S3 is in the books – fun, fast and without a hint of snow. While it was nice to have a week’s worth of dry weather, the recipe for Island Lake was power and speed, having summer-like trail conditions all week.
While it’s tricky to dig up exact details on number of riders and segment attempts throughout the week (since S3 was an existing segment within Strava), we did see 56 riders attempt a run on Saturday, which was a great number – and the total number of segment runs over the week increased by 200+. Look for updated points in the next couple of hours.
A quick note about our segments – our goal is to build out a sterile/clean/new/fresh segment each week, but that doesn’t always happen. Feedback we received and saw this week is that Island Lake was a fun segment which is our main goal (alongside safety of a segment). Seeing a fresh leaderboard for a segment is certainly ideal and something we’re always looking to accomplish.
Speaking of fun – segment 4 is up next and fun might not be the best word to describe it. We hit the pavement at Stony Creek, with some trolley trails added to the mix. Techy-bike skills are not required – this one is a pure power segment. Pain train, hammer-fest, whatever you want to call it. Try to enjoy the scenery at least and think about the cake.
Note on S4: No pace cars, drafting, team/buddy lead-outs are allowed. We totally encourage people to ride together, but stagger your starts on this one to ensure it’s an individual effort/attempt.
Lastly, it is probably easiest to get into Stony through the main entrance, which does require a park pass. There are other ways to get into the park, but supporting the park and all their new trails (which sadly aren’t technically open at the moment) ain’t all bad.
See S4 route, segment and GPX files here
Cheers and good luck!
