Nick Emsley

It was April 15 and I was up at 5:00 am getting prepared for the first race of the year. On the drive to Mansfield where the race was being held I relaxed and got myself prepared. It had been nice and warm for the previous week and on race day it was cold and raining. But at least I was ready and brought all of my riding gear. It was the first race in the Ontario XC Marathon Series put on by Substance Projects. My coach was there as well as some of my teammates. I was doing the half marathon in preparation for the Ontario Cup which was the following weekend. It did feel a bit weird dong the Half Marathon since I am used to do the full distance. My coach and all of his athletes went and did a warm up just before the race. After the warm up I went and did my final preparations and then headed to the start line. I lined up right behind my coach and on the right of him were my two teammates, Thomas and Scott. The start buzzer went off and the start was hard and fast. After the first few co

It is April 5th and there is still 18" of snow in my home town of Haliburton. I hope the snow leaves soon since my race season is fast approaching. In preparation for  my race season I was down at my sponsor Frog Cycles installing a new drive train on my bike. I have been using a Shimano XTR 2x10 drive train for 3 years and it was time for an upgrade. There are so many different drive trains in today's market that it can make it very difficult to decide which one to go with. I chose a Shimano XT M8000 1x11 drive train. I picked Shimano since I have rode their drive trains ever since I started into cycling and I really like how they operate. I was tempted to go with XTR but the XT drive train is way cheaper and more durable then XTR. The only main difference between XT and XTR is the weight and that isn't huge. I will also be running a new XT brake system which are great. The levers are very smooth and they grab extremely well. I also just love the new 11 spd