Home town advantage? - Day 6

Back to Squamish and a night in my own bed, no queues for shower, toilet or breakfast and a chicken wake-up all of my own.

Todays riding was a mix of Test of Metal and Gear Jammer race courses carefully linked together - great stuff! A big thanks to Corsa Cycles Dave HEisler for putting this one together.

A TOM style roll out up onto the highway from Brennan Park then a swift road climb upto the top of Perth Drive (past my house from which we'd freewheeled down to the start 30minutes earlier)
From there it was into the Mashiter, Tracks from Hell, Bob Macintosh, Dead End Loop, Rock and Roll, Robs Corners, Cliffs Corners, over to the Garibaldi area, Skookum, IMBA Smart, up Recycle, down Recycled, down the Pseudoseugas, onto the Garibaldi Park Road (eat, drink, revel in the the epic descent) then over to the Carpenters Son bridge, over to the top section of the Plunge, cut out and climb upto the new Hoods in the Woods trail, poop alley, through the Powerhouse Party and then into Crumpit woods - far side, 3 virgins, 7 stitches then out through Valley Cliff and the riverside trails back to Brennan Park!

Cracking course with plenty of guest riders out there enjoying it too!

Sunshine Coast - Day 5

The Sunshine Coast has a reputation for epic flowing descending, and to be honest that's exactly what we were hoping for yesterday.

The original plan was for another 60kms of riding with close to 2100m vertical, but the course directors and BCBR masterminds made the call to throw a course change in and shorted things up a bit - thanks for that - couldn't be more welcomed by me!

Felt good off the start line and kept with a pretty good group through the opening doubletrack (the same stuff we'd finished up on the day before). Had a good early stint but as soon as we started going up, my leg power started going down :(
A bit more no flow trail killed of any power I had left.y recovery is slow and Marks doing pretty well right now - I guess 12,000kms of riding down africa day after day helps condition your body to quick recovery!

Anyway, still plenty of climbing and some bits I simply had to walk - not through poor trail choice, but simply my lack of conditioning.
On any other day and on fresh legs it'd have been a superb race course and one that would've suited us perfectly, sadly the legs didn't do what I begged of them and we slipped further behind where we hoped to be in the pack. Descending was fine and we picked places back steadily.

After the second feed station - paramedic extraodinaire Meg gave us the great news that it was only a short way to the top!

After a big effort 20 minutes we entered the descent....WOW, what awesome trails!
We were wearing huge grins all the way down which made every last bit of up completely worth while!

Mark flatted with 100m of trail before the road and subsequent finish line but we got fixed up and moving again in probably only 45 seconds by double teaming the tube swap.

Pretty strong descent and picked off a bunch of riders, but my weak climbing kept us back just inside the top 100.

Back in Squamish now, my own bed, a hot bath and hopefully a decent rest so we can rip it up on home soil!

Going to Langdale? TAKE YOUR BIKE!!!

Worst Day ever - Day 4

Day 4... the day I expected to hurt!

Our day kicked off with a 4.30 wake-up call (yes.. 4.30 in the morning)
A school bus transfer to Little River, a ferry to Powel River, a bus to Saltry Bay then a ferry to Earls Cove.. all in preparation for 68kms of riding. We'd had a breakfast courtesy of BC ferries on the first crossing, so eggs, sausage and ham devoured by 6am... 5 hours later when the starters horn sounded.. I was hungry again!

Starting at Earls Cove, we had a police escort out of the ferry terminal, up the hill and well.. we didn't ever seem to stop going up hill!
There was some singletrack, but it was ALL either hike a bike or bushcut garbage.

I don't remember anything about this course aside from PAIN, CLIMB and WALK
We'd hike a bike up the brush cut stuff to then descend down forest service road ???

If I sound down about the day.. its because I am. It wasn't a course suited to Mark or I and not really what we expected. It was probably the single longest amount of time I've spend on a bike (without doing a photo shoot) and probably the worst ride I've ever had.

BCBR brings communities chance to showcase their riding and the riding communities. This stage had neither (aside from one group of trail builders on a bridge in the woods.. the only TTF (technical Trail Feature) we saw all day.

Now I'm sore, and still have 3 riding days left!

Visiting the Earls Cove - Sechelt area? Don't bother taking a bike!

Cumberland - Day 3

Day 3 saw us in the Small town of Cumberland. Stopping point for those heading up to Mount Washington and home of the Famous Riding Fool Hostel.
There was a short delay before the start of the race while the Moto boys headed out to fix up some vandalised course flagging, once sorted we embarked on our stage. An escorted tour through Cumberland's sleepy streets before heading into the trails.

This was another pretty fun day's riding of highspeed valley bottom trail much like the Riverside network in Whistler with some nice techy riding. Some stunning views on the course too.. if you had chance to take them in.
Just the one high speed wash out crash today with no more stings, mechanicals or punctures. Road rash sucks!

Cumberland is definitely worth a revisit.