Alex Mailloux is reticent to suggest that is pathway will be purely forged in either of the road cycling circuit or on the mountain bike trails - understandably so. Last August, the long-time local mountain bike aficionado found himself at a high point on the roads, capturing the provincial title in the U19 Men’s Division at the Ontario Road Race Championships in Cobourg.

“At the start of the (2026) season, I was training on my road bike because I had aspirations to do well in that,” said Mailloux, now 19 years of age. And while the results were certainly not terrible, there was not enough meat on that bone to justify some late season cracks in some mountain bike events – and specifically the endurance marathon races that comprise the Life Time Grand Prix series.

Earlier this month, Mailloux finished seventh in a field of more than 1000 cyclists, tackling the 40 mile trek from Hayward (Wisconsin) to Cable as part of the 2026 Chequamegon MTB. Much like his own personal tug of war between road cycling and mountain biking, the race itself was something of a roller coaster ride.

“From the start, I had to make up ground and had to burn a match to get there,” said Mailloux, alluding to the limited number of times in any given race that a cyclist can make a single high-intensity run at a group that is ahead of them. “I was in that front group for a while but the pace was going too hard and I fell back to the second group.”

“Ten kilometres later, everything came back together – but halfway through the race, with the climbs and everything, it exploded again and I found myself in the second group and rolled with that to the finish line.”

Still, his time of 2:24:22.40 was just over three minutes back of a lead quartet that included fellow M14-29 competitor Caden Budd from Wisconsin, with Mailloux finishing behind only the category champion and Andrew Shuros from Minnesota, who outsprinted him at the end.

Given that this was his very first MTB race of the summer, Mailloux walked away more than a little pleased as he acknowledged that there are certainly elements of his road racing preparation that came in handy.

"Skill-wise, they are different - but fitness-wise, the road training helps a lot," he said. "The downhills, the corners, the technical skills on the rocks (all with MTB) - you've got to spend more time on those things."

Spurred on by this encouraging result, Mailloux will travel State-side next month, tackling Little Sugar MTB (Oct 11th) and Big Sugar Gravel (Oct 17th), both in Arkansas, in the hopes of earning a berth at the prestigious Leadville 100 in Colorado. “I wanted to do well and knew I could do well,” he said.

“I had rode mountain bike a lot, so I was pretty confident. My skills were still there.”