Watching this elevates my nervous system the same way drinking about 4 cups of coffee would! That's a lot of jam to have at the 5h 40m mark!
Tour de Bowness Road Race
After keeping it calm at the TransRockies after party last night in Canmore, and the girls coming back to the hotel room at 2:30 in the morning after doing a lot more after party than me, Cory Wallace and I drove to Cochrane at 7:30am for the Tour de Bowness road race, aka starting training for continuous pedalling for Mongolia. Observers from breakfast and the race said "you guys are crazy", to which I clarified: Cory was 2nd in the TransRockies 7 day, stayed up way later than I did, and is racing this thing. I did 3 days last weekend, placed like a middle aged desk jockey, did a couple spins this week, and am here. So despite the carpool, there's two varying levels of hardcore. It was great to catch up on life and riding, and we'll see each other in a month again in Mongolia.
My warmup this morning was riding 152m from parking to sign in. First, people at road races look at you funny when you ride from parking lot to road across gravel and grass on a road bike with carbon rims, or blaze into a gravel parking lot without slowing down. I'd bet those road rims are nearly as strong as the mountain bike ones I use, which is waaay stronger than they need to be. I used to road race and mountain race about 50/50, but now I was greeted frequently with "haven't seen you on a road bike in forever" and "you road race?". Indeed. Maybe that's an omen.
We queued up, and got in more warmup - the first 15 seconds were below 37kph. I felt sluggish, just wanted to make it through an hour to see how I'd really feel. I noticed Cory wasn't around, he went to pee and missed the start, so he chased on. He was with the group within the first half hour. I probably would have sat in the sun and found a coffee shop. First 20k were tailwind, net uphill, but easy enough to chat to guys in the peloton. Fun. Did the first U turn and came back into a stiff headwind and "the" steep climb. I'm dinking around with my power data to figure it out, but am even out of practice with it. I'll say it was like a 3 minute long punch that's steep and still shed me out the back (not the back back, but out of the front) with approximately 400W. Crest into full headwind is enough to break the group and keep it broken on each lap. We had a group of 6 that we rode with for the rest, I think most who didn't have groups behind us pulled at the end of that lap back at the start/finish.
Now here's where my legs were confused. Call it 40 minutes in, crested a climb, punched it over the top in a futile attempt to not be dropped by the real riders there, and... no singletrack descent to latch back on with and rest. Nope, this is road racing. You don't exactly get a fun reward for your climbing efforts, just paceline headwind hammering. Something like 3h 40m of non stop pedalling, now the next several hours of through and off with a 6-8 person group as we caught a few more. My lungs weren't too bad, my legs kind of went apoplectic. Good training.
The rest is a story of rises and falls in energy, headwinds, group camaraderie, thinking it'd be really good to pull off and just lie in the grass at the start finish as we lap, then realizing by the last out and back that I can/should complete this. Couple guys were talking as we were nearing the far point turnaround, and I asked if they were planning the big attack. They said they were talking the opposite, let's all save ourselves from the last 20k of headwind misery in solo groups, ride in, and if anyone needed to, sprint the last 3k of crosswind hill up to the finish. I was totally game. We climbed "the" hill a last time, and someone called attention to "operation finish this race". We did another half hour or whatever it was of through and off in differing echelons into the wind. I took most pulls, skipped a couple during moments of weakness.
We got to the bottom of the last few km's of climb, and saw a group up ahead. I didn't super care as we were all in lower places, but some guys did. Group sped up so I stayed in, unfortunately that was the last I'd see of one Speed Theory friend who we just rode 95% of the race with. I actually felt like I had jam to help chase the group ahead, but saw more pride in rolling in than "racing" for back spots. One out of towner kept punching it - Bayou jersey - so we stayed on him out of principle and a few more shed off. He kept mad sprinting in as we neared the line, and I just sat on his followers wheel and didn't let him drop us... just because. I actually wish in retrospect I tried to sprint him instead of sitting on, but that also isn't cool with the other guys who just did all the work and were planning on riding in as a group. Irrelevant anyway.
Shawn, Cory, everyone else was lounging at the line. We lounged, drank Coke. My legs felt like... well like they'd pedalled 135km nonstop for 3h 45m or whatever hours without a single break. My back felt like it pedalled all but 15 minutes in the drops. My battery for my speed sensor was dead, but I think our distance + time back calc will hit on pretty much exactly 36kph for that time. Now all I have to do is think forward a month when I'll have to do more distance than that, but instead of deep carbon road rims and drafting I get to do it pushing mountain bike tires with likely less pace line. Hmm...
Results here. The front group has a lot of talent, plus the Trek Red Truck guys actually use a team strategy, which is legit for sure, but also is kind of big fish small pond for AB racing. I guess in theory everyone should, but with 5 strong guys and two who don't finish, it's a bit of a leg up. I'm at about the halfway point of starters - nobody wanted to do the headwind if they were dropped on a lap so that's all the DNF's.
Bunnin and I went for a great lunch in Cochrane, listened to his car put out some sweet engine purr on the way home, then master plan for rest of day is to absolutely nothing.
My warmup this morning was riding 152m from parking to sign in. First, people at road races look at you funny when you ride from parking lot to road across gravel and grass on a road bike with carbon rims, or blaze into a gravel parking lot without slowing down. I'd bet those road rims are nearly as strong as the mountain bike ones I use, which is waaay stronger than they need to be. I used to road race and mountain race about 50/50, but now I was greeted frequently with "haven't seen you on a road bike in forever" and "you road race?". Indeed. Maybe that's an omen.
We queued up, and got in more warmup - the first 15 seconds were below 37kph. I felt sluggish, just wanted to make it through an hour to see how I'd really feel. I noticed Cory wasn't around, he went to pee and missed the start, so he chased on. He was with the group within the first half hour. I probably would have sat in the sun and found a coffee shop. First 20k were tailwind, net uphill, but easy enough to chat to guys in the peloton. Fun. Did the first U turn and came back into a stiff headwind and "the" steep climb. I'm dinking around with my power data to figure it out, but am even out of practice with it. I'll say it was like a 3 minute long punch that's steep and still shed me out the back (not the back back, but out of the front) with approximately 400W. Crest into full headwind is enough to break the group and keep it broken on each lap. We had a group of 6 that we rode with for the rest, I think most who didn't have groups behind us pulled at the end of that lap back at the start/finish.
Now here's where my legs were confused. Call it 40 minutes in, crested a climb, punched it over the top in a futile attempt to not be dropped by the real riders there, and... no singletrack descent to latch back on with and rest. Nope, this is road racing. You don't exactly get a fun reward for your climbing efforts, just paceline headwind hammering. Something like 3h 40m of non stop pedalling, now the next several hours of through and off with a 6-8 person group as we caught a few more. My lungs weren't too bad, my legs kind of went apoplectic. Good training.
The rest is a story of rises and falls in energy, headwinds, group camaraderie, thinking it'd be really good to pull off and just lie in the grass at the start finish as we lap, then realizing by the last out and back that I can/should complete this. Couple guys were talking as we were nearing the far point turnaround, and I asked if they were planning the big attack. They said they were talking the opposite, let's all save ourselves from the last 20k of headwind misery in solo groups, ride in, and if anyone needed to, sprint the last 3k of crosswind hill up to the finish. I was totally game. We climbed "the" hill a last time, and someone called attention to "operation finish this race". We did another half hour or whatever it was of through and off in differing echelons into the wind. I took most pulls, skipped a couple during moments of weakness.
We got to the bottom of the last few km's of climb, and saw a group up ahead. I didn't super care as we were all in lower places, but some guys did. Group sped up so I stayed in, unfortunately that was the last I'd see of one Speed Theory friend who we just rode 95% of the race with. I actually felt like I had jam to help chase the group ahead, but saw more pride in rolling in than "racing" for back spots. One out of towner kept punching it - Bayou jersey - so we stayed on him out of principle and a few more shed off. He kept mad sprinting in as we neared the line, and I just sat on his followers wheel and didn't let him drop us... just because. I actually wish in retrospect I tried to sprint him instead of sitting on, but that also isn't cool with the other guys who just did all the work and were planning on riding in as a group. Irrelevant anyway.
Shawn, Cory, everyone else was lounging at the line. We lounged, drank Coke. My legs felt like... well like they'd pedalled 135km nonstop for 3h 45m or whatever hours without a single break. My back felt like it pedalled all but 15 minutes in the drops. My battery for my speed sensor was dead, but I think our distance + time back calc will hit on pretty much exactly 36kph for that time. Now all I have to do is think forward a month when I'll have to do more distance than that, but instead of deep carbon road rims and drafting I get to do it pushing mountain bike tires with likely less pace line. Hmm...
Results here. The front group has a lot of talent, plus the Trek Red Truck guys actually use a team strategy, which is legit for sure, but also is kind of big fish small pond for AB racing. I guess in theory everyone should, but with 5 strong guys and two who don't finish, it's a bit of a leg up. I'm at about the halfway point of starters - nobody wanted to do the headwind if they were dropped on a lap so that's all the DNF's.
Bunnin and I went for a great lunch in Cochrane, listened to his car put out some sweet engine purr on the way home, then master plan for rest of day is to absolutely nothing.
Skateboarding
A good portion of my youth was dedicated to skateboarding. I built ramps. I toyed with my relationship with gravity. Yet... I stopped way, way, way short of this, which just completely boggles my mind. There are few on earth who can tease themselves from the clutches of gravity like Bob Burnquist:
Crazy addiction
I don't know what I'll ever do if my ability to adventure diminishes. The drive home was spent daydreaming of Mongolia. After unpacking, making sure no jury duty or lottery winning notices were in the mail, watering some decrepit looking plants, doing wash and eating, I did a good picture by picture stare at this awesome photo set again. I'm sure that vastness is going to hurt as well as inspire. I think if I didn't have sequential adventures on the horizon, I think the analogy is like all those clouds above the Mongolian landscape - without moisture they just disappear and are nothing.
TR3 day 3
I woke up before my alarm feeling rested and un-sore. Breakfast went down easy. We got kitted up seeing rain sprinkles outside and clouds over town. I threw on an undershirt, a rain jacket, and off we went to commute up to Fernie Alpine Resort.
Start was delayed like 20 minutes as a moose was on one of the trails we were scheduled to be on. They tried to scare it away (they=game warden) but we ended up re-routing. I started about 30 people back, which was fine given the long ski hill climb start, but for once looked up and thought those are the people I'm going to ride with "up there" and I'm back here. Oh well. Took me about 15-20 minutes of climb to get to the spot where I'd finish - 4 seconds behind Houston Peschl.
I entered Verboten off the ski hill track with Pat Doyle behind and egging me on, and Houston in front jammed up in a long line. This is part of my logic that for me, a hardtail is better. I need help climbing. I can descend a hard tail sufficiently well in a logjam of riders - but passing is often unavailable on tight trails. It's different where you're riding lots of horizontal single track.
After aid 1 we did a heinous climb on gravel utility access track is my guess that just kept going exponentially up in grade. Pat was behind egging me on, and Melanie McQuaid and Devin were in front. Pat was motivated for us to get into the trails ahead of Melanie, so I busted a gut to do so. I didn't catch Devin for probably half the descent as my brain was scrambled from the effort of climbing. We hung a left and went right back up the hill, doing the climb Shawn, Devin and I did as a warmup on Friday night. Devin and Pat took off, Melanie was behind me, and was pushing. She asked how far it was to the downhill... ie. should I pass your slow ass now, or is another downhill section going to save you. I couldn't remember if we went up or down when the trail exited onto a gravel road - we climbed a few meters, rode next to each other, shouted up to the trail marshall "does it go up or down". He said down, she said "go for it", and thus I did. Took about half the downhill to get some flow after really taxing myself on the way up. That was 3 climbs done - and the fourth was the monster.
I stopped for a half bottle fill, wish I didn't, but its like my safety blanket. That and starting back were the only issues today, so not much to complain about. We did the standard climb from the provincial park road up to Fernie, I knew it was long and increasing steepness. Melanie passed me half way up, and I struggled to keep her in sight for the rest. 25 minutes in, Trish was at the corner where you do an off camber right, hard to get traction as you just climb basically right up a run and need to really dig in. It flattens for a minute, turns, and I saved myself relative to the guys around me for the second part where it feels like it goes nearly vertical. We kept traversing skiers right, and went... right past that downhill I thought we were going to take. Hmm. Then kept going up - steeply. Got to some "stair" ups that were like 10m super steeps with flat spots I went as slow as possible on to get 5 seconds of rest. I kept Melanie in sight - she walked one and I was determined to stay on. Traversed more, then photographer standing at the top of another steep that many walked. I saved up some gas and rode that. He said "more up ahead". It was really getting laborious... until finally we turned down a lift access run "rumplestumpskin" in the rain. The wood features were slick, I think carnage would have ensued later in the group. I passed a couple people, came up behind Melanie again, and she said "are you the guy who rides this sketchy stuff". I said that'd probably be right. So off I went. Fun trails till the end, arms got really tired, then we got to 100m of gravel road descent. Houston came around me pedalling his big gear hard, going super fast on the sketchy gravel. I coasted behind not longing for the place that much. Into forest for a few last turns, then down the giant roll out ramp into the finish 4 seconds behind him.
Devin and Pat were about 3 minutes up which was awesome. I think Shawn was about 10 minutes up. We ditched out pretty fast to go get showered before our late check out expired.
I was 13th on the day and 15th overall according to zone4. Kate rode into third overall which I'm so happy for her for. Devin got his top 10, Pat and Tim are podiuming in their categories, and Bunnin did a 4th overall. It's funny - I did my usual thing of feeling like I accelerated. Under the assumption that the women's field would be a somewhat stable reference marker, I was behind all of them day one, middle of them day 2, and ahead day 3. Side note here on this: some cheering fan, whom I'm sure meant well to be out cheering in the woods, yelled at me "you're about to get chicked" as Melanie McQuaid was honing in on me on the last climb. I said "thanks for cheering, but that's really dumb - she's world class and it's awesome to ride around women like that". She probably thinks I'm an ass, but everyone needs to ride their own thing, and I've never been antagonistic with the ladies I end up riding near.
More importantly, with the race being relatively short, we had time each afternoon to eat, massage, sleep, cook, drink, kibbutz, laugh, talk about bikes, bike parts, bike racers, bike races, bike adventures and solve the world's problems.
Start was delayed like 20 minutes as a moose was on one of the trails we were scheduled to be on. They tried to scare it away (they=game warden) but we ended up re-routing. I started about 30 people back, which was fine given the long ski hill climb start, but for once looked up and thought those are the people I'm going to ride with "up there" and I'm back here. Oh well. Took me about 15-20 minutes of climb to get to the spot where I'd finish - 4 seconds behind Houston Peschl.
I entered Verboten off the ski hill track with Pat Doyle behind and egging me on, and Houston in front jammed up in a long line. This is part of my logic that for me, a hardtail is better. I need help climbing. I can descend a hard tail sufficiently well in a logjam of riders - but passing is often unavailable on tight trails. It's different where you're riding lots of horizontal single track.
After aid 1 we did a heinous climb on gravel utility access track is my guess that just kept going exponentially up in grade. Pat was behind egging me on, and Melanie McQuaid and Devin were in front. Pat was motivated for us to get into the trails ahead of Melanie, so I busted a gut to do so. I didn't catch Devin for probably half the descent as my brain was scrambled from the effort of climbing. We hung a left and went right back up the hill, doing the climb Shawn, Devin and I did as a warmup on Friday night. Devin and Pat took off, Melanie was behind me, and was pushing. She asked how far it was to the downhill... ie. should I pass your slow ass now, or is another downhill section going to save you. I couldn't remember if we went up or down when the trail exited onto a gravel road - we climbed a few meters, rode next to each other, shouted up to the trail marshall "does it go up or down". He said down, she said "go for it", and thus I did. Took about half the downhill to get some flow after really taxing myself on the way up. That was 3 climbs done - and the fourth was the monster.
I stopped for a half bottle fill, wish I didn't, but its like my safety blanket. That and starting back were the only issues today, so not much to complain about. We did the standard climb from the provincial park road up to Fernie, I knew it was long and increasing steepness. Melanie passed me half way up, and I struggled to keep her in sight for the rest. 25 minutes in, Trish was at the corner where you do an off camber right, hard to get traction as you just climb basically right up a run and need to really dig in. It flattens for a minute, turns, and I saved myself relative to the guys around me for the second part where it feels like it goes nearly vertical. We kept traversing skiers right, and went... right past that downhill I thought we were going to take. Hmm. Then kept going up - steeply. Got to some "stair" ups that were like 10m super steeps with flat spots I went as slow as possible on to get 5 seconds of rest. I kept Melanie in sight - she walked one and I was determined to stay on. Traversed more, then photographer standing at the top of another steep that many walked. I saved up some gas and rode that. He said "more up ahead". It was really getting laborious... until finally we turned down a lift access run "rumplestumpskin" in the rain. The wood features were slick, I think carnage would have ensued later in the group. I passed a couple people, came up behind Melanie again, and she said "are you the guy who rides this sketchy stuff". I said that'd probably be right. So off I went. Fun trails till the end, arms got really tired, then we got to 100m of gravel road descent. Houston came around me pedalling his big gear hard, going super fast on the sketchy gravel. I coasted behind not longing for the place that much. Into forest for a few last turns, then down the giant roll out ramp into the finish 4 seconds behind him.
Devin and Pat were about 3 minutes up which was awesome. I think Shawn was about 10 minutes up. We ditched out pretty fast to go get showered before our late check out expired.
I was 13th on the day and 15th overall according to zone4. Kate rode into third overall which I'm so happy for her for. Devin got his top 10, Pat and Tim are podiuming in their categories, and Bunnin did a 4th overall. It's funny - I did my usual thing of feeling like I accelerated. Under the assumption that the women's field would be a somewhat stable reference marker, I was behind all of them day one, middle of them day 2, and ahead day 3. Side note here on this: some cheering fan, whom I'm sure meant well to be out cheering in the woods, yelled at me "you're about to get chicked" as Melanie McQuaid was honing in on me on the last climb. I said "thanks for cheering, but that's really dumb - she's world class and it's awesome to ride around women like that". She probably thinks I'm an ass, but everyone needs to ride their own thing, and I've never been antagonistic with the ladies I end up riding near.
More importantly, with the race being relatively short, we had time each afternoon to eat, massage, sleep, cook, drink, kibbutz, laugh, talk about bikes, bike parts, bike racers, bike races, bike adventures and solve the world's problems.
TR3 day 2
We cruised over to start, didn't take a warmup too seriously as the 30+k of gravel + quad trail climb didn't mean a sprint to trails.
I felt ok but not great. About 25 mins in I could still see Pat and Devin, and I got onto the back of a group with Steve drafting me that Kate was pulling hard. That group blew, and I was on the slow end. Steve, Tom, Eric Kramer and Tom Ebbern and others all pulled away. I went at my own pace hoping to reel them back on the flatter quad path. Took me a while past aid 1 to feel good, then started making up ground again. Got to Eric Cramer who was furthest up right at the last pitch before the descent. I asked him if he'd mind if I went first as I had a special thing for sketchy downhills, which he was fine with. I put my hand on the tree by the dropin to let a guy and lady who were walking (err foot sliding) down it to clear, then rolled in. Had a good descent passing people, but its a bit irrelevant when its like 1:40 climbing and 15 down.
Felt good on Coal Discovery, most fun part of the day. One guy rode my wheel, I said he could go by, he declined. That's cool, I said just make sure cause I don't want you telling your buddies later some deadgoat hogged the trail. We rode to the end together, he passed me on the gravel doubletrack right by town, I showed that I wasn't about to drop off, so we rolled in together. Some elderly guy didn't see us coming and walked into the road, but we averted that - he may have had quite the startle though.
I hurt all day, but I think probably did better in some respect as I think my gap to Devin was smaller.
Afternoon clouds started to build, we did round 2 of a guys meet the grocery store, then did nothing but quality R&R all afternoon. Surf, turf and sky was dinner on bbq, then we stood in the cold river for a while, and laughed all night about funny stuff. Life is good.
TR3 Day 1
Beauty day out. Woke up, cool morning, cruised over to start. Devin and I were pretty far back in the queue, but it didn't matter a ton with a relatively long road section to thin it out before the climb up hyperventilation.
First 5 minutes, some female at her threshold at a spot in the group she got to by arriving early got chucked out the left of peloton, presumably a bar lock or something, then caught traction at an acute angle point right back in, and just shot straight in. Bit of a mess. I was a few bikes back.
15 minutes in I was probably same spot I'd finish in. Climb was nice and cool, I felt steady but not zippy, was behind Pat Doyle and Mical Dyck and just sat there. Never saw Pat after the descent, I rode down with Mical then spent the next hour with the girls duking it out (I just tried to stay out of the way). Really fun trails. Everyone is talking about loose, dry, sketchy descents. Sure, I get that. I didn't feel much of it - I put on a Nobby Nic up front. Excess traction all day. Sure I push a bit more, and I don't know if I'd climb faster otherwise. All I know is the guys I passed cause they were wiped out, in the woods, or flatting was relatively high. I think fitting equipment to conditions is important. Made the descents fun not risky.
The way results are posted is mildly tough to interpret. Bunnin did a count and figures he was 11th across the line. I'm going to skip that on a phone and estimate that I'm around 30th person across the line, but there's so many categories its hard to tell. I was around 2:15 ish, so very short day. Devin, Shawn, Pat rode super solid. Tracie cheered super solid. I carried an extra tube and extra 750ml bottle a bit illogically just for a 2lb bonus workout when we did two blasts up hyperventilation.
Devin, Shawn and I decimated some lunch, then I went for a super massage, it was so good I should marry that girl.
These short races have the benefit of so much chill time they're awesome. Trails great, conditions great, so fun.
Highlight of the night - 2 old ladies came to DQ in this old Mercedes 190. They even had a little pillow on the front seat so she could see over the dash. Beauty!
The main problem with this M Coupe picture is I'm not driving!
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