How good were the trails at BCBR?

How good are the trails?

Good enough that we are going to do it again. I just registered a two man spot for Dave and I for next year's event. It's hard to explain how excellent the riding is out there, unless you've been on the trails it just won't make sense. Next year I'll morph my trg over to be firing on cross-country racing cylinders. That... will be fun!

If you are reading this and don't believe the trails can be that good/challenging, pull the trigger you slackers, come out and see if you've got the parts to do it.

Speaking of trails, Doreen is out in Kananaskis Country hitting some dirt so I went for an adventure walk with the boys down to the river and on some of the bike mtb trails just behind the house. The trails are looking a bit rough in spots but I'll sort them out. Here's a video of me trying to hurry along 'I'd like to pick some flowers' Keegan just before the impending rain front hit us.

At the river

Nice day yesterday, walking around with the boys and hanging around down at the river just behind our house.

Heading for the Alberta border

We left Whistler this morning, headed in to Vancouver to pick up some stuff and then got on the road for Calgary.

A long driving day, with lots of mountain views.

I just got back in the house. Everyone is asleep. We have more unpacked boxes than the average warehouse, I don't think I can count that high. I wonder if unpacking and sorting out a house is good trg for Worlds?

BCBC photos

I haven't seen any race images from the official photographer yet, it will probably take a few days till they start trickling out. Till then here's an image on VeloNews of Dave and I running our way through the deepest part of a river crossing so we could gain a few more seconds. ;-)

And I just took a look at the Day 7 video below and saw both Dave and I opening it up on a rare fire road flat stretch, look around 1:44 into it, I'm the one in front.



Here's a couple of videos from Day 2 and 3 shot off the Geoff Kabush helmet-cam. On the Day 2 video, any guesses as to when the neutral roll out finishes and the race begins? ;-)

Day 7 BCBR complete

Done!

What a day, what a week, what a pile of singletrack. Seriously, I don't think I've ever ridden as much singletrack in a week. Epic... honestly.

I started the day off by pulling on these bad boys, as a shout out to all my riding friends in Texas - yah Texas! At points in the course where the pace was off the charts and I didn't think I could get out of the saddle one more time to punch up a steep techie rise those socks actually gave me an extra bit of oomph. Sounds a bit silly but it's true.

Dave and I were riding for the podium again today and we weren't sure what was left in the tank but we were hammering as hard as we could. About half way into the race I knew it was going to be a good day because I was hyper-ventilating and still able to hammer the pedals without letting off the gas - right on the edge of insanity. Good racing for sure, for me. I'm pretty sure Dave had more in the tank than I did but we didn't talk that much because I spent a lot of time at the front (hyper-ventilating) just pushing the pace and reeling people in.

Most of the time I had no idea where I was. Going up, going down, going around, tight, s-turns, roots, rock faces, drops, ladders, I lost track of what I was racing on and simply raced whatever was in front of me. If I saw someone on the horizon I just got after them. At points I'm pretty sure I could have used a portable defibrillator.

So, how did it all turn out? Well as I sit here in the Normatec thinking about things I'm pretty sure I didn't have another ounce of energy to throw at Day 7, so I'm happy with that. As for results, we are pretty sure we got on the podium, we'll find out shortly.

Lots of stuff to process over the next few days, and a few beers to drink, and some laying around and some laughing to be done.

I know I've used the word 'Epic' quite a few times over the last few posts but that's the impression I'm left with after seven days of North Shore and West Coast singletrack racing.

I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get a decent bump in fitness from this event as I head in to 24hr World's Solo Championships in Canmore, in three weeks time. Lot's more to type but I'll end it here.

Thanks to Dave, my partner, who hauled, kicked and pushed my ass up a pile of very steep climbs over the last week. He drew the best out in me, that's a fact. I'm buying the first round, Dave!



Edit: so we did get up on the podium with a 3rd place finish for the stage, which was nice considering it was the last day and in my opinion the most intense racing for us based on it being a typical XC race distance as shown by our 2:14 race time. We ended up with 5th place general classification which I'm also happy enough with, though we did have our sights set on GC podium. The level of competition this year was stiff, not only fit racers but also very talented on a bike. Just making the time cut-offs each day is an accomplishment in this 7 day event, and to be in the top 5 on any day is a testament to excellent all-rounder mtb skills.

Even though my head's a bit fuzzy this morning from a late night out on the town with the racing teams, I've spent some time this morning looking at the last seven days worth of data and I'm feeling pretty good about my approach angle in to 24hr Solo Worlds in 3wks time. Perfect.

What's on the agenda for the rest of the day? Wander around to find another coffee shop and sit in the sun some more. Then lay on the grass for a while to watch the Whistler world walk by. Then have a nap. Then go get a coffee, then find some more grass to lie on, and repeat. ;-)

Day 6 BCBR

Day 6, done. We had a solid start, pounding it for some fairly high wattage which put us up with the category leaders. Overall the day was much better than yesterday.

Squamish has lots of climbing and lots of gnarly technical singletrack, lots. After today I heard some of the notable racers say things like "I think I'm going to spend more time in the gym after this event". Upper body strength... required, mark it down.

We were shredding things up and swooping everything, nothing was fazing us and we were reeling racers in, and then, I went off a 6' bridge did a face plant with the bike landing on top of me. As I was standing up and pulling the dirt out from under my sunglasses (so I could see) I looked up at the bridge with Dave standing on it and I just shook my head. Four or five guys got past us before I climbed back up and got back on the bike, it took me about 10-15mins to get back in the groove again as I tried to shake out the adrenalin and the fuzziness in my head. Standing up out of the saddle hurt my ribs and that continued for the rest of the race. I was super irritated with myself for making that mistake but at the speeds we were attacking the course it's gonna happen eventually. We lost a few minutes for sure, I hope it didn't affect our results.

Speaking of results, we have no idea how we did though we did pass some of the teams who are ahead of us in the results, we're hoping 4th place after 3:34 of racing. What hurt (besides the face plant and ribs) was the 20min at 300 watts as soon as the neutral finished and things lit up.



We're just entering Whistler right now, heading for the hotel. More to follow...

Just saw the results online and yup, we got 4th today. Tomorrow we have to squeeze 4mins out of the team in front of us to move up another spot in the GC. Let the squeeze begin.

Day 5 BCBR

Hmmmm, where to begin?

How about it was a good day, and a bad day.

Yup, that's me post-race in the minivan heading for the ferry. Salt encrusted, slightly dehydrated and fairly disappointed.

We started off this morning by checking posted results as soon as we got to the site as they still didn't have results updated online, we did get a 4th place finish, nice. Bad news, the Kona sponsored team moved out of the Open Team category and into our category which put them a spot in front of us for the GC, not so nice.

The race day was gonna be a hot one, lots of racers got I.V.'s the day before not only due to the heat but the course beat a lot of people up. I would relay some stories of zombie-like racers after the race but it would get boring. Of course you can't be a zombie if you collapse after crossing the finish line and that's what I saw a guy (while I was sitting in the shade drinking chocolate milk) do 20min after Dave and I had come across the line. Off he went to the MASH tent to hop on an I.V. and speaking of MASH tent those guys are on the ball from what I've seen, nice to know that's for sure.

Anyway, back to the race, it was approx a 6min neutral roll out again, if you can call a 293 watt avg a neutral roll out. The first 16mins show 300 watts until we hit the singletrack. Now, let's get a couple of things straight, the technical difficulty of a trail is determined by both the terrain and the speed at which you are doing it. Today was fast. We were determined to grab some more time on the GC and we turned up the heat. We were up with the other teams we were trying to beat and things were going good. Then things went bad... at 2hrs in to the race we came out of a singletrack section that wasn't very well marked (in our opinion and also in several other's opinions) and then the madness began, we were off course and we didn't know it. We buried ourselves racing up a fire road for approx 17min (along with two guys from N. Carolina on rigid single speeds) to hit the final aid station, only to be told we were off course, then we descended for 3.5min at top speed to get back to where we had popped out on to the fire road, then we buried ourselves again for another 20+ minutes up singletrack to get back to the final aid station. We lost anywhere from 20-30mins, not so good.



I blew through the final aid station in about 10secs and continued on, Dave stayed to get some more fluids and a coke and then chased me down. The afterburners were lit once we got into the technical section, I have no idea how many people we passed (a lot), at those speeds things become a blur. You feel the trail, you note terrain details, you process risk management and then it is behind you. For the last 30mins of racing I'm not sure if we were next to a lake, or a mountain, or if there were glorious fields of sunflowers surrounding us, nor did I know what color the sky was - it was simply trail that had to be beaten into submission and a finish line that needed to be hit at warp speed. We finished in 3:44, 220 watt avg and lots more drool lost to racing.

So what did the off-course racing cost us? Our corrected time would have put us in a podium reach. And our GC which is now 7th would have been around 5th with the corrected time. We buried ourselves out there today trying to make up time, it's gonna make tomorrow's racing a very large silver tray of pain sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

Bring it! ;-)

Day 4 BCBR

This is how the race started:



30mins of warmup and then on the start line. Staged in the front third again and everyone looking game. Another explosive start (it is cross country racing after all) with Dave and I trying to play it smart. We found our rhythm and settled in to a lot of climbing, the kind of climbing that goes on and on and on and if you aren't careful the front end of you bike just lifts off the ground and tips you over. Once we got in to the singletrack we started punishing it. Today was a good day for me on the bike as I really felt connected to my handling skills, nothing was bothering me and I felt like I was just intuitively flying down the sweet techy downs. Once again Dave rode great, if we weren't racing so hard it would have been a real treat to tear into the singletrack and hoot and holler but there was none of that as I was simultaneously dripping snot, sweat and drool on to the bike's top tube.

By the time we got to the second aid station about 3hrs later I pounded back a bottle of provided Ultima and refilled my fourth water bottle then poured some Infinit in. I cleared the aid station in less than a minute, Dave stuck around another minute to drink back some Coke and other fluids, as I was leaving I heard one of the volunteers calling out bike numbers for riders who had blown up their forks prior to hitting the aid station. Hard technical riding? A resounding yes.

A pile more grinding uphill climbing still lay ahead (it was a 6000' day elevation gain day) but eventually we both dropped back in to the techie singletrack and I lit up the afterburners with Dave right on my back wheel, which produced more simultaneous sweat, snot and drool drip rate. I lost count of how many racers we passed on the stuff after the second aid station, we were flying (which is good because I wasn't flying up those nasty hill climbs). Have I said it enough yet, a great technical handling day. But once again, these aren't your average noodling-along kind of trails, they aren't buffed out and polished, they aren't wide, they aren't even friendly in most places, they are epic in nature and if you are riding them at mach 3 there are consequences for mistakes - you've been warned.

The last 30mins of racing was insane. 227 avg watts for the entire race and 210 watts average for the last 30mins of the race - a hard push at the end. Hopefully our hard work paid off, we think we crossed the line in 4:24 and though we don't have results yet we think we grabbed 4th?

I guess we'll find out later this evening.

And in closing, I shot these two iPhone vids at the end of the race:



This one is Dave Jetz, a friend from Calgary who is doing the race Solo this year, he's been an accomplished road and mountain bike racer for quite a few years and here's his opinion on Day 4. Did you listen carefully? Yup, a hard day (but a good one).



More to follow...

Oh yeah, tomorrow is 6900' of vertical gain tomorrow and here's a little bit about it.

Day 3 BCBR

Wow! The singletrack today was epic once again. If you've never ridden in the BCBR trail footprint it's hard to explain how technically difficult some of the sections are. Here's some examples... At several point today I pounded off a rock drop that would look like a very high sloping wall if you were facing it, which then led me down into a dirt chute causing me to apply both brakes and slide (with my wheels locked up) through the very steep dirt chute for upwards of 30secs the whole time making corrections with body motion or slight handlebar manipulation, slide until you get to the bottom or fall - no room for error. Or, how about a section of singletrack that went on for nearly 30mins where you were making course corrections every couple of seconds, sometimes corrections were required every 6-12 inches, and I'm not talking subtle corrections but big 90-120 degree corrections. Nearly all of the singletrack riding required 100% focus, all the time, or the ramifications weren't good. We saw some blood out there today. I know of one section in particular where I was tearing down some sweet steep rocky and rooty stuff for several minutes with Dave right behind me and every 10-20 seconds I would mentally repeat to myself "Focus, just stay focused".

Big adrenalin day.

Just like the last two days of racing I pushed super hard and got some more personal bests for wattage. Dave is still making me suffer but he's bringing out the best in me. For quite a while out there my drool drip rate was higher than my sweat drip rate, seriously, drool and lots of it.

We aren't sure of the results yet as we headed straight from the finish line to catch two ferry's and do some driving to the next staging area. We think we raced for approx 3:45 lots of hard wattage, I had a 30min avg of 260 watts and and overall race avg of 227 watts. It felt pretty hard after the last two days.

It would be nice if we moved up another spot but there's some freakin' fast racers here, and not just fast but really talented technical riders. I suppose it's good we are struggling to beat some of these guys, anything that comes easy was never hard enough.

Today we had a couple of incidents, after chasing down a rider in front of me for a few minutes and catching up to him as we rode on to a 3-4 foot elevated wooden structure, he panicked and unclipped and just stood in the middle of the 12" wooden plank. I attempted a brake stand and balance which didn't work out and had to dive off the plank, unclipping in mid-air and landed on my bad shoulder (luckily not on a bunch of logs but on a nice loamy/mossy grass area), the guy didn't even look back, instead he just jumped on his bike and rode off. It took me another 10mins to chase him down and when I managed to get up to him he wouldn't look me in the eye. Passing him in a blaze of singletrack would have to do. Dave took a bad spill in an off camber, elevated rocky section and smashed his knee but he managed to shake it off, it could have been bad. Dave did some more monster pulling today while I just tucked in and got a break from the wind, thank you Dave (even though at one point heading up the 40min relentless non-stop forestry road climb I wasn't thanking you).

Funniest thing seen today while waiting to load on the first ferry to Powell River was this dog standing in the back of a Toyota 4Runner. 220lbs and the biggest dog head I've ever seen, real circus attraction kind of big. Check out the drool. ;-)



And here's the view we had sitting inside the rental minivan on the second ferry, not so bad.



Day 4 tomorrow. 5300' of climbing today and 6000' of climbing tomorrow, what goes up must come down. Bring on the drool.

Day 2 BCBR

Now that... was a great day on the bike. The trail, fantastic! 33 Vancouver Island trails all linked together into an epic 70kms of technical, sweet, gnarly racing. I don't know how we placed today, I do know it was sooooo much fun.

It wasn't easy racing, after getting off the ferry we all staged right away and then went in to a 20min neutral rollout behind an RCMP escort through downtown Nanaimo. For a chunk of that I was riding behind Geoff Kabush, uhmmmm yeah there's some fast bikes on that course. As soon as the neutral rollout ended (up a long steep hill) the race was on! For the first 12mins I was pushing 337W and then it was in to the singletrack. Dave and I raced for 4:17 (I think, plus another 20mins for the neutral). I guess we'll see results this evening.

A hard day but a fantastic trail day.

Dave was riding super strong again and for some of the straight stretches he did some monster pulling while I feebly tucked in behind his draft. I'm ok with tucking in behind him though since I am 10yrs his senior and he's been racing since before I knew how to change a tire.

More to follow...

Fast forward an hour and we just got back from the BCBR meal. The day's results were up and we raced for 4:24 including neutral rollout, we moved up one spot to 5th overall in our category. Nice to know a bit of effort paid off.

Day 1 BCBR

I'll try to update this everyday... try. I'm writing this as we cross over to Vancouver Island on the ferry, tethered to my iPhone. Speaking of iPhone, all the photos you see from now on will be iPhone quality. ;-)

The shot you see above is my gear ready to go, waiting for my partner Dave to swing by and grab me. We crossed the border at Aldergrove and it was fairly painless. Then we headed to stay with friends in Maple Ridge, Doreen and the boys are still there and will be heading back to Calgary in a couple of days. Registration on Day Zero was, uhmmm, a bit disorganized. Not disorganized in the sense of a complete gong show, but rather a really slow process in a tight area with a less than optimal flow. It took quite a long time to get through the registration.

Day 1 was well put together, a good starting venue with everyone in good spirits.



The course was tough for me. We raced for just over two hours putting us 6th in our category. I was slowing Dave down during the race as he's riding well and the night before we swapped out my tires to some burlier North Shore type tires that weren't riding very well for me. It took over half the race until I finally got the air pressure adjusted so the bike was riding well, prior to that I was bouncing around all over the place and sliding off all the roots and rocks.

There was some epic North Shore black diamond routes like 'Pipeline' and 'Severed' which are really 7" downhill bike sorta trails, here's a good example of that.

Here's a VeloNews write-up of day 1.

Today has us starting in Nanaimo as soon as we get off the ferry. Approx 65kms racing today. Speaking of which, I'm off to go and change into a chamois.

Moab area

In keeping with the spirit of the last post, the verbiage is short, the images will do the talking.

Moab campsite sky.





On one of our days in Moab we spent quite a few hours at Arches National Park. It's a must do, particularly if you enjoy photography. The light and angle possibilities are endless.

We saw pretty much all of the park available to us, with the exception of going on some really long hikes. Everywhere you turned there was something to see.

Delicate Arch, Balanced Rock, Courthouse Towers and Fiery Furnace to name a few.

Amazing place.





















We didn't put the boys up to any of these shots, they just scrabbled their way into the rocks and scaled up them. Evan was doing pressure-moves with three points of contact to get to higher ground, uhmmmm, I didn't teach him that yet.

The boys had fun, that's for sure.

Random shots

Here's some images that got processed but didn't get thrown into a cohesive blog post, so enjoy this non-cohesive, all over the ice style. ;-)

Passing through Silverton.



Great beer at this brewhouse in Ridgeway, which is approx 15mins past Ouray, Colorado. This was my last beer of the trip as I decided to go on my mandatory "I'm not drinking another beer until after such and such race is finished". In this case my next beer will be after BCBR which is finished in early July. It's a crazy little tradition, don't ask.

Luckily the beer was fantastic, a cask Porter that just blew me away. The brewhouse is called Colorado Boy and I can easily vouch for them, if you are in the area it is a must stop.



Sitting on the deck at a restaurant in Ridgeway.



I woke up in Fruita, grabbed the camera and shot this image while still laying in my sleeping bag. Not a bad tent view.



Start of the Kokopelli Trail.





Yes that is a pour over coffee in the foreground with a stick I grabbed off the ground to use as a stirrer. And yes one of these images is shot with my Nikon and the other is shot with the iPhone, you guess which one. More importantly, in the background you can see the sausage I had cooking over the campfire, not just any sausage... it is Boulder Sausage.

Ahhhhh, Boulder Sausage, truly a great product. We tried a few of their styles including the Beer Sausage, Cheese Sausage and the Merlot. Yummo!

A shot in Fruita.



Evan doing a cartwheel on the stage at Ska Brewery in Durango.



Ouray Hot Springs.



Hope you enjoyed the random picture fun.

Pit Stop

Doreen got a shot of this with her Blackberry yesterday. The desert needs water, think of it as an environmental cause. ;-)

Catching up on some riding

I'm a bit behind on the blog, as we just got in to Idaho this evening, having left Moab this morning. So in order to catchup on some of the riding I've been doing the time machine is going to take us back to Durango...

Great riding in Durango, the image above is on Telegraph Trail which is part of a series of trails just a few minutes from the town center. If you've only got a couple of hours and want something convenient, this little area is fun. There are areas on both sides of town that let you put something together, I found myself laughing out loud on a couple of occasions, railing around a corner all by myself. Good times. All the trails are really well marked as there are maps at every junction on the 'Trail 2000' system.



The riding around Durango is a mixed bag, as you can see above (Anasazi Descent and a nameless trail I dropped in to) on a single ride you will bump in to tight foliage on top of steep singletrack, followed by buffed-out wide open meadows with not a rock in sight, then within 5mins you will be in a jagged downward pitch full of big granite obstacles. Totally fun riding.

While in Durango I wanted to do a big day effort so I made an attempt to do the Lower and Upper Hermosa trail then slide over to the Colorado Trail in a really big loop. I didn't manage to complete the loop due to inclement weather and slow slogging mud riding, though I did get 5hrs of saddle time in going up to the Upper Hermosa and back down to the trailhead at the Lower Hermosa.

The start of the rain and mud fest that slowed me down.



This motorbike along Hermosa had seen better days. And taking a break at a tree log-bridge creek crossing.



From Durango we continued on to Fruita. Funky little town with a great pizza place called The Hot Tomato (which may be closed by now based on the landlord raising the rent to double). The riding around Fruita was fantastic, the Kokopelli Trail should be on everybody's list.

This image is part of the 18hrs of Fruita course, which was situated right at our campsite 'Highline State Park', a great place for the kids (and adults). Doreen and I both did laps on the race course which was in great shape, a loop took approx 30mins if you were hitting it at a quick pace. A couple of laps just before bedtime was a good way to end the day, that's for sure.

Of course the epic-style riding was done out on the Kokopelli. Again a real mixed bag of terrain, incredible views everywhere you looked. I didn't know if I should be riding or taking photos most of the time. Unfortunately all I carry on a ride is my iPhone so the image quality doesn't do anything justice. Here's some images from Kokopelli.





If you look real close in this image you can see the trail system I was on an hour earlier and then beyond that is the Colorado River. Like I said, incredible views, everywhere.

This next couple are crazy funny. I came tearing around a corner and slammed on the brakes when I saw this little lizard sitting on a rock. Lizard, no big deal right, except this guy was the weirdest colors so I wanted to take a photo. I took the first image from quite a distance not wanting to scare it, but the little character wasn't giving up any ground and he let me get closer and closer until I was about one foot away. I couldn't believe this lizard, gutsy.

I swear we would still be standing there staring at each other if I didn't have more riding to do. He just didn't have a care in the world. Check out the black arrow in the first image.



From Fruita we went on to Moab, as Doreen had never ridden there before. I hit Moab about 8yrs ago and even then I thought it was over-hyped. I figured this time around I'd do a few things I hadn't the last time so for my first ride I went out and did the 24hrs of Moab course - it sucked. Seriously, terrible course. I would rather not ride my bike than have to ride that course. Trying to find something positive to say about it, all I can come up with is... some nice views.



The following day I went out to Slickrock Main Trail for a couple of hours. If you have the juice to go up the steeps the tires will stick to the rock like velcro and let you go up some crazy elevation grades. Just point your bike up a wall and ride up it is kind of fun for a while but it bored me after a couple of hours. Looking at the wattage after the ride was entertaining, several 1300+ watt spikes from pounding up the really steep sections. I had incentive to make all the climbs (that's right honey, every single one, first timed) as Doreen said it wasn't possible to climb them all and if I did she would buy dinner (which isn't much of a bet since we had to eat dinner anyway and I ended up using my wallet to pay for dinner, huh?).

The next day I was a bit down on Moab, I think it's the over-hyped marketing pitch as a mountain biking mecca that gets tiresome, I don't think the trails really deliver world-class. I changed my mind about the riding though after hitting the Sovereign Trail system for 3hrs on our last day in Moab.

Seriously excellent riding. Lots of singletrack, rock work, steeps, switchbacks, ledges, slickrock and the views were epic. I didn't see a single person out there the whole time. Of course that might have been because I was in the middle of nowhere, and I started riding at noon and the temps were 100 degrees and throw in the reflective heat off the white sand and rock and that might have kept most people off the trail.

I pushed myself off trail a bit to go exploring and bumped into the boundary of Arches National Park, as you can see in the image it was quite a lot of slickrock to ride on, it made me feel pretty small being out in the middle of all that rock.

Sovereign Trail and Salt Wash Trail made the time in Moab a worthwhile riding stopover. I would go back to Moab just to spend some more hours in the Sovereign system.





The next couple of days are going to be spent driving primarily, we plan on being in Vancouver on the 25th. BC Bike Race registration is on the 27th and beginning on the 28th I get to see how my legs are feeling at race pace. Bring it! ;-)