The biking was the highlight of the day. Felt good, but couldn't hold a good place on first climb, probably something related to training down and weight up... Went into singletrack behind handfulls of people, and there was a bottleneck lady at the front who was getting pushed up the gravel. I used to be able to hold a bit more pace and get into a slightly more forward group which was conducive to making up more time on the down, but it's different passing one person than a group of a dozen when I'm back in the crowd. Found a couple corners to take oddball/unfavourable lines around to pass and got free of the logjam, then rolled happily onward.
Was doing some of the grass doubletrack and shoulder checking, nobody behind and nobody ahead. No mans land... until Max Plaxton and the front dozen guys came by. Odd. A TR person told them to go the wrong way earlier apparently. Doh!
Trish dropped me on the climbing once I saw her (she actually dropped me several times), then had some derailleur issues. I think chain shifted to spokes but wasn't sure.
From there I was alone for most of the gravel climb, but caught onto a pair of the Tinhorn Creek wine guys team. Chatted a bit and kept going. Skipping forward a bit, one of them had a rough day with what sounds like two off bike incidents, one "trail sharing that didn't work in his favour" incident, and when all was said and done, a pretty notable ankle injury that's being diagnosed. Saw Tara at the top of the climb, who was looking for Marty. I had assumed he had gone by with the leaders, but apparently not. Mystery.
Rode the flat-ish puddle road by myself other than seeing David Dyck, then caught Luke Way and Troy near the descent. Also saw yellow jersey guys go by on a bike that looked just like... Marty's. Odd. Turns out they didn't mug him in the woods, he did a Mother Theresa act and gave his up trailside and was going to continue riding theirs after doing the involved fix, but the actual fix never materialized. That's tough. Thought I saw Lonn ahead in a green Schmoe jersey, but it was Geoff Clarke in green jersey suffering. Devin was at top of Porky Blue and I rolled in and prepared to let gravity do its work.
Felt good on the down and didn't cook the brakes, and despite a poor start to the last section before the aid 2 (just got jostled with my buddy Jon Gould and his partner and almost did an awkward full stop fall) , rode maybe just over half of it. Fun.
Spun on the road, but started cramping a bit. Jon Gould and teammate, Devin and Geoff caught up. I couldn't keep on Devin and Geoff in the final singletrack cause Geoff was flying and I burped air earlier on my front tire, so it wasn't doing the quick changes of direction very well, and I didn't want to push it till I found myself in a tree.
Rolled in feeling decent overall. Fun day on bike, sunny but not baking (part of climb was in great shade). Pretty decent output all day, so I can't complain about how I felt at all. Just good all around. Fun stories and smiling faces after.
Even after a morning where he felt "not good" post breakfast, Hooper liked today's course more, the climbing was more his style, and the descent, although the GPS said a max -33.6% grade on our sheets, was smoother and less rocky/rooty, so he felt better on it.
Less fun was tuning in to years of my life savings kapoofed. Hmm. I'm not very political (I'm also not very thankful for this), but if America ran a budget with the sense that I, as an American kid grown up in Canada do, this wouldn't have happened as such. Budget by committee is probably worse than budget by me. Just sayin'. I'm reading a lot of budget too and fro, and programs, and special interests, etc. Maybe just cut every expenditure by x% and it's an ugly but fair start. Too bad it isn't that simple. Anyway, I'm 33, so those years that vaporized into the ether can probably be remade somehow. I suspect that isn't the same for all the folk living in their underwater houses with their underwater portfolios who are also possibly unemployed or on the record amount of food stamps. How does this latest budget forecast capital gains taxes on their revenue projections? Might want to re-check that math.
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