Right now five MOMAR racers are down in South Africa taking on the 570km Bull of Africa Expedition Race.

Squamish MOMAR Course Designer, Jen Segger, is racing with uge.cyanosis and are currently in 3rd place. The other Canadian team is Team Comor / John Henry Bikes with a roster that includes Adam Smith, Graham Tutti, Adrian Rothwell, and former Team Helly Hansen/MOMAR member, Meghan Rose; they are sitting in 18th place.

You can track the teams on the Sleepmonsters website complete with race reports, leaderboards, and photo gallery. Go to www.sleepmonsters.ca.

The countdown is on until the MOMAR Shawnigan Lake!  I’m here with my sister, Janine, in Nanaimo where we just spent the night at Normon Thibault’s place.

Last night, Norm entertained us with a spectacular fireshow. Armed with a blowtorch taped to the end of a stick and a big can of bug spray, he bravely set off to rid his property of a massive wasp’s nest.  Here are a few photos…

It just goes to show you that it’s not all about working out for this recent winner of the BC Bike Race (coed with Wendy Simms), but they too are just like us! I feel like the editor of US Weekly by saying that.  ;0)

We’ll be heading south to Duncan soon where we will be loading up the Budget van, going to Merridale Estate Cidery, and then for a Safety Meeting with the boys from SARBC, Timonda, and the HAMS.

Oh, and the new MOMAR T-Shirts are SUPER cool!!!

On the Schick Xtreme3 website, you can enter win a 3 week trip to 3 continents for 3 people. How cool would that be?  To enter, simply visit www.xtreme3.ca and fill out the online ballot.  Be sure to watch the winning video from the 2007 Whistler 72 Filmmakers Showdown — it’s super funny!

The new issue of the MOMAR eNewsletter for June just went out.  If you didn’t get a copy, then you can click here to view it online.  In this issue, we touch on everything from the upcoming MOMAR in Shawnigan Lake, to the past MOMAR in Squamish, to the Big Chop, Volunteers, BC Bike Race, and Training Clinics.

If you would like to be on the mailing list, you can sign up by entering your email in the form to the left.

It’s time to size up the competition for this weekend’s MOMAR in Squamish. Over 200 racers will be on the start line for the Jen Segger designed course including racers from Australia, New York, Texas, Illonios, Washington State, Alberta, and from all parts of BC.  Click here to view the list of registered racers.

Can Team Helly Hansen / MOMAR’s Gary Robbins and Todd Nowack continue where they left off last year? They are fresh off a win at the Suburban Rush and last year, they won all three MOMARs. Who will challenge? Frontrunners Normon Thibault should be up there and you may even see Jason Sanquist (although he claims that he is not as fit as he would to be).

In the Team of 4 category, watch for solid battle between Team Player, Mergeo.com and last year’s top team Live to Tell. And in the team of 2 female category, my money is on the Chilliwack Chicks to be on the podium, but the Just Two Cool Chicks could be up there as well.

But this is an Adventure Race and anything can happen. Over the past 24 MOMARs (holy crap, has it been that many!?) I’ve seen it all — from mechanicals, to injuries, to getting lost (the most common) the race is never over until it’s over. That’s what makes this sport so great.

Volunteers are still needed! If you would like to be part of the MOMAR, please go to the Volunteer Page and sign up.

MOMAR in six days!

Happy New Year everyone! Has it really been a month since my last blog post? Not sure why I haven’t been posting aside from pure laziness. A few interesting stories have happened so it’s not like I didn’t have the content, but I guess I needed the break considering how busy ‘07 was for me.

So, what has happened lately? Well, Team Helly Hansen / MOMAR won the Beast Winter Adventure Race down in the USA and continued to dominate the regional sprint AR scene. Both Gary and Todd have been busy blogging so check out their sites to read all about their race and many other cool adventures.

Raid the North Extreme has announced their TV premiere for Saturday, January 12th at 9pm on Global. Team Helly Hansen / MOMAR was one of the featured teams so you should see plenty of their antics throughout the show.

Registration for the 2008 season is going really well. I’m pretty sure we’ll see an early sellout for the Squamish MOMAR. Course Designer, Jen Segger-Gigg and Marc Bourdon from the Squamish Rock Guides have scouted out a new and hidden rappel site that is bigger and better than last year. Jen’s preliminary course design also sounds pretty amazing! Sign up quick and get training.

But the one thing that truly motivated me to get off my ass and start blogging was this photo of Frontrunners’ co-owner, Normon Thibault at the Fourth Annual Dave Smart Tribute Beer Mile. Thanks Norm!

The new issue of Get Out There Magazine is on newsstands, but you can have a look at it online now. Click here (pdf 2mb) to download the new issue featuring a great article on freeskier Sarah Burke (X-Games gold medalist and #91 on FHM’s Sexiest Women of 2006).

Many of you may not recognize the guy in the above photo because he usually has a camera in front of his face. Well, this guy is the now legendary Tony Austin — MOMAR’s official photographer. Tony is out at every race capturing the essence of the MOMAR. All of Tony’s photos are on his website www.pbase.com/autie.

I have put together a “Best of MOMAR 2007” photo gallery with 200 of my favorite photos. Check it out to re-live the year! Tell your friends!

For those of you that would like to hear the full story of what happened on the day we lost our good friends Denis Fontaine and Richard Juryn, CBC has posted the full interview with Bob Faulkner on their website. Please click here to view the video.

Also, there is a memorial celebration planned for Sunday, October 21, at 6pm at Taylor’s Crossing Pub in North Vancouver.

In a tragic kayaking accident on Sunday we lose two amazing friends and adventure athletes. Denis Fontaine, 40, was a regular at the MOMAR and was there for the first one in 2000. Richard Juryn, 50, was a fellow event producer and put on one of my favorite events — the 6 hour North Shore Enduro. The Vancouver Province has a good account of what happened. I have nothing but great memories of Denis and Richard and they will be missed enormously.

Denis Fontaine (left) and Richard Juryn at the MOMAR

Denis in his 80’s themed racing outfit at last year’s MOMAR Cumberland.

Denis was a regular on the podium. Here he is with his girlfriend, Cheryl Beatty, with a 1st place finish at the Sechelt MOMAR in 2004.

Denis was always the life of the party — good or bad!

Everyone would always hold their breath when Denis was on the mic, but at this MOMAR, to everyone’s surprise, he kept it clean by congratulating racers on behalf of Helly Hansen.

At the 2005 MOMAR in Sechelt, Denis’ attempt to ‘pie’ birthday boy, Normon Thibault, backfired and he ended up getting it the worst.

At the 2004 MOMAR in Ucluelet, we held a Q&A on adventure racing. Denis was on the panel with with fellow adventure racers Ina Ervin, Dave Norona, and Sean Lunny. Moderated by Normon Thibault, Denis was the funny one, never giving a straight answer.

Richard only managed to make it out to one MOMAR, but here he is at the 2004 MOMAR in Duncan dancing up a storm. He was one of the last to leave that night after placing 7th overall and 5th in the solo male category.

This member of Team Reno 9-1-1 is now the proud father of a baby girl! On Monday following a weekend up at the MOMAR, Andrew Pitre and his wife Kristen Lane gave birth to a 6lb 10oz girl named Emily. We all hope that has her mom’s good looks! ;0)… Congratulations!!!

Check out the links below to read all about the MOMAR directly from racers:

If you have a post race report that you would like to feature on this blog, please email me the link.

Check out the MOMAR article on the Adventure Zone page of the Canadian Geographic website. Thanks to Tracy Read for the post! Click HERE to read the article.

I just booked my ticket to Ontario where me and my buddy, Tim Logie, will be taking part in the Keen Adventure Sport Games. This is the first race of it’s kind in Canada and has a unique twist where each stage has a specific starting time. If anyone else from BC is heading out, let me know know as we have some room in our rental vehicle from Toronto to Collingwood.

Here are some more details about the race:

The KEEN Adventure Sports Games (September 15-16, 2007) is a multi-sport outdoor adventure festival in Collingwood, ON. Events include a XC Mountain Bike Race, Beaver River Paddling Race, Conquer the Escarpment Trail Run, Georgian Bay Open Water Race, Mountain Bike Navigation Race, Adventure Run and Hill Climb Relay for charity.

Participants, both recreational and competitive, can enter one event or several events during the weekend; and the more adventurous competitors can enter all seven events in the KEEN Ultimate Adventure Challenge, where the top team of two will win a $10,000 trip to Australia.

There will also be an exciting expo area and photo display, plus plenty of music, food, drink and camping – creating a great festive atmosphere.

Events in the KEEN Ultimate Adventure Challenge include:

Join the action at the Keen Adventure Sports Games. Check it out at www.adventuresportsgames.com

Photo: The top 5 teams from last year’s NTS. Kavie Toor and Duncan Barber (front)
won the race and took home a killer prize package from Helly Hansen.

Registration has opened for the 4th edition of Navigate the Streets. The race takes place in Vancouver on Saturday, October 13th. Teams of three will race to find 10 checkpoint scattered throughout the downtown core. Helly Hansen is the presenting sponsor and has put up a $2000 Grand Prize shopping spree at their soon to be opened new downtown location. Visit the website to register today!