BC Bike Race Day 5

Had a nice sleep in, perhaps too late. Great breakfast, including a salsa reinforced breakfast burrito of fantastic-ness. The lateness plus the deliciousness plus my overall crumminess made for a hard start as it was just a big gravel climb after a through town roll out.

Somewhere out on some gravel roller I saw flags into singletrack ahead, and coincidentally I pulled it out of reverse and decided to go in before the mass in front of me. At least a fraction of the sucky feeling departed. Yay! Biking at the flip of some invisible switch was fun again. Spin spin spin, pass pass pass, finesse through some uphill singletrack with bridges, roots, rocks, etc. Made a point not to dismount, except for one super steep of mud that I'd say was probably only do-able if dry, but what do I know.

The stage was shortened, but the 30k they said was more like 40. But I'm oblivious as I more rely on vague memories of the trails and a timex. Recording distances of this scale seems a bit moot after the TransPortugal mega miles onslaught. Slight side thought here: saw a guy wearing a Mongolian race t-shirt that said 10 days, 1,400km. Now I'm not really familiar with Mongolia, but my gut feel is they don't have luxury hotels dotting the landscape like Portugal. My guess is the Mongolian race would be fun for the same crowd that revels in the delights of the Crocodile Trophy. I'll have to chat him up to learn.

Back to BC - had fun on all the bridges and skinnies on the mountain traverse, then pinned it up the last gravel climb since I knew it was short after the left turn. Pinning it being a slow motion flurry of sore legs and like 200W probably.

Got all giddy with joy thinking about just devouring that steep loose drop in that Nutbrown shredded when we were together, but they did a slight reroute just at the top for erosion issues. Passed the two German guys as they simultaneously fell off the trail into the woods. Comical.

Luckily I brought my downhill Scalpel today with the mostly worn out front Racing Ralph DH edition and the fairly well treaded rear one (yes, the "one point gay" width one as was observed when we rode Ridgeback). I knew since about halfway through yesterday that I needed a king size dose of fun, and had been dreaming for the day about breaking every speed limit on Highway 102 since no cop would be out to take my bike away.

The little Ralph's that could held most corners and slid a little. Front tire traction was the speed limiter. The bike chattered and rattled. The brakes didn't do too much interfering. I got right up to that fear of god line and held it. People were nice about passing, which was great. I suspect some of it was the furious noise of chain slap was an indicator that allowing a pass was logical. And that pretty much on it's own made my week. I guess for now I'll overlook the longevity issues implicit in the fact that I feel most alive when the edge is nearer than it as the desk.

Now for all the fun I had, I'm pretty sure it wasn't all that fast. They did one timed downhill somewhere earlier, but only a small section. They should do this today - to heck with the race insurance policy premiums. I'd like to see what kind of time a guy like Brian Lopes put down. Rumor has it he scorches it.