Patrice Drouin helped bring the MTB World Cup to Quebec 30 years ago… And the races keep coming back

If you’ve ever watched a World Cup downhill or cross-country race at Mont Sainte Anne, you’ve seen Mountain Bike Hall of Famer Patrice Drouin’s work. And if you’ve ever wondered how a venue like that gets selected—or what it takes to actually host one of these massive events—we’re going to dig into that today.

We’ll also talk about the riding in and around Quebec City, which you might be surprised to learn is one of North America’s most vibrant mountain bike destinations.

• How would you describe the mountain biking scene in and around Quebec City, particularly Mont Sainte Anne?
• Are there any lesser-known trails in the area that visitors might want to check out?
• What does it actually take to host a UCI World Cup or World Championship event?
• Beyond the race course itself, what factors does the UCI look for in a venue?
• In your experience, what are the key ingredients for a successful race weekend?
• Is there a particular year or moment that stands out as especially memorable in your career?
• Looking back on your 30+ years in the sport, what are you most proud of?
• Are there any innovations in the sport—like e-MTB racing—that you think are especially important for the future?
• What’s one lesson you’ve learned from organizing bike races that might surprise people?
• What advice would you give to someone who wants to organize their own local mountain bike event?

If you’re heading to Quebec, check out the Auberge & Campagne tavern and inn, which is owned and operated by Pat and his family.

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Automated transcript

Jeff Barber 0:00
Hey everybody, welcome to the Singletracks podcast. My name is Jeff, and today I’m honored to be speaking with a true pioneer in mountain bike racing, Pat Drouin. If you’ve ever watched a World Cup downhill or cross-country race at Mount St Anne, you’ve seen Pat’s work, and if you’ve ever wondered how a venue like that gets selected, or what it takes to actually hosts one of these massive events. We’re going to dig into that today. We’ll also talk about the riding in and around Quebec City, which you might be surprised to learn, is one of North America’s most vibrant mountain bike destinations. Pat, welcome to the show.

Pat Drouin 0:37
Hey, I’m glad to be with you this morning. Thank you for inviting me.

Jeff Barber 0:43
Awesome. Well, let’s start by talking about the local mountain bike scene. I think a lot of our listeners in the US might not realize how good the mountain biking is around Quebec City, for someone who’s never been how would you describe the riding there?

Pat Drouin 1:00
Oh, it’s very diversified. First of all, so with the five destinations that we have around the city of Quebec, including Mount Saint Anne, we have very, very different style of riding from one place to another. So if someone comes and want to make a stop and or mountain bike trip to Quebec. It will, it will definitely be fun riding, because you have a lot of difference between one place to another. So either it’s really man made, well done and maintain rolling coaster and the the banking and the jumps. Or you have more natural like at Mount Saint on for example, you have very nice, nicely done trails, but also a very natural, old style riding that you can experience. So it’s a good mix all around the area. And so it’s a, I can understand that it’s a kind of a good destination in North America, a very good destination because of this. And also you can, you can visit Quebec City, and you can stay around one of these locations and go and visit Quebec and circulate from one place to another. You know, in easy drive half an hour, maybe four or five minutes, oh, wow, and even less, from one place to another. So it’s a, it’s a great, great concept that been established a few years ago by communicating together between the Destiny the five different location and with the tourism Quebec and the tourism office in Quebec City, it was a good decision to join forces to create a destination, instead of working alone in our own area. So that was very nice. Nicely done, yeah.

Jeff Barber 3:01
I mean, I guess there are a lot of local riders there as well. I mean, what’s kind of the mix between local riders versus tourists?

Pat Drouin 3:10
Yes, our, our target is Ontario, Montreal, the large surroundings of the province, but also the northeast of the states. It’s always been tourism wise, a clientele very important to us in Quebec, the Northeast. And I remember when we were running the first events at Mount St Anne and Bromont years ago, like in early 80s and 90s, we had a lot of North American, East northeast American coming plots from Vermont, unsure, Maine, Massachusetts, and they were Coming to race and to stay around and ride so, and it’s still very important group of clientele to force so the five destination of mountain bike around Quebec is really targeting those clients In the northeast.

Jeff Barber 4:20
Yeah, well, Mount St Anne is obviously a world renowned race venue. But what about for everyday riders is that somewhere you could go and ride like, what would that be like? What? What would you experience if you went there as, as just a tourist?

Pat Drouin 4:34
Hi, it’s huge number of trails, you know, like we have, I don’t recall exactly, because trails are popping up, you know, every, every month. So, so we have new trail development. We have a the World Cup itself, for 30 years of trails connections made, you know, so we have a network. At the bottom of the mountain that is endless, not all linked together, necessarily as a trail mark, properly marked, because this is reserved to connect one section to another when we establish the course for the World Cup. But we’ve been riding at Mount Saint Anne since early 80s, 8384 and since then, and we have developed the cross country ski network trails. You know, this is 240 kilometers of cross country ski trails. Wow. Not all of them are maintained for trail riding with mountain bike. But a huge part of it is existing. And in addition to that good base, very good base, where we started riding years ago, now, we had a series of trails, you know, like, it might be like a 4050, trailers, you know, that been established, you know. So this is a lot, and it’s very it vary from extremely easy cycle path along the river to extreme downhill. And for Andro type of riding, cross country, long distance, you know it’s there is trails for all type of cyclists, and so it’s really fun. You can, you can enjoy a lot with different trails. The marking is getting better. You know, the marking of the trails, the signs, yeah, it’s getting better every year. This is always a complex thing to do in the woods. No, it’s, there is so many intersections. There is you always get to an intersection somewhere. It’s not once every hour, it’s one intersection, or maybe three or four every 30 seconds, yeah. So, so you have to mark the trails. And this is very this is a huge task that is Emily handled by mostly volunteers and the club and the mountain. So it’s a combination of work from volunteer base and workers at the mountain.

Jeff Barber 7:13
Does the race course change much from year to year like I guess let’s take the downhill course, for example. Has it generally stayed pretty much the same over the last 30 years, like with some sort of modifications.

Pat Drouin 7:29
The first, let’s say ’91 ’92 ’93 the World Cup was non official, and in downhill was a test event that we were doing so. Three location were determined, two in Europe, and Mount St Anne to establish the racing format. Because there was kind of discussion at the UCI on how Daniel should be, because there was inspiration from Alpine skiing, from other sport, and we were arguing too much to and we disagreed too much. So we decided to host a three year test event trying different model and then, and then the so it established I was at same time the type, of course we want, land and vertical and duration a TV was not that important at that time. So we could have Daniels and friends of six kilometers. Oh, wow, USA. If you look at Mammoth month and the chemicals downhill, it was like about six, seven kilometers, if not more, wow. So, so the downhill evaluate a lot, and the course change at Mount Saint on the first three or three years, we use the same course, which was a pretty mellow course using the access road and some ski, alpine ski trails. And so when the when the format was established with UCI in 93 at the end of 93 so 94 we kept the same course. 95 we did a radical change. Instead of going around the mountain on the east side, we went straight down, okay, not a straight line, but a straight, uh, direction, yeah. And within that, I guess, was it was much cheaper, yeah, we went from 6.2 kilometers to 3.1 kilometers. Oh, wow. So we cut the distance in two, but the elevation was the same. So then we created a very, very radical course, still, I mean, feasible and just for everyone, but it pushed the industry to adapt the bikes for that type of race. In, yeah, wow. We were, we were quite amongst the first, if not the first, destination, to change completely Daniel from what it was. And it was not a mud, but it was a real course, because in some places in Europe, it’s so it’s a the ground is composed of a lot of clay. So if you race in the rain, this is or, you know, like you just slide down. Yeah, that’s not the case in Mount Saint on Mount Saint on there is good Earth rocks. So we are really lucky with the type of ground we have, because we can use the course several years. We can switch some sections, fix it, you know, and come back and play, play around. And even the cross country is the ground is the hurt is nice. So we it rained a lot. It’s slowing down the athletes, but as soon as it stopped raining an hour after, it’s right about and getting better and better. Yeah, so we never had any addition with deep mud problems. So to answer your question, the course have changed down of course at Monsanto have changed once, in a major way. After that we we, we just experienced some new section, give more speed, slow down at some place, the athletes and create some iconic sections that never change. They are always there. Okay, we haven’t created a a drop for Stevie Smith, one of our best Daniela that died a few years ago. He has his own section with the plate on the rocks. You know, like talking about the athlete, yeah. So we have those kind of commemorative area or or sections that are classic section that will remain on the course. I mean, forever. I think they are classic, known by every athlete, team managers and mechanics.

Jeff Barber 12:10
If I went out there to visit, could I ride portions of that course? Like, obviously not when the race is happening, but, yeah, is that open to the public?

Pat Drouin 12:22
Yeah, it’s open. You can mean, you it’s, it’s impossible to ride that course at a slow speed, believe me, I tried, right? You have to commit. It’s impossible because it’s, you have to clear gaps, and the gaps are to be cleared with air and not, not, not growing. No, it’s not a trial type. Of course, with a with a trial bike, yes you could, yeah, but not, not with the regular bike. So yes you could. There is sections that we we traverse the downhill course at some area, and you can deep, you can dive in the course, and it’s right above and it’s nice right section, yeah, yeah, but the very technical sections in many places are basically impossible to ride for a normal person.

Jeff Barber 13:17
Well, that’s that’s good to know too about the soil there, because it sounds like, you know, if you are visiting, if you’re going up to Quebec, just to ride for fun, if it rains, that’s probably okay. Like, you don’t have to worry too much about the weather in terms of, like, planning a trip,

Pat Drouin 13:33
Yeah, if it’s every rain now, with a new trail building, that is a lot of time it’s freshly done, you know, groomed and nicely put in place. The resort will be very attentive, very paying a lot of attention to the weather. And if the weather is too severe, like every rain, like we get these days, you know, like no rain for two, three days, four days, and then huge amount of water. They close the trails, okay? And we ask the people to respect that, because it’s the only way to keep trails in good shape. Otherwise, if you go riding in those period, you know, it’s destroyed, the burns and everything, right? Yeah, but this is circumstantial, you know, like, there is moment of the summer that these trails are closed, and in early spring when the snow is melting, because we have, we have a lot of it, most of the time, there is also rain mixed to that at the end, end of the snow melting. So the resort will manage the schedule. Open, close, open, close. You know very attentively for the for the sake of keeping the trails in good shape.

Jeff Barber 14:49
Well beyond the resort at Mount Saint Anne, what are some other like hidden gem trails in the area, spots that maybe, maybe they’re. Race crowd doesn’t always get to see?

Pat Drouin 15:03
There’s plenty of that. You mean trails that are…

Jeff Barber 15:07
Yeah, what are some of your favorites to ride?

Pat Drouin 15:11
Well, if you, if you are, if you are local, you you, you know pretty much a lot of different trails, and they are not always on the map.

Jeff Barber 15:26
Because you don’t want a lot of people riding them?

Pat Drouin 15:31
It’s not the goal. It’s because they are new and not part of the network. They’ve been cut and made, man made by some locals. So they are not in the in the in the trade map of the area, right? And the they are, they have to be recognized by the resort first of all, before to be made to be added to the map. Safety, you know, like territory wise, you know, if me, if we are still on the resort, or outside the resort, so you cannot put a trail that is outside the resort on the private land, because behind Mount Saint on where we go sometime with the trails, it’s owned by the church. Oh, okay, it’s a huge piece of land. They call it the tail de seminar. And it’s, it’s a territory that is owned by the Quebec church, and it’s, would say, six times the size of Belgium. That’s not a small piece of land. It’s one of the biggest, largest private land in the country, at least in the province, I don’t know in the country, but I guess it’s the country too, so, so, but trails, trails, there is even myself. I don’t try the everyday. I don’t try the as much as I was in the past. But every time that I go riding, so I bring a friend of mine who’s riding more than me, will show me the new trailers that are built. And there is a lot of it, a lot of it, and they are all nice, nice little Singletracks, you know, like easy riding, not too technical. Some are extremely technical, and I’m not going there, but most of them are rideable and a lot of fun. So my best recommendation to anybody who comes to to ride at Mount Saint on is to connect with a local and get a tour done. And it’s then you will. You’re not obliged to do that, because you will have plenty of trails to do without a guide. But it’s if you can connect. You come to my bar and you connect with a local, and you make a meeting point the next morning, yeah, and you go riding. Okay, yeah, that’s a good thing. That’s a good trick.

Jeff Barber 18:02
Yeah, awesome. Well, you organized mountain bike races for over 30 years, so let’s pull back the curtain a bit. What does it actually take to host a UCI World Cup or World Championship race?

Pat Drouin 18:16
Well, I will go back to answer that to before we were organizing World Cups. We were I was organizing local event, original event and national event, provincial national event, under the umbrella of the association Quebecois de Villa Morten. It’s the Quebec Mountain Bike Association. Okay, I created, with friends, a Federation in 19 in 1984 Okay, to to develop the sport and to guide the people in the practice of the sport, because there was nothing existing. And so by creating this federation that was competition and recreational, we could cover the sport completely. So we started to organize those events across the province. And Mount Saint Anne was the base of the Federation of the association. It was the office of the association, association because will more than was at the resort or in my apartment in the wintertime and and we started like that, and we organized several events. And every year we improved timing, the official, you know, like the judging and regulations, every year we were improving this and working hard with friends. You know, it was a bunch of friends together doing it. Then I was, I left we, we took this federation that we created and we transfer it to the Quebec Cycling Federation. Okay, that was our. The existing with BMX and Road and Track. So they added suddenly, a new sport with 30 clubs, 30 competitions around the province, and 1800 members in a program, rec rational program as well. So it was a complete package that the Federation got, and I and then I was identified as someone who knew a lot about the sport, and I was asked to contribute to the UCI, to the creation of mountain bike sport, so by Mark LeMay, a guy from one of the was president of the Canadian cycling Association at the time, and he was sitting on a commission, BMX commission at the UCI, and UCI asked him to take the lead on the mountain bike scene. Oh, wow, at the international level, yeah. So a Quebec guy, Canadian guy, was asked to manage mountain bike for UCI. So he he asked me to join him and in a meeting, first meeting in Belgium. So then after that meeting, several, several meetings leading up to that first meeting in Belgium, we created the World Cup Series. And World Cup Series means a World Cup in different countries, in cross country, first of all, so it existed in road biking before.

Jeff Barber 21:29
Like, did you have kind of a template that you could follow for mountain biking in terms of a World Cup?

Pat Drouin 21:36
I had our circuit in Quebec that we created with specific rules, specific judging, a specific format, and we followed closely the USA what USC was doing. So USA and Quebec, we were pretty much the same based on the same same type of vision for the sport. Let’s say we had difference in scoring and things like this, but minimal difference. So when I went to this first meeting, first few meetings, then we created the World Cup, and around the table there was about eight countries, represented, Italy, France, with Australia, Germany, USA, Canada, let’s say about those kind of those country. And we had to say, Okay, I’m going to take care of one of them. I’m going to take care of one of them. And then I ended up with a World Cup to to put in Canada somewhere. Wow. So I decided that it’s going to be Mount St John montsontown was the hub of the beginning of the sport, at least on the East Coast, an organized sport, I would say, BC was already Riding Mountain Bike early 80s also, but there was no organization in BC. So I took the first event in Mount St Anne, and then this is when you ask what it takes to organize an event. What I had to organize an event as the support I had in in the 80s, with the Federation and the friends, needed to change in a more professional way, yeah, doing World Cups, because the list of things to respect that we had established, yeah, is huge compared to, you know, there was TV, cash, prize money, sponsorship, management, you know, like an international involvement. You know, you are part of something that is international. You’re not just on your own, doing your own thing in your own turf, right, right? You’re doing something linked to others. So we had, we took a position of leader, so we had to maintain that position of leader. So we had to always work hard to elevate our presentation of the event, yeah, and the courses and everything. So what it takes, it’s a lot of engagement. You know, you need to engage yourself in delivering the best of the best event possible. Yeah, and with my partner that I had when we created our company for Event Management, just dev to host the first World Cup Chantal, she was very good at the details of every single thing that we are going to do. Yeah, it’s not just saying we’re going to do it. We have to attach it with a lot of other things. So it needs to be all link. So we were good at making the journalists comfortable in their work and having services to them. Judges, same thing. Welcome to Montana. Have fun. We’ve done pretty much. All your work now you just have to judge. You don’t have to organize an event, the athletes, the team managers, the coaches, the mechanics, the volunteers. We were taking care of everyone. So this is something that we couldn’t do at the level. I was doing it in the 80s, but now engaging ourselves in workouts means we have to do it, and we’ve been considered every year like, if not the best, the almost the best and the second best of the whole circuit, yeah, for 30 years, and we are the only one who’ve been on the circuit for 30 years. 30 years, there was nobody, I don’t think anybody, have achieved more than 15-16, years of World Cup so far, except Monsanto.

Jeff Barber 25:52
Yeah. Well, how does that work? I mean, I guess, I assume, because you were one of the first venues. And, you know, I mean, you helped organize the whole series. That’s why Mount St Anne has been on the circuit all these years. But, but what? How does the selection process work? Like, like, do you have to, every year, you have to go and and justify, like, we should have the race here again next year. And here’s why. Like, how does that selection process work for the venues?

Pat Drouin 26:23
Over the 30 years of the World Cup. I think there was just a couple or maybe three times we had the contract of three years. Out of those two or three occasions, we were renewing every year. So the way, the way to renew, is first to deliver the workup according to satisfaction of UCI and people. UCI and the teams and media and everybody are asked at one point at the end of the season to talk about their experience at each event, kind of like a survey, quoting every event. So the results of that is, if people are happy, it’s difficult to kick an event out of the calendar. When everybody are happy, okay, you you will need another good reason, which could be financial, which nobody knows about it, except UCI and the organizer or a or other factors like the shifting of geographic shifting of the calendar an Olympic year, for example, when the Olympics are in the southern hemisphere, it’s difficult, maybe, to go to North America in the period of normally, we have the event, right? That’s, that’s just an example. So then you are on the on the line of being ejected. So you need to be in contact all the time with with the Federation to figure out sooner than sooner than later that you are on that ejecting seat. So as soon as you find it, you need to propose solution. So that was my job to come to UCI and propose solution, because we’ve been on that ejecting seat a few times. Yeah, it was not for bad intent. It was just a technical thing. But for us to be technically ejected when we do our job was not acceptable. So we had to represent the event all the time, every year, two or three times a year, in different occasion to justify our presence to the calendar, not because we were doing a bad job. The opposite, we were doing a amazing job, but we were just considered as maybe not feasible for that year because of those technical reasons. Right, right? Just attention to that otherwise and being ejected one year. It’s maybe a complicated to join back the calendar after, yeah, because, because other people, other destination want, there is not a plenty of destination you want to work out. There is just a few. But you there is just a few seats available. There is just a few destination interested in addition. So there is always a replacement potential. So if you want to be on the calendar, so you have to always be attentive, you know, like pay attention to this reality.

Jeff Barber 29:41
Yeah. Well, I mean, looking, you know, as someone who lives in the US, you know, there really isn’t a venue in the US that’s been established like that. You know, it’s like every few years. I mean, there’s, there’s plenty of years when there, there weren’t any races in the US. So what? Why do you think that is that it that the US hasn’t really been able to establish that, especially when you know the races are are going to Quebec every year? Seems like logistically it would make sense. You know, a few weeks later, have something in the US, but that that just hasn’t happened. Why do you think it hasn’t really caught on here?

Pat Drouin 30:21
Well, the historically, at the beginning 91 to 9697 I think there was at least three four stop in the States. We can say mammat, Big Bear or not big bear. But Park City, Napa Valley, Mount Vermont, there was there was Angel Fire, there was a, you know, always four venues on the calendar, plus months and yeah, and even bromoth. We had two World Cups in the same province for a few years. Wow. And, and that is, that is a reality. And then the Federation, Norbert with us, cycling, decided to it was too complicated, too costly. They could not motivate any resort to bid except war champs in Vail, for example. I think Vale had the war champs three times. Yeah, at least two, but I think three. So there was a there was an interest from the state, some venue to be on the calendar, like snowshoe been on the calendar for several years now, Hunter mountain of the the other mountain, just on the other side of Montreal is Hunter, and in New York, Hunter and the other side there is another ski resort that had the World Cup for five or six years. But for many years, we were just alone. Yeah, then being alone on the calendar in North America, and that was complicated for us, because and for things, yeah, because traveling to mount snow like we established in the in the past, you know, a combination with months over month Mount Saint on every year for five, six years in consecutive years. So things would travel across America with the trailers and everything, and come to Mount Saint Anne and fly back. And they had a race on their way back, normal race, and then another World Cup on the west coast. So there was kind of a logical travel path in the calendar. This year. We have Lake Placid coming, right, yep, cross country, which is extremely good because it’s beside Monsanto and four years, four or four hours drive.

Jeff Barber 32:45
Oh, wow, that’s close.

Pat Drouin 32:47
That’s close. So that is good. We hope it’s going to stay for a while, because it helps everyone. Yeah, when you have to travel all the time, you know, to a destination at the far at the end of the East Coast. When you report to UCI on your satisfaction of that year, certainly they will say, please find another venue. We want to keep Mohan Saint on, but please find another venue or keep us on the West Coast. Right, right. It’s cost, too costly for us to come for one event. Now, I think with Lake Placid, it’s a kind of a solution. It’s it’s also with the new marketing regulation. Now with with one grow managing the World Cup, it’s financially a little bit more challenging for each organizers everywhere. Yeah, there is more cost involved. There is a better production globally, in a better presentation of the World Cup, you know, the look and feel, the TV production, but for the organizer themselves and the destinations, it’s complicated to justify so much money right to to engage their destination into such big funding, you know, like there’s quite a bit of dollars to involve. But I, I think, you know, when I look at the World Cup, at Mount St Anne, for example, with that many visitors coming up and, you know, and the impact on the region, I think it’s the the region that needs to be more supportive to the organizer, and Not, and not the organizer, the organizer to be strong and well, well structured themselves, yes, but the destination must be more proactive behind the event, because the cost, the cost incurred, are increasing. And this is not this is not just a. Um, imagination, it’s true.

Jeff Barber 35:02
Yeah, so really, and they, they stand to benefit much more than you do as the organizer. I mean, people spend more money on hotels and restaurants, right?

Pat Drouin 35:14
The only way we are connected to the economic and tourism impact is because the government grants come to the Organizer based on that impact. Okay, okay, so that’s, that’s but this is not going to the organizer. It go, it’s going to be spent into the event, right, right? And, and as a private organization, you don’t have access to grants, you have to be through a nonprofit organization. So there is to structure holding an event, you know, it’s you have the nonprofit organization, and because of, because of the requirements of UCI and Warner bro, you need to have a professional organizer working for the nonprofit, because it’s never gonna happen. So there’s two structure, working nonprofit and the private organizer supplying the services to the nonprofit, you know? And as it’s a free event in Mount St Anne, free to public event. There’s only the parking that is charged, yeah, so it’s, it’s another level of challenge, you know, to close the budget, yeah, with a balance at the end. So, as you can imagine, if there is 60,000 people coming for the weekend to Mount Saint Anne, to watch the event, they go in hotels, restaurant, they go to grocery stores, supermarkets, buy gas, you know, can whatever this goes to the private businesses all around, right? And the economical impact is for 4 million every year, wow, for a weekend, yeah. So that is if and then when we go to a World Championships, as we did three times, it’s over 10 to 11 millions of economical impact, wow, not counting the media exposure and the return on investment, you know, the year after.

Jeff Barber 37:15
Right, right beyond the race weekend.

Pat Drouin 37:18
So for that reason, even if Warner bro has financial requirements that are much higher than in the past, there is the event is not dying. The event is increasing in popularity. So I think this is why I think the the state or the local authorities must be more supportive than in the past because of this evolution and the impact it creates. And the organizer is is engaged to deliver the event with our requirements, because we want to protect the event and we want the wave bank to be back so you cannot fail, so you cannot fail as a customer. And this, this is, this is a little bit headache for the organizer. I would, I would say it’s never getting easier.

Jeff Barber 38:14
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, you and your team have produced some of the most memorable races in mountain bike history. Is there particular year or a moment that kind of stands out in your mind as being something that was super memorable, or maybe one of your favorite moments from all of those years?

Pat Drouin 38:35
Of course there is, or the athlete’s performance is a that is a, I would say, when we see something special coming, you know, like, like Stevie Smith, for example, Alison sider, you know, rolling green, winning the world cup. So they are Canadian.

Jeff Barber 39:01
I mean, do you get to watch the race? mYou know, if you’re the organizer there, I imagine you’re busy.

Pat Drouin 39:08
I watch, I watch a crucial moment, and I watch training. I watch crucial moment during the event. I’m busy. I was busy answering or, you know, like, be available to the staff who are working hard on the trails, or the judges and the commissaires. And so I had to be always available. So I can’t disappear in the woods or at the VIP area all the time. I need to be, but this is part of my job, to be at the VIP area as well. You know, I invite, I invite people. I need to see them. But my regular thing to do when I host event, when I was hosting event, was first of all going down the Daniel course during the the first 40 athletes, 50 athletes, so I was going down so to be. The finish when the real, real action, meaning the the tight results, are starting to get together. So that’s downhill. The way to watch Daniels. I was watching that Daniel pretty intensively, because I really like watching Daniel because it’s easy, it’s easy to understand. It’s a, it’s a there is there is a, really a happening at the bottom, you know, like it’s really something is happening the cross country. Unique moment is, in cross country is when Marielle and primont won the race at Mount Saint on which is, she’s a young girl from the area that was watching the race before, you know, like she was on the other side of the fence as a kid, her mother was helping us she’d been watching the race and jump on the bike and did the kids race and start racing and end up winning at Mount Saint on, yeah, wow, in the Olympics. So for for an organizer that does this event repeatedly. You know, every year you see a result like this, it means it confirmed that having an event and infrastructure in an area is a good incentive for kids and will give results at some point, you know, like, not, not everybody who are in exposed to a race every year, like a kid or teenagers exposed to a race with the parents, will become a champion, but it will bring that Kids to sport and to activities, to practice something, and maybe to invest time in practicing. So it’s the same thing with snowboarding. We’ve been doing snowboarding for 1819, years, consecutive World Cup with FIS, and we saw exactly the same type of results. So it’s confirmed that hosting event in an area for a period of years, and putting infrastructures in place will bring young athletes in the future, you know, like yeah will elevate.

Jeff Barber 42:12
Yeah. So inspiring to be there, you know, even as an adult, you know, I never really raced bikes, but to go to a World Cup race and to see it in person, yeah, it’s exciting. It makes you want to want to participate as well.

Pat Drouin 42:27
Yes, absolutely. And okay, us as organizer, we are proud of it to see young athletes, and it’s create a special moment. But can you imagine the 20,000 people watching this girl racing, what they have in mind, the emotion doing to it. It’s very intense, yeah, and we don’t want to put pressure on that lady, that young girl, so we stay. She come and she get dressed in our office at the bottom of the hills. And, hey, Marilyn, Hey, how’s it going? You know, good race day. You know, like, we do it as a walk in the park, you know, like, Yeah, let’s go, go and race. And suddenly she went, Yeah, that was a special moment. And I would say Stevie Smith, I said that in Danielle Jackson, Goldstone and and female, they are Canadian. They are not local guys, but they are Canadian. And we are so proud that we see, boom, it’s happening. We have a Canadian on the podium, the highest step. And we had also, we were highly recognized, also as good organizers, but good party organizers.

Jeff Barber 43:42
I was going to ask about that. I mean, yeah, so yeah, just Steve is known for throwing these legendary after race parties. And I was wondering, I mean, was that something you intentionally built into the race experience, or did it just kind of happen organically?

Pat Drouin 43:57
No, that was, that was impossible, not doing it because, yeah, it’s like, it’s like inviting people to your house and, you know, like, not doing anything much interesting, you know, like just the basics, you know, like a plate and bye, Bye, right? So a lot of organizers, unfortunately, were doing and are still doing less and less, because they are not staying on the calendar for for a long time. You know, doing a race, a podium and a spaghetti dinner, and bye, bye, you know, like that is not existing anymore. But we never been in that format. We always been in the format of, let’s do a job and let’s have fun. Yeah, so, and it, you know, when you are on the circuit, because I traveled a lot on the circuit to, you know, to follow at the beginning of the World Cup, I was doing most of the stages. And then, in an. Other other sports also that we produced the year after. So we you always go from one location to another location, to another location. Jump on the train, jump on the plane, jump on the truck, on the car, and drive and so you end up at the destination, and it’s if it’s just a race, well, it’s just not good. You know, you have to as long as the race is good, that’s basic. But if there is a little bit of social, you know, organized, you know, social activities, social gathering, then oops, that thumbs up to this event, because they took care of us, you know, like we and so and we, we always done it year one to to this year, it will be another organization, you know, on the social side, and we had special moment, like the World Championships, World Championships in 1998 we booked a boat on the Saint Lawrence River, like a three floor boat, You know that cross the river and goes around Quebec and get back. So we booked the boat. We put 400 people on it, costume, James Bond, wow. And people are thinking talking of to me when they see me. You know, when are we going on that boat. We heard about it because we have some coaches that been racers, right? So they, they talk about it to their athletes, and the athletes are talking to us in the new making, youngest mechanics.

Jeff Barber 46:35
Yeah, it was more than 25 years ago, and they’re still talking.

Pat Drouin 46:38
Where is that boat? So the I don’t, I don’t know if the organizer is planning to book that boat one year soon, but they are. They are planning to make those lounge in the parking lot party with DJ and bands, you know, like, yeah.

Jeff Barber 46:58
Are those parties open to fans and everybody else too, or are they invite only?

Pat Drouin 47:04
You can, you can, you can have fun with top athletes in the world. This is also something that is for the fans, the real fans of the sport, if they are doing a cheers, a toast with with one of the top athletes. That is different, because in most of the sport, the athletes are disappear after the podium. You don’t never see them. But then you can slam with one of the best downhiller because they are doing it, yeah. So, yeah, they Yeah. They have, they have a swing on the dance floor, yes, so they have fun, and they leave the place, and they had, they had something, good racing results as they deserve, and a good social fun with the locals and other athletes from different disciplines. So I think it, it’s a it’s classic thing at Monsanto. I think it will always stay. It’s part of the planning.

Jeff Barber 48:11
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great combination, for sure, the racing and the partying. So one of the things that I think you said before is that mountain biking is a sport that should always be open to new ideas. So I’m curious if there are any innovations, maybe things like electric mountain bike racing that you think are important for the sport’s future.

Pat Drouin 48:36
I think so. I think we can’t close our eyes on things that are happening, you know, like E bike is there and it’s going to stay, and it’s an important we hosted the first UCI e mountain bike world champs in 2019 that was a request Ask, gentle asked from UCI President to say, Would you add it to the program? So we said, Let us think about it, because we need to. It’s an adjustment to the official program, and we like to be flexible, but sometimes be flexible if it put to at risk the whole event, we have to waste raise the flag and say, if we do it, it might affect other things, part of the program. So we’ve, we found the place in the in the jam, the already jam program to fit the E mountain bike words, and when you say, we will do it, we need to do it as the same level as the other.

Jeff Barber 49:42
Right, it has to be its own thing. I mean, it can’t be just like another event.

Pat Drouin 49:47
So we did it in the beginning of 2000 we did experiment a new type of downhill course called the sprint down. Know, much shorter, because we calculated with with the friends on the World Cup circuit, that a a four minute, Downhill the four the first two minutes, in general, the guy or the ladies that is in the first or third or second third position will finish in the first, second or third position at the end. So that meant that the last section of the course is useless. Okay, right? And in general, I mean, average analysis shows us that the race is won in the first section.

Some, some, some technicians will say, No, no, no, I won the race. In the last portion, I accelerated and I Okay, you are an exception out of a couple 100 so, so that means we could have shorter course. So we did experiment at Mount Saint, and we open, we were open, and we proposed that to do the test to figure out if it’s good or not. Yeah, we ended up in a with a positive kind of result. But someone at UCI, a technical staff, decided that it was too early to do it. So we go back to the the old format. So fine. Yeah, we have, we have experiment that. So we same thing with four cross we were amongst the first to establish the four cross races, not as a World Cup, but as a side event, right? Toyota, Toyota asked us to do a a pro four cross event the week before the World Cup at Mount Saint on. So we did was a success. Then we experimented at the World Cup level with different locations again, and then we it became an official World Cup. That was a very interesting, uh event, very, very uh, crowd pleaser, I would say, you know, like it was easy to film, easy to watch, four guys, four girls, head to head, the first two go back that the last two home. Yeah. Easy. Very costly to put together because building a fair course in rocks and dirt and creeks and forests and logs and roots, that’s very complicated. Mountain bike was part of it too. Marathon for the UCI World Cup. We been part of it at the beginning of the the new sport, long distance race, like one track, point to point, 70 kilometer, so from Quebec City, downtown. So we were starting at the castle. Oh, cool. And we went on the road, escorted by the police as a as a pack, and then launched to the trails. So for 60 kilometers of trail, 1010, kilometers of road, escorted section was nice.

Jeff Barber 53:19
So was that the first cross-country marathon World Cup race?

Pat Drouin 53:25
It was the first it was not, it was not World Cup. It was at that time, is it was just marathon, but it became, it became World Cup, when, when the success of those races were, were identified, then UCI created a World Cup, yeah, out of it, so it’s still existing. And last word champs. We managed to bring back the Masters category. It was separate for years, and we said, Okay, we do the world champs, but we want the Masters, and UCI accepted to give us the masters. So it was the weekend before. So in the Masters, who do we see appearing? It’s athletes who won the World Cup in the past that came, like, thinkorio Juarez and other guys. They came and they raced Thomas fritschneck and, you know, so we did Daniel and cross country masters before it does also a huge impact on the tourism and the economical impact, because you have those 25 countries, three or 400 athletes staying for their training and racing and watching staying also for watching the the official World Champs. Yeah. So that was a very good but this is also, it was kind of interesting and very nice to see back, to see those guys back right, racing at Mount Saint on, you know, that’s common. Commemoration of so many years.

Jeff Barber 55:02
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it, it, there’s obviously a lot of experimentation and new things coming from the World Cup every year, and it’s exciting to see. But at the same time, fans, you know that every time there’s a change, they like to complain about it. So yeah, is there like, a tension there where you’re like, well, we don’t want to change it too much, but, but we do need to keep, like, keeping it fresh and innovating.

Pat Drouin 55:28
Yeah, the course, the course crew that building the course every day, every year, they are, they are engaged to deliver the best stores. They don’t do, you know, like just a flipping one section, and that’s it, where this is nice, like this and or do the same course as last year. They they use the same basics, but they add up, you know, like nice sections. Sometimes sections have been used in the past partially or totally, or sometimes new, new section, completely freshly done to increase the challenge and to the diversity. Year after year, we can’t always use the same course because it’s become boring, right? For the athletes, it’s not like performing on a course like f1 or Moto GP that, right, the course is always the same. So you can, you can expect, you can know this is not mountain biking. Mountain Biking is new sections, you know, increase the technique in cross country is important also, you know, just rolling section and cross country is boring, is but, but it’s allowed in World Cups, because at the end of the year, the the overall winner men and women in cross country is the one who is good at everything, every type. Of course, wet, dry, rideable, very technical with jumps, no jumps, you know, at the end of the year, the one who win the overall is the come very complete athletes, you know, able to ride in any conditions, right? This is the beauty of World Cups. And so if you have always the same type of courses, this is bad. So that’s why we have to appreciate even if a course in a country is really easy to ride very fast, mostly like gravel riding, you know. So it’s not, it’s not true mountain bike, but it’s in it favorized, you know, like the strong, athlete that can keep a pace, you know, all the time, right? You know, on dirt, yeah, and then you have to come to Mount Saint on, and it’s extremely technical and up and down, and it’s very steep appeals, a very steep downhill with technical. So it’s the course is very tight, right? Tight, not width, but tight, four kilometers length. So you you catch the tail at some point. So they are commissaires have to get the last out, clean the course and get the fastest and open an open track. So Right? This is the beauty of World Cup.

Jeff Barber 58:24
Absolutely. Well, what’s your role at the Mount Saint Anne World Cup these days? Are you still working behind the scenes with events, or you enjoying a bit of retirement?

Pat Drouin 58:34
I always told the organizers that I will be there to help, so I did help in the transition after I left, and after Chantal left, I helped them to connect the new organizer, supplying services to the nonprofit organization had no connection with the with the UCI and and and wanna bro, or the group that was handling the World Cup at the pass and commissaires. And so I help them to connect with those people. I travel once to Switzerland to to a World Cup and to introduce them. Hm, to managers, team. Managers, teams, athletes, commissars and one abroad have meetings. So at the beginning, I was doing this, and then now I’m helping. Whenever they need, they call me and I can, I can be helpful. I do it because my goal is to see this event, to stay at Mount Saint on and not, and not to organize it. There is an organizer, and I’m not going to organize it. I will be always there to help in my in a capacity that I can support. You know, if I cannot be there every day, but I can be there sometime when they ask, like, right now, we are celebrating the two. 30th anniversary this year, right? Yeah. So I’m searching in the archives. So I got from just Dev, the my, my old company, to get access to archives, video archives, so for a documentary that is about to be produced, a documentary of the 30 years of Mount Saint Anne. So I have there, and I help in the kind of posters that we produce. So we have, I have in my farm, you know, like some of them, and in the at the bar, I have some of these. So I we can take pictures and reproduce them on the website or something, and pictures and stories. Yeah, so I contribute as much as I can in my capacity.

Jeff Barber 1:00:52
Yeah, well, hopefully you get to enjoy watching the race as well this year I do a little bit less pressure.

Pat Drouin 1:00:58
Oh yes, yes, I’m a spectator. Now that’s right, yeah, I’m a glad spectator, happy spectator, yeah,

Jeff Barber 1:01:06
That’s great. Well, before we wrap up, what’s one lesson that you’ve learned from organizing bike races that maybe would surprise people?

Pat Drouin 1:01:16
Well, one lesson is you always have to keep a some space for unpredictable events. That’s so that means that everything need to be in order. Everything you have to you engage yourself to deliver the requirements. They need to be fulfilled. And on the side, you need to have space for unpredictable, okay, this is the weather thing, but also the changes that can be made, you know, due to a commissar come and say, Okay, we need to change this because of that. Okay, well, can we not do it? No, we have to do it. Okay, so we have to do it. So these are the things like this, or sponsors, sponsors requiring more visibility. So it needs that your team needs to have spare times, which normally doesn’t exist, but you have to get some spare time to to fulfill those new, new requests. There’s plenty, you know, like so special guests coming, an organizer, new organizer coming to you and want to learn from you. You cannot ignore him. You have to pay attention. You can. You have to escort. You have to go with him in every department to say, okay, here we’re doing it. Here we’re doing it. But that is happening almost every year.

Jeff Barber 1:02:55
You have to be very flexible it sounds like.

Pat Drouin 1:02:59
Flexible and patient. So with things that happen, you know, you need to be patient. So that is, if I have one thing to say, there is maybe there is certainly more to say. But I would concentrate today with those two basically, they are important.

Jeff Barber 1:03:17
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you have 30 years of experience. It’s kind of hard to boil that down to just a few words.

Pat Drouin 1:03:26
And even if it’s hard work, keep having fun. Because if, as an organizer, you keep having fun and you stay calm, well, everybody that works for you or work with you will necessarily have the impact, the effect of feeling like you also, because if you have fun at the top, if you were the two or three or four leaders, have fun doing their job. It it gives the this energy to the others, also to enjoy what they do. Because this is, this is fun, organizing event. This is hard work, but this is also fun. We are in a nice environment. You know, we produce things that are happening in a at a day at a time. You know, it’s not like, oh, it can happen anytime. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s predictable, you know, it’s done. It has to be done, yeah? So we deliver and we celebrate and we wrap up and we do something else.

Jeff Barber 1:04:27
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would imagine, for a lot of people, you would feel at the end of a World Cup weekend, you you’d feel kind of burnt out. Did you ever feel like that after one or were you sure, you know, as soon as it was over, you’re already thinking about the next one?

Pat Drouin 1:04:42
Yeah. And us, we were doing many events, you know, like a 767, international events a year, not only in mountain bike, yeah. But so our staff we end up with, we end the weekend. And the mountain bike weekend we wrap up. It takes time to wrap up because it’s a huge territory that we covered with equipments and financially and the sponsorship returns of material and everything. No, it, it? It will take a month to to close an event. Yeah. But us, the leaders, the group, the management, we are on another event the day after. So so it keeps that that was special to us, because other other World Cup organizers, sometimes they do their own workup and that’s it, and they move to another World Cup the year after, or winter by Atlanta or cross country ski World Cup, or, you know, the Alpine some organizing committee was set like this by the local tourism organization organizing a summer event and a winter event. Many of our colleagues were doing this. We were a little bit different. But yeah, of course, we feel like the gap, you know, like the Monday morning of the world. That was intense. Yeah. Okay, so we switched to another gear and go for the next.

Jeff Barber 1:06:13
Yeah. Well, finally, if, if people do want to come and ride in Quebec, what’s the best time of year to visit?

Pat Drouin 1:06:22
I would say, wait until beginning of June, because before it’s too soft. Yeah, it depends the season. But in general, beginning of June and then and then, until you can go late, late, late October, okay, when the colors are there colors are nice, but difficult when you’re writing, because the everything, the roots and the rocks and the wet and the dry are covered by a layer of colorful leaves. Yeah. So it’s kind of a, you know, you try to figure out where you’re going, and so for some so the volunteers and the staff are blowing the leaves away, but they do it, and behind them there is leaves falling off. So it’s nice for some time during the day, but they cannot do the whole network at the same time, so they do as much as they can. But I would say the fall. I really love the fall. I really like the early period and the latest period. So because it’s nice, fresh early morning. But there is also the fat bike period, because we are riding, we’re riding 10 months a year. There is two months that you don’t ride. It’s the month the mud. Just mud. Yeah, the mud month. We are trying to stay away, so November and April, May that area. It depends on how the snow melt and the snow coming coming in. But other than that, we are riding bikes all the time, and the in the five destination around Quebec, and including Mount Saint on we have fat bike networks that is amazing, yeah. And we have mountain bike. So it’s the sport of biking is, I would say, year round. Now, of course, fat bike on snow is a little bit more fragile, yeah? Like, weather, weather sensitive, because right different, it’s snow drain, you know, like, I would say, when it’s bad for skiing, it’s good for fat biking.

Jeff Barber 1:08:35
Oh, there you go. Yeah, bring your skis and your bike.

Pat Drouin 1:08:39
Exactly. You put your skis away and you go biking. Yeah. So we are where we keep us busy, but this is, but it’s even during the summer, you know, take a break and go riding at one of those destination on Mount Saint. On anytime it’s nice, there’s a little bit of flies in the forest, as as it is all the time, but it’s, it’s less. Looks like there is less flies than past years, but we don’t do much about it. But there is less fly this year, quite a bit less compared to other years. But I don’t know what’s the factor. Maybe more birds to warm, they go, they go over to call the place, I don’t know, interesting. It’s nice, nice to be in the forest.

Jeff Barber 1:09:25
Yeah, for sure. Well, Pat. Thanks so much for joining us. It’s awesome to hear how much you’ve shaped the sport that we all love. And I know a lot of our listeners will be adding Quebec City to their writing bucket list after hearing this.

Pat Drouin 1:09:39
Good, I’m happy to hear this.

Jeff Barber 1:09:43
Well, thanks again to everyone for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and check out our full archive at Singletracks, DotCom slash podcast. We’ll catch you on the next episode. Peace.