The Fastest Slow Guy You Know

I cracked a bone in my wrist the weekend before the race weekend. Our flight was scheduled for Wednesday. I was having a hard time using my arm, and spent Monday going from my doctor to the orthopedist to the x-ray place to the orthopedist. Come Wednesday morning, I was barely ready. There was a mad dash to get the bike ready, me ready, packed and to the airport. Luckily my friend George offered to help me out. Thanks to my teammate Mike for the bike box.

My bike and extra bike crap packed for the voyage

He drove me to the airport. We were late to pick up Matthias, and got to the airport without much time to spare. Finally on a plane, we flew for a bit less than three hours, landed in Calgary, found our way to a woman (Jennifer?) who was organizing the shuttle to Panorama. Quite a few Brits and other racers with bike bags and bike boxes were gathering in the same spot as we were. It was interesting to see what kind of people were arriving!
A big rental box truck and a small bus arrived to ferry our gear and our persons to the Panorama ski resort. Jennifer suggested we would stop mid-way to Calgary three and a half hours’ distant for a rest break. I said “You mean for beer, right?” She smiled and said “Whatever you want.” Matthias agreed, a beer break.We’d been traveling for a while at that point, it was evening, the bus wasn’t due to arrive until near midnight. We loaded boxes into the truck, then all piled into the bus. The bus was driven by a Chinese guy who seemed kind of lost all the time. At one point we all watched him pull out some headphones with ear buds and proceed to steer us down the highway with his elbows while he patiently untangled the cords. I couldn’t watch. Before sunset I was able to see some beautiful country go by. The sunset was spectacular. After a while he told us we’d make a rest stop. We pulled up in front of a McDonalds, with a gas station next door. Being a Californian, I went to the gas station to buy beer. No such luck! Beer isn’t sold in gas stations in Canada. Some truck drivers overheard us talking about our search for beer and they told us that there was a liquor store “just down the road”.

Beware of Sasquatch on beer run...

They gave us directions and Matthias and I were off, on foot. We walked briskly, for a while, until we finally saw it. There was a big sign “LIQUOR” on the building, but most of the doors were locked and dark. We finally found one that was open, and inside there was a native american manning a sleepy shop with stark ultraviolet lighting. We asked him what was good, but the selection didn’t look promising. We settled on a case of Kokanee, because I’d never had it. “The beer out here.” is there slogan. Carrying it back we joked and tried to walk as quickly as we could. Nearing the bus we saw that everyone was on it but the driver and one other guy. The guy out of the bus said “He’s looking for you.” We got on the bus with our contraband, two 40-year-old guys sneaking beer on a bus trip! When the bus driver got back he scolded us. Scolded us! “Next time tell me where you’re going!” Whatever. I tried to hand out beers to the other guys on the bus - almost all British - and none would take any! I was appalled. Mountain bikers drink beer! What was up with these guys? We each had two on the drive up. Later the driver slammed on the brakes to avoid a deer. Gatorade and other sweet-smelling fruity drinks went everywhere, but the beer stayed put. When we finally got the resort at midnight, the driver slowly drove around the entire resort, lost and more lost. We had to steer him back to the building where registration was, so that he could get an escort by the security guy to our lodgings.

Carrie, Neil and Matthias at breakfast

Next morning we went to breakfast at the little cafe near our building. It had outdoor seating, cute girls working behind the counter and good coffee. There were bike riders sitting around, walking around, it was fascinating to see these people coming from all around the world for this race. We chatted with some people we met. Neil had come over without his teammate, who’d torn his ACL a few weeks earlier. He wasn’t sure what he’d do. (Neil ended up getting a partial refund and volunteering for the week. Thank you Neil!) Another pair of riders overheard us talking, and introduced themselves as Carrie from San Francisco (Matthias’ home town!) and Greg from Oakland and Muir Beach. Well, one of those is my home town! Wild, meeting a team from our town way up in the Canadian Rockies! The amazing thing is that we didn’t know them already. I thought I knew all the people in my area who might be doing this race, but I was wrong, in fact I’d meet more new faces from the San Francisco Bay Area as the week went by, who were also racing. Greg and Carrie were nice, and we made friends fast.

Matthias, Greg and Carrie on the road to Invermere

We talked about doing a ride later, and we agreed to ride down to Invermere, maybe trying to find a trail we’d heard connected the resort with Invermere. We never found the trail, just tantalizing hints. Later that week I finally found someone who told me about riding it with a local, and I was jealous. It sounded fun! We rode the pavement down to Invermere and back. I loaded up on some bike supplies I’d forgotten to bring, and I got postcards and stamps. Greg had to head back for a conference call (conference call?!) so Matthias, Carrie and I stayed in town and had lunch on the back patio at the Blue Dog Cafe. I was very impressed to hear Carrie’s stories about La Ruta de los Conquistadores, TransAlps, Crocodile Trophy and other endurance races. She had some good stories! We rode back up the hill, starting with the tough first pitch out of town. I was really in moose-seeing mode, scanning the woods on either side. We’d heard there was one on the side of the road, but no moose for us.
Friday morning we talked about doing a ride with Yvan, from Quebec Province and a bunch of the Brits we’d met, as well as Carrie and Greg. He wanted to show us an ice field he’d seen on a ride twenty years before. We rolled out to the main road and went left, quickly transitioning from asphalt to a wide, graded fire road that climbed gently along Toby Creek, a pretty, rushing river. We climbed up this river canyon among mountains for a while, maybe an hour, and Yvan told us we were getting close. It turns out the ice field wasn’t something we could walk up to and touch, it was on a distant mountain. But we could see it. There was some joking and a group photo, and discussion of continuing in search of singletrack.

L-R Scott, Carrie, Greg, Rick, Morgan, Matthias, Peter, Yvan, Keith, Grant

We were at the trailhead of the Earl Gray Trail, there was a sign and we were intrigued. Everyone else wanted to turn around but me, Matthias and Yvan, so we bid them adieu and continued up the creek. (Up a creek, without a paddle!) We continued upstream and the road turned to narrow double-track, hemmed in by woods on either side. soon we came to a section of the trail where it appeared to begin climbing in switchbacks up the right side of the valley. We didn’t want to do a lot of climbing with the race two days away, so we explored. Sure enough, a very sweet singletrack continued along the creek, and we rode it. It was perhaps the nicest singletrack we rode in almost two weeks of riding in Canada, a sweet, slightly technical and very picturesque trail. We had a lot of fun riding it.

Matthias in the meadow

We got as far as a tributary that blocked the trail, and would require fording. It was a good stop to turn around. On the way back we noticed an old cabin. Turns out it was built for the 4th Earl Grey, nephew of the man after whom Earl Grey tea is named. Right by the cabin was a pretty little waterfall. We visited the cabin, which is gently returning to nature. Animals had built some fresh beds in the cabin. The view out the window was amazing.

Earl Grey's cabin

After the cabin Matthias picked up a huge stick in his rear wheel. If he hadn’t locked his brakes up it would have destroyed the wheel. We didn’t have spare wheels, we couldn’t bring anything that large, and he would have had to race on whatever rear wheel we could have scrounged. That was exciting. After the ride we got some recovery beverages and went back to our room for more Kokanees.

beer, salsa and chips

Martin

Later that night we had a good dinner at the restaurant with everyone from the ride. Yvan’s friend Martin joined us and man, he was nuts! So loud, laughing at his own jokes in French/English, teasing everyone at the table, wearing his crazy red cowboy hat. I did not get it. Martin mellowed out after that. Maybe he drank a lot of coffee on the drive to Panorama.

Wounded knee

We had one day left before the race. Matthias was psyched to do some downhill. The resort does a lot of downhill mountain biking stuff in the summer, including rentals and lessons. It had been raining every afternoon since we got there, and the trails were tacky and they looked perfect. Matthias reserved a bike and a lesson. He tried to talk me into it, but with an injured wrist I was already feeling the effect of poor judgement with the race about to start, so I skipped it and just relaxed, Saturday. He and Carrie and Rick, one of the British guys took lessons. I think some of the other Brits went up too. Rick came down, hard! Poor Rick, this was to be a pivotal moment. Matthias and Carrie had fun.
We registered, got our duffel bags and race guides, and had a chance to look at the next day’s route. It looked to go straight up. We knew it must go straight up the ski hill.
There was a big dinner for all the racers Saturday night and an event in the Great Hall where they introduced the race to us. They explained that this year’s TransRockies would feature twice the climbing as last years, almost 18,000 meters! Al Neal, the course designer, went over the next day’s course. He confirmed our fears; we’d climb straight up out of the lodge to the top of the ski hill, along the ridge of the mountain, and down the back side to K2 Ranch. Ow.

Day 1 Panorama - K2 Ranch

Yep, we went straight up. It was cold and moist, and as we climbed it got steeper, so that near the top - the high point of the week at almost 2500 meters - we began the hike-a-bike.

And then we hiked.

This was to become a common theme over the week.

At the top of the climb we passed a hut, then began a really cool and I think freshly-cut singletrack along the ridgeline. It was amazing. We were riding across high alpine turf and shale and among little dwarf trees. The views - when I could take the time to look at them - were amazing, and the trail itself was mind-boggling. I don’t think new singletrack like that could get cut in the Sierra Nevada of California. Here, Al asked permission and got it, and he’s a forestry biologist! The riding was challenging. I found that when it got technical and there was some descent I could follow a skilled rider with blue cable housing and a Deadgoat jersey, and we were passing people who couldn’t handle the roots, sidehill, shale and mud. This was John, and Matthias and I would spend a lot of the week riding with him and his teammate Lyndon. They are great guys and I hope I get to see them again.

John & Lyndon

It started to rain, then sleet, then snow, in August! It was cold and I only had a short sleeve jersey and shorts, no arm warmers. I was carrying a rain cape and I’d stop to put it on - annoying der Kaiser - and wear it long enough for the sun to come back out, then take it off. Then it was snow again. I did this twice, but I’m glad I had it. It would suck to get sick on day one. We met the “daughter-father” team on this leg too. I was riding behind a woman in a Rocky Mountain kit, and she was both strong and skilled. I was in front of her teammate, and I could hear them talking to each other. I asked if he wanted to pass and he said no. I figured he was her boyfriend or husband until I heard her say “Dad, remember to eat your gels.” Wow! I would be so happy if I could do a race like this someday with one of my kids.
We got to a long stretch of hike-a-bike in the high ridgeline, not really steep climbing, but soft, difficult terrain that trended up. This section took forever. Finally we got to descend. It’s hard to separate the memories of the individual days from each other, but I’m pretty sure this was the descent with the mud bogs, massive tree root webs and lots of organic debris. We eventually got to a graded forestry road descent, then hooked back up with John & Lyndon. There was a bit of a duel with some British guys. I climb like a sack of hammers, so now that it was downhill and then flat, I could motor. Matthias chastised me for going hard now and not earlier. I don’t think he realized I was going hard before! We had a last little kick-in-the-crotch climb, then a descent to the finish. I saw some Spanish 80+ guys and drilled it to pass them before the line. Matthias thought that was silly.

Norm & Wendy

At K2 Ranch I began to get acquainted with the post-race routine of bike-washing, showering, finding a tent, getting our bags, eating, drinking, etc. It was an advantage getting to the finish before the bulk of the finishers arrived - lines for bike washing and the shower truck got long! I met Wendy & Norm. I’d asked Wendy some questions on her blog, and she was gracious enough to answer them, then answer more questions, then answer more! She and Lynda were a big help to me in figuring out how to prepare, how to race it, what to bring, how to be a good teammate, etc. Thanks to both of you! Wendy and Norm had won the day’s stage in the open mixed category. We were well behind them at the finish. We were 16th / 75 teams in 80+ men. I really didn’t know how we’d do, so I was pretty happy with that result, especially considering how much climbing there was.

Day 2 K2 Ranch - Nipika Resort

6:11AM, it must be breakfast time

hike-a-bike

Day 2 had us all fearing the mountain gods; it was short and steep, 73.7km and 3813m. (48 miles and 12,500′ climbing in English money. My GPS showed 46 miles and 9,324′.) The climbs came in three pieces. I have waited too long to write up my trip report, it’s all blurry in my memory but for a few parts, so here goes what I remember. We had a road start. It was flat. I felt bad for the single speeders. We climbed up through a camping area, and then we climbed for a while, then it was a forestry road descent. Then we climbed some more, and this climb got progressively steeper and rougher, until we were forced to walk. We began hike-a-biking. It was pretty green, the views were pretty but I was occupied and made stupid by lack of oxygen. We reach a spot where the trail bends in a switch back. The motorcycle camera man is there. Suddenly we can see the rest of the climb. It’s steeper, and there’s more hike-a-bike!

Looking down from the avalanche chute (image courtesy Steed Cycles on Flickr)

I’ve got my bike on my back, like everyone else, nose of the saddle in one hand and top tube in the other, just putting one foot in front of the other. It seems endless. Sweat is pouring off me, it’s cold and windy, the air is thin, the terrain is very steep and loose. I developed a system for rating hike-a-bike during the week. It was the “ass index” in my mind. If I’m hike-a-biking up some steep hill and the ass of the person in front of me is at my eye level, it’s steep. Well, this got even steeper. I came around another bend and then I could see the avalanche chute we’d been warned about. This is an old avalanche that scoured away all vegetation, leaving a chute of boulders straight down the side of the mountain, loosely lined on the sides with soil. Riders all the way up were clambering up this chute. I could see tiny colored dots all the way at the top that were the pros. At this point the rider - or hiker - in front of me had their feet level with my eyes. I would take little tiny steps, breathing like a bellows, dizzy with effort, hamstrings screaming. If I missed my footing, which was inevitable, I’d start to stumble and have to make a short effort to recover, and I’d feel pretty tapped. There was no way around it, we all had to go up it. This must be what mountain climbing feels like, I thought. After maybe another 45 minutes or an hour people started to shout down at us, “Do you see a trail?” Everyone stopped. There was a big pause. None of us wanted to waste energy, continuing to climb, if there was any question about the need to continue climbing. From above “We’ve run out of trail, there’s no trail up here!” Some of the pros start coming down the chute, and then rocks start cascading down the chute, endangering the riders below. It was pretty sketchy. A silly game of ‘telephone’ began, where riders above would ask us to ask those below (to ask those below) if anyone saw an orange or blue and orange flag, denoting a turn off the chute. They’d shout back up, “What?” or “No!” or “Maybe?” It got really confusing. This went back and forth for a while. Meanwhile some of the pros were crossing the chute to the right, heading into the woods. Others were clambering down. Finally someone below said “There’s a flag, there’s an orange flag on a tree!” We’d all gone past the damn turn, the pros first, then everyone behind them. We were focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not falling, and no one turned to look up, right, in a tree, partially hidden by branches, where an orange and a blue flag were hanging.
What followed was a clusterfuck. There’s no better word for it. We clambered down to find a total logjam at the trail. No one was moving. People an hour behind us were now just making that right turn onto the trail, ahead of us. The leaders had lost multiple hours on the chute. We were all soaked with sweat and standing still. Finally, one by one, we got onto the freshly-cut, sidehill singletrack. No one was moving. It was really just a mess. When things did spread out a bit we tried to ride, but it was still too crowded, and the trail was really just roughed out, a scratched out line in the forest floor. It would have been challenging if there weren’t people right in front of you and behind you. I rode, braked, tipped over, remounted, rode, braked, then we hit a steep descent in heavy forest cover; lots of roots, soft organic soil and steep lines made for an interesting descent. I alternated between white-knuckling my brakes and trying to ride steep tricky roots, and standing, waiting for the trail to clear.
I think we did another big climb, but I can barely remember it. I do remember that we came out into a beautiful high meadow with some slimy singletrack running through it among brush. I stopped to take a picture, losing sight of Matthias but getting a really cool picture.

At last, beautiful flowy singletrack

After that came some really fun, wet, muddy singletrack that followed a stream - and sometimes was the stream - down down down. Lots of people were uncomfortable with this terrain, and luckily we were able to pass many of them! It felt so good to be riding past people and not having to suffer for it. It was really enjoyable, techie gooey riding. We popped out at the final checkpoint (#3), manned by the Germans. There was a beautiful German girl with a tray of delicious food, standing there to greet and feed us. “Only twenty more kilometers.” She said. It was like music, her voice. I was very happy to see her, and thanked her very much. Soon we were rolling again. We had a brief duel with a British team, but got them behind us. Just as we were entering the Nipika Mountain Resort, they sent us up a steep little gravel climb, a real leg breaker. We caught our friends Steve and Jon here, and rolled into the finish. It was just shy of eight hours on the bike, a tough day. We were 29th /71. The organizers decided to award the day’s results to the top three riders in each category, but not count day 2’s time toward the overall gc. This way the race results wouldn’t be skewed by the front half of the field going off course and getting shuffled into the middle of the field.
Thankfully Matthias and I had lucked into one half of a cabin. I had registered late, just luckily the same day when another team had canceled their cabin registration, and Lyle Wilson, the owner of Nipika Mountain Resort, let us share it with another team whom he’d promised it too in advance. The funny thing is that the other team was Steve & Jon. Steve and I knew each other from chatting back and forth (across eight time zones on http://www.facebook.com) about preparing for the TransRockies. This cabin meant bed, showers, fire in a fireplace, electricity from a wall outlet, and since we’d be racing the next day in Nipika, not having to pack up for another day after this one.

A fire!

Lyle Wilson

The resort is off the grid, totally self-sufficient, an “eco-lodge”. All the cabins are from recycled lumber. The resort is dedicated to the pursuit of non-motorized outdoor activities; cross-country skiing, running, mountain biking, relaxing. Lyle is a former Olympian athlete and coach for the Canadian cross-country ski team, and he puts on several ski and mountain bike races. He was a great host. I’d love to come back again. I’d highly recommend it. Lyle is exemplary; he followed his dream.

Day 3 Nipika Resort - Nipika Resort

chillaxing

Day three was a time trial. Riders were given start times at one-minute intervals, in one of three starting groups, depending on overall gc. We were in the 1st starting group, 22nd / 71. This meant a starting time of 1:57PM. I could live with that! It was warm and sunny, and we had all morning to relax. I read for a while. I’d developed a cramp the previous day in the avalanche chute, which had turned into a painful knot, and I tried to self-massage it. (It was this big hard lump in my inner left thigh, about the size and shape of a mango. Hurt like hell!) The course was supposed to be relatively flat with one late climb, technical singletrack. This had our name written all over it! Finally a stage that wasn’t a mountain-climbing contest, where technical skills were put to the test. Matthias and I figured ourselves to be good singletrack riders, and we felt we’d make a move up the gc after the stage. Sure enough we passed three teams in the first ten minutes. We were moving pretty good. The terrain was fun, a little bumpy at first, but it was nice groomed singletrack. At one point we dropped down a steep downhill, then we went along a river canyon rim, then we climbed up a steep switchback. About this time a really fast team passed us, no hydration packs, looked “pro.” We let them by. I was surprised they were behind us. Then another fast team came up on us. As I let them by the guy said “Make way.” Then he called out “What’s your start time?” I said “1:57″. He said “You’re off-course, we’re 1:00!” We knew right away we’d screwed up.

This shows the screw-up. We're blue, orange is correct, black is from the course map, but doesn't quite match the course as it was laid out. Click it.

We’d somehow cut the course. Matthias had been leading but I’d been watching the course markings too, and we’d always been following orange ribbons - orange and blue at every intersection, hanging either left or right to indicate which way to turn. We were never in doubt or off-trail, so we didn’t know how we’d gone off-course. We continued riding, dejected. The course was laid out so that you did the first 50%, came through the start/finish area, then did the second 50%. We rolled through the start / finish among the pros, and stopped, explaining to the announcer, Drew Bragg, that we’d gone off-course. While were explaining it, more teams came in with the same problem. Somehow a bunch of us had all made the same mistake. Loyal, the timing guy came over. Chester Fabricius, the race founder, came over. No one knew what to do. Tempers were rising. It was suggested we’d get new start times, and re-start later in the day. No one was very happy about it, but I was willing to do it. My legs weren’t fresh anymore, but at least we’d get another chance. More teams came in, or went by, having made the same course-shortening mistake. Finally Chester shouted “Just go! We’ll figure it out later.” We all took off pell-mell. It felt really messy. We raced the rest of the stage and did our best, but our hearts weren’t really in it.

Sunset in Nipika

I got in front of Matthias on the singletrack and really enjoyed riding with no one in front of me. I could tell he hated following me, but he hates following anybody. It’s a good thing he’s strong! We ended up getting a 2 hour penalty, I guess one hour for going off course, and another hour for missing a checkpoint. We’d missed 12k of really nice singletrack - which looked super fun on the night’s video highlight reel - but amazingly we’d still managed to come in 33rd / 71. Somehow that 12k we missed - plus the seventeen minutes we’d wasted, milling around at the start / finish - balanced out the two hour penalty. I think we would have definitely been top ten, but that’s just talk. Ah, well.
One interesting story from the day was Greg’s broken bike. He’d been feeling something wrong in his bike during the stage, and was talking about it with Mark, the bike’s previous owner and another competitor (with his teammate Craig) in our field. We were there when the impromptu investigation of the wrong-feeling bike was done. The drive-side chainstay had come unglued! (Trek carbon fs bike) The stay could move fore and aft in its “lug”. Whoops. Game over! Amazingly, Greg walked to the mechanics’ tents with his credit card and came back with a brand new Rocky Mountain Element! It was a very nice bike. Andreas Hestler had won quite a few TransRockies on one like it. The new bike was to be a factor for Greg the next day…

Day 4 Nipika Resort - Whiteswan Lake

5:59AM, mess tent, Nipika

Matthias, fording

The previous day’s aborted time trial left us feeling fresh. We’d only raced for two hours! I don’t remember a lot about the day’s stage. We started on the road, then began to climb.

Essential TransRockies shot

The decent from the climb was forestry road, smooth and boring and sadly, we couldn’t use downhill skills to drop anyone, so that brought us to climb number two. Before the second climb we had a series of water crossings. They were cold, clear and fast!

Morgan, splashing

The cold water actually felt quite good on sore leg muscles, but I guess it really pushed some smaller people around. On the evening’s video highlights there was footage of a really small woman racer standing in it with her bike, and a big standing wave formed on her legs. She was laughing and not moving. Suddenly two guys came running, splashing to her, grabbed her bike and helped her to the other side.

Matthias, en route to Whiteswan Lake

Climb number two was bigger, but somehow I felt better today, probably because of the easier previous day, maybe this climb was flatter, I don’t know. We made it to the top in faster company than previous days. They’d warned us the night before about “cross channels”, diagonal cuts in the forestry roads for water drainage, with a downhill berm (jump) on the far side. “Every year we have to medivac people off this section with helicopters.”, they warned. I was excited. We began to hit them and they were really fun; just stand on the pedals, let the suspension soak the dip and pump-lift to get air off the berm. We passed people on the descent. I weigh 205lbs (sorry, 93kg) and my two hundred and five pounds were very happy on this descent. Wee! After the descent we hit flat, rolling, downward-trending forestry road. There was a lot of it before the finish, I think maybe 30km. We formed a paceline with a team “Saturn of Toledo, Ohio” and just motored to the finish. I had one off the bike moment where I got in a dried mud rut right at the back of the line and went down, my cracked wrist was taking a beating! But I got back up, got back on, motored with them. We passed a few teams. Some tried to get on our paceline but couldn’t hold it. As we got closer to Whiteswan Lake, the Toledo guys got quieter. I knew they wanted it to come down to a sprint, I could tell one of them was a roadie, maybe even a criterium racer.

Don’t ask how I know. I was ready. Matthias is strong but doesn’t have much road experience, so I hinted that it might come down to a sprint and to be ready. He couldn’t have cared less, but he’s very competitive so I know he would have sprinted with me. Sadly he went down in the 2nd-to-last loose gravel corner, 2km from the finish so Toledo got to finish ahead of us, and he was pissed off because he tore his shorts and bent his derailleur hanger. I was happy to be in so early. We finished 11th of 69.

Steaz

There was a new exhibitor tent set up just past the finish for Steaz energy drink. A pretty girl was handing out cold cans of the stuff from a cooler. “Can I have one?” I asked. “Sure. Here’s some cold ones.” (Opens the big cooler, cans of the stuff on ice, it was warm out.) “Wow, thanks!” (Takes one.) “Does it have caffeine in it?” I asked. They were tall, skinny cans, just like Red Bull. “No, no caffeine.” she answered. I took two and drank them in quick succession. They tasted good. More on this later. Yeah, I should have read the label.

The helicopter Greg rode in on

There was a local cycling club making and selling burgers. I wolfed down two while Matthias brought his bike to a mechanic for attention. As I was blissing out I heard that 1) Greg had crashed on one of the cross channels and was flown off the race course with an injured shoulder and 2) that his teammate Carrie had broken her cranks and had maybe dropped out. This was discouraging news! The helicopter was there, and when I reached the medical van, so was Greg. Poor guy.

Greg, with hamburger and broken collarbone

He was already on morphine when I got there, so he looked a little loopy. I asked if he’d like a burger and he said yes, so I went and got him one. Then we talked for a little bit. He mentioned that he’d gone into one of the cross channels and gotten more air than he’d expected, with the strange new bike, and high-sided, landing somewhat perpendicular to the line of travel. He’d slammed onto his shoulder. Luckily our friends the Deadgoat guys, John and Lyndon were there, and they helped Greg at the scene until the helicopter arrived, and helped Carrie and Greg’s bike get to the next checkpoint. Something like that. Somehow, somewhere in there, Carrie’s splined left crank had come loose and spun, deforming the splines, and it was at 90 degrees from where it should be! We’d heard she’d dropped out, but she ended up pedaling the last 30km mostly one-legged to finish! She is tuff. Luckily or unluckily there was a fast team that had lost one of its riders the same day, Jon of Southwest Hand Cycling cracked his femur and was out. They’d been leading the 100+ men’s field. Carrie would be paired with remaining SWHC rider Howard the next day.
One of our British friends, Neal (Scott’s teammate, not the first Neil) had an extra crankset that he got to Carrie for her bike. She brought it to a mechanic for some TLC and was ready the next morning to ride. I had a chain that Keith (Harvard) needed, so luckily I was able to help him out.

Rick

At this point in the race Rick and Neal had both dropped out and were following the race and “dossing” (hanging around doing nothing). Luckily for us they’d taken on the job of arranging a community of friends in the tent city.

Neal

They had all the tent numbers from teams that had made friends before the race started, and would clip them onto a “neighborhood” of tents for us before we arrived, and would fetch our very heavy duffel bags from the trucks and bring them to our tents for us. This was very welcome, and made every day that little bit easier. When you’re shattered from a big day on the bike and several day’s accumulated fatigue, every little bit of energy saved is a huge benefit. Thank you very much, guys! I was the lucky beneficiary of Greg’s empty tent for the rest of the week. Matthias and I and our two duffels were two big for the tents, in fact I was too big period. My head and feet were jammed against the tent walls even when it was just me.

Whiteswan Lake panorama

That night I did not sleep a wink. I had awful insomnia. There is no worse feeling, the night before a race, then waiting in vain for sleep to come. I felt like a truck had run over me come morning. I later learned that each can of Steaz (Why do I want to call it Skeez? I don’t know.) contains 80mg of caffeine, grr!

Day 5 Whiteswan Lake - Elkford

Morgan climbing

I warned Matthias before the race started that I was in bad shape, hadn’t slept. As we were rolling out of Whiteswan Lake I could tell it was going to be ruff. I told him my legs were killing me. He knew he’d be hanging back. He took the camera at one point and just started shooting pictures. I had to ask him to stop taking pictures of me. I’m sure I looked like a dead guy in every one.
The profile was a big climb, then a long steady grade to another big climb, then a descent to the finish. I really suffered on the first climb, but didn’t do as badly as I thought. We made it with our usual group, I was just wordless and suffering. The descent was fun, more forestry rode with cross channels (jumps), yay! I was airing off them, enjoying the cool, sunny, morning breeze. Matthias is strong enough that I can usually get in front of him and put some distance between us, and I know he’ll be right there as soon as it flattens out or goes up again. I outweigh him by 25lbs, and I like to go fast on downhills, so I let her rip. After quite a bit of descending I looked behind me and no Matthias. I slowed a bit and kept looking behind me. A team flew by and said something about my teammate. I slowed some more. “Your teammate had a flat.”, said another team. Zoom, zoom, zoom. I stopped. Was it really him? How far back up there was it? More people came by, zoom, zoom. “Your teammate had a flat!” “Was he orange?” “Yeah!”. Then Carrie came by, “He’s about a kilometer or two back!”
I started riding up the hill, changing sides so that I’d be most visible and out of the way to descending riders. They were all over the road. I slowly crawled up to Matthias, who was repairing a sidewall tear. He booted it and we were on our way. We only lost 15 or 20 minutes, but I was secretly bummed because I’d really pushed myself to get up that first hill at a decent pace, and I was still feeling like hell from lack of sleep. We told each other, “It’s OK, now it’s an adventure.” Matthias knew I was feeling like crap and he humored me. I’d warned him about my bad attitude if I’m sleep deprived. He took more pictures, we rode some more.

hike-a-bike

We began the long climb. I don’t remember much about it. I do remember the descent! This is where I came alive.

The infamous rock garden, courtesty Galen Pewtherer

The night before, in the briefing, they’d talked about the “rock garden”. There was much hushed talk about the rock garden. “Are you going to ride it?” “It’s safer to walk it.” “Last year that girl tore her patellar tendon in half on the rock garden, and her teammate had to carry her bike out on his back.” When Al Neal gave us the course overview, he mentioned that it was steep, dangerous, loose, and that we should consider walking it. He said it was loose “babyheads” and boulders, in several sections over about 1.5km. I was licking my lips, this sounded like the good stuff from home! I like rock gardens. But, how bad would it be?
We killed it. We passed so many people. I cleaned it but for one off the bike moment, and of course a photographer snapped me on my side, ha! It was steep, loose, granite babyheads and small boulders, and it required momentum and speed and easy feathering of the brakes and weight back and some body english, but it was totally rideable. It was fun! I bet we made up all the time spent fixing the tire, on the descent. My rear tubeless tire had lost some air after the descent, I figured from a burp. We put some air in it after the rocks, then cruised the rest of the way to town.
We got to Elkford and it was hot. Some of the ladies in town had a snack feast ready and waiting for us, and we all dived in. We finished 22nd / 69, surprisingly well considering how bad I’d felt and how much time we lost to the tire. As we sat at the snack feast, Matthias and I talked with a guy named Timmy Dougherty, he was half of a an open mixed team, I’d been calling them Cannondale and VisitPA all week. (VisitPA == Michelle Stopper) He was really interesting, and had some great and scary stories about la Ruta de los Conquistadores and the BC Bike Race. He’d also raced TR with Rich Dillen on single speeds a few years before, the first guys to do it. I liked listening to his stories. One of the best things about TransRockies was all the people I met, people who had the same crazy ideas and amazing experiences I was having. Later that day I saw Jon Gould, one half of the team that was leading and did win our field, eventually. We had a brief conversation, and he seemed like a really nice guy. It was good to know the people way in front of me in the race were real people, suffering just like me. Just, going faster.

It was really sunny and beautiful, and we were back in a town with stores and cell phone reception for the first time since the morning of day 2. I saw a guy I knew walking back from town, halfway through eating a big smoked sausage, the kind you get in gift baskets. I was so jealous. Doing a race like this makes you have weird food desires!

My legs, icy cold!

After a shower we went to the river and cooled our legs off in its icy water with friends, then went to Kapp’s Pizza House for a big group dinner, giving us the chance to skip mess tent food for one night.

Group dinner at Kapp's Pizza House in Elkford

We all proceeded to order way too much food and eat way too much food and have a great time. The owner seemed delighted to have us and asked us all to sign his guest book and took our picture with his digital camera, and with at least five of our digital cameras! Here’s the one he took with mine.

Moonrise, Elkford

Results

Day 6 Elkford - Crowsnest Pass

pointy

I was counting the days, and this was the day I knew I’d make it to the finish. I was pretty sure I would make it, but I didn’t know until this morning. Today was the day I’d have the closest brush with failure!
I remember even less about this day. We saw aspen trees for the first time since the race started. There was very loose dust on the forestry roads - you can tell it had been thick mud during the wet season. On one of the descents the dust was so thick in the air that I couldn’t see, and so thick on the road that my front wheel lost traction and I nearly went down, fishtailing the front wheel at high speed. Carrie had picked up another teammate, Dan. He’d been on the team that was leading the 80+ mixed field, until his teammate dropped out. Carrie was fast, much faster than I’d initially expected, but not fast enough for Howard or Dan, who took turns pushing her when it got steeper or they wanted to climb faster. We were sort of hanging onto the back of them. I was miserable. Matthias said “Grab my pack.” This was a critical moment. I hadn’t asked for help yet, and he hadn’t offered it. I am not the proudest guy in the world, but I am guilty of that sin. I swallowed my pride and took a pull. It’s a good thing Matthias isn’t small, otherwise I would have just slowed him down. His shoulders rocked a bit more but he kept a good pace, and I was able to keep his pace by holding onto his pack. When it got steep or we yo-yo-ed further off the back of Dan-Carrie-Howard, I’d grab on for 20 or 30 seconds, get a pull, then let go. This did help me a lot. After a while he asked me, “Do you want to stay with Carrie’s group?” and I said “No!” Thankfully, we let them go up the road.

Morgan fixing his broken derailleur hanger

Right after the second checkpoint, mid-way through the day and at the base of the final big climb we began to hike up a very long, steep climb. I was able ride some sections, then it would get really steep again. We came to an intermediate section where it leveled off and it was a boulder field, very tricky to ride but rideable. We both rode it. I got about halfway through it when suddenly my pedals stopped. Within less than half a revolution my chain had bounced into the spokes, taking my derailleur with it.

Busted derailleur hanger

The derailleur hanger snapped off, the derailleur was bent, the nearest derailleur housing was pulled out of its stop and kinked and it was all bound up in the rear wheel. I shouted for Matthias to stop and began trying to untangle the mess. It didn’t look good. I had a spare hanger, but I couldn’t unthread the derailleur bolt from what was left of the hanger. When the hanger bent it deformed enough to really lock the derailleur on tight. I broke my multi tool trying to unthread it. The derailleur itself came apart under the force of me trying to unthread it, the cage and its pivot disconnecting from the parallelogram body. I’d never had those apart before! Matthias gave me his multi-tool. I hit the sheared hanger with a rock in a counter-clockwise manner until it started to unthread. Matthias suggested that it was time to make a singlespeed and walk/ride out. We still had a long way to go and a lot of nasty climbing. I took the chain off, figured out how to reassemble the derailleur, put the new derailleur hanger on, put the derailleur back on, reassembled the chain and sort of got the housing back into its stop. It sort of worked. I could shift and I had gears. Woohoo! We’d been stopped for thirty seven minutes. We hiked some more then slowly climbed. I was slow, Matthias had to give me more pulls.

Morgan summiting Racehorse Pass

We topped out on Racehorse Pass to beautiful views. The race helicopter was there, delivering fuel to one of the motorcycles. It was really spectacular. The descent was loose and I was feeling rough, so it was only OK. A big rock flew up and smacked me in the shin, drawing blood. I was just getting the kilometers under my wheels until the third checkpoint. We’d heard about the last three climbs, how each one was 200m and really unpleasant. I asked about the rest of the course and was told, “It’s 20km but really brutal.”
Boy were they right!
As we left the aid station we rolled through some access roads for a gas pipeline (Canada - California). The road followed the contours of the land, which was something like gigantic corduroy - big round hills with steep canyons separating them, all on loose hard tan soil and rock. One of the first depressions was so sudden and steep that you couldn’t see the bottom until you were just about in it. It was bizarre. The last three climbs (”the three assholes”) really lived up to their reputation. They were super steep up and super steep down. It was hot, really hot. We were just able to pedal up the first one, using every bit of skill and strength. I think we had to walk much of the second and third ones. The descents were absolutely un-fun; straight down, smoking-rotor-steep, with a mud bog or series of bogs at the bottom. And you knew that as soon as you’d cleared the last bog you’d be going straight up again. We finally got this stage behind us and finished in a very sunny and hot Crowsnest Pass, Alberta. We’d crossed the line - and I think the Continental Divide - between British Columbia and Alberta during the stage, maybe on Racehorse Pass. There was a civic organization making burgers at the finish line. Oh how I wanted one. They were for sale. None of us had money. Thankfully I’d packed two leftover slices of the previous night’s pizza in my hydration pack. If I wasn’t so tired and hungry they’d have been too nasty to eat, and would have gone straight into the trash. I wolfed them down, and I could feel George & Keith (Harvard) eyeing them enviously!

We finished 28th / 67, not bad considering we were stopped for so long fixing my drivetrain.
The town offered free postcards and free stamps / mailing, so I sent some more postcards to my kids and my parents. The people were really nice.

No, I didn't drink them all. Three was plenty.

There was a beer garden and we did some serious beer drinking, for a bunch of tired bike racers.

I remembered to take a photo of my dinner when it was almost gone.

There was a nice big dinner with MEAT, thank god, real steak! I was craving it. I dropped off my bike at the mechanics with a fresh derailleur courtesy of Matthias, and some other spares. We watched the awards, saw the highlight movie and kee-rash, I was asleep.

Day 7 Crowsnest Pass - Fernie

Results Final General Classification

Climbing!

It was good to know it would be over soon. The day started with a stiff climb that quickly transitioned to hike-a-bike, yay! Good old hike-a-bike. Most of this was ass, on the ass-index, nothing too terrible. We began to pedal further up, then we hit some nice riding through a clear cut. I don’t remember much of the rest of the stage, but after a while we hit a long, gentle incline, where I could just keep pace with Howard-Carrie-Dan and their faster group. They dropped us right before the final checkpoint at the summit, but we caught them towards the bottom of the descent. We got into some fun singletrack and were able to pass some people, and then we hit the final climb. I was really pissed off at this last climb, finally unleashing all the f-bombs I’d been unwilling or unable to release all week. “These people don’t fucking ride bikes!” et cetera. I was quite unhappy with that final climb, I’d pinned it up to the base, not realizing it would be so 1) long 2) steep 3) hot. We briefly reached the back of the Harvard boys on the climb, but couldn’t hold them.

German for intense

Finally, FINALLY we were over it, and then we rocketed down to the beginning of the singletrack. The final 6km were supposed to be super-sweet singletrack, and it looked like it might have been fun had I not been cooked, but I was cooked and I just got through it. Matthias led, looking fresh as a daisy. Right near town we were on a gravel path and I could hear a team behind us, so I told Matthias to punch it and we held them off. Done! It was hot, sunny and crowded with racers and families and spectators in downtown Fernie. We ate some of the food they were handing out, I staggered to a vendor’s booth and bought some pulled-pork sandwiches, and Matthias and I wolfed those down too. It was over.

Our friends Keith & Peter at the finish

After the race