only about 40 spots and twenty being taken up with RSVP parking and course etc, it's going to once again be a logistical nightmare just to attend never mind race.

I want to be wrong about this of course that it's not going to be a nightmare but given my experience and how I'm wired I know what is going to be at issue. I passed my concerns on to the OCA and CCA but I have not heard anything. I really would like to attend but feel that I can't really attend because I know what an ordeal it will be and for me the kicker is that I know how much it cost to fly from here to Edmonton to race Nationals. How can we ask others to do the same, to spend that money travel all the way to Toronto and this is the kind of course and venue we provide?

It's embarrassing.

I think the only option is to voice your concerns to the CCA or not show up and spend your dollars. I'm trying to do both.