Despite having just two weeks to prepare, Neal Kindree raced to the podium at the Pan-American Mountain Bike Championships in San Juan de Los Morros, Venezuela on Sunday (April 6).The third-place finish amidst blistering heat qualifies Kindree for Italy's World Championship in June. The Squamish rider said the early entry is a big surprise considering he was asked to represent Canada at the Pan-Am Championships at the last minute and felt a bit uneasy about his conditioning."I was quite shocked actually," he said after returning to Squamish. "So now I've already got that one under the belt so that's comforting. It takes a lot of pressure off."Instead of trying to cram in intense training within a short time-span, Kindree said he did the exact opposite - he eased up."You can't really start training two weeks before an event so basically what you do is you start tapering and doing less," he said. "So I just went with that and had a really good ride and felt strong."The scorching "34-degree heat in the shade" was a problem even the Central and South American racers couldn't prepare for enough, he said. Although 35 racers started the race, only seven finished before either dropping out from heat exhaustion or falling behind the leader so far that they were ousted from competition. Kindree said he downed seven litres of water over less than two hours of racing. "It was actually kind of disgusting, like my body was craving water and I was drinking but my stomach was so full by the fourth lap that I could hardly tolerate anymore but I was still thirsty. It was very strange."But generally I perform really well in hot conditions so it was lucky for me."The 49-kilometre course was split into seven seven-kilometre laps, which each took about 15 minutes to complete. Riders had to contend with three steep, punchy, technical climbs. Kindree decided the best strategy for those meant hopping off the saddle."The alternative is to run up, which I did because when you ride up that sort of thing [] you're totally ruined," he said. "At the beginning of the race it wasn't faster but then as people started to pay the consequences for riding up these climbs, I started picking them off later in the race."Although Kindree started the mass start at the front, competitors pulled ahead early and crashed, forcing him to play catch-up for the rest of the race. He finished with a time of 1:54:34, less than six minutes behind American winner Sam Jurekovic (1:49:37) and Argentinean Dario Gasco (1:50:31) in the U23 category.Despite his southern success, Kindree said he's happy to be home from the country's instability. The athletes' compound was protected by armed guards and no one was allowed to leave after dark because of a serious risk of kidnapping, said Kindree. "Venezuela is a crazy place it was a good experience but definitely not a place I'd want to hang around too long." He still managed to get out and ride everyday leading up to the race making sure he was accompanied by fellow riders. Kindree will participate in Brackendale's first annual Ore Crusher on May 10 before heading to Quebec for the first Canada Cup.
