Vernon’s Casey Brown takes third at Psychosis mountain bike race in Golden

Photo: Contributed

Vernon’s Casey Brown took third in this week’s Psychosis downhill mountain bike race in Golden.

With over 1,200 vertical metres and 7.3 kilometres of steep, rough and rocky single track, the mountain bike race was resurrected after a 12-year hiatus as part of the CLIF Crankworx Summer Series, which recently kicked off with races at Silver Star. 

“Trying to go as slow as you can is still really fast. And that’s kind of what’s always been the crux. That’s always been the key to this event,” explained event director Trevor Gavura. “You have to give way to gravity on this course. Most courses today in the World Cups, you can kind of stop on course anywhere, but this actually has sections that are physically impossible to stop on.” 

“I was shaking at the start line," said racer Georgia Astle.

“It was very hard going down. I was pretty much a shell,” said Henry Fitzgerald, who stood atop the men’s podium. “I was getting so loose, but didn’t really have the energy to do anything about it. But, it worked out.” 

Under five seconds separated Astle from the women's winner, Andréane Lanthier Nadeau. 

“Mega overheat. Definitely some mega fatigue in the race run,” said Lanthier Nadeau. “I just tried to keep it consistent so I wouldn’t go too much in the red zone.”

Vernon's Brown came in third with a time of 14:52.34.

“It’s pretty remarkable,” said Brown. “I would have never thought that I would have been able to race Psychosis, because they stopped racing it in 2008. So, yeah, coming here and knowing how much history it has is really incredible. And being able to look back at old videos of Stevie Smith and Sam Hill racing this track, and even Tyler Morland and all those legends...it’s really cool to bring it back.”