After a decent night's rest, it was time to get up and see what body parts ached, creaked, and were generally unhappy. Little did we know that the unhappy bodies would turn to downright surly and ornery after the stage.
Stage two started in downtown Fernie and finished up at the ski mountain. The biggest robbery there is that we climbed significantly more than we got to descend and therefore were shortchanged. That last sentence should set the tone of whine for this entry.
Day two was significantly harder than day 1. If day 1 was hard (which it was), day two was borderline abusive with over 5,700 ft of gain in just under 19 miles. The scary thought is that if day two was abusive, I shudder to think of just how criminal day three will be because it is about the same distance, but includes an additional 1,000 ft of elevation for a grand Mack daddy total of 6,600 ft.
Back to day two biz-nass....we were led out of town by an old fire truck which kept a nice tempo until they sent up us up a side street where our day would start in earnest. We had a punchy climb on pavement until it turned to dirt. At this point the pack was still very much a pack and we had not started to thin the herd out yet. After a couple miles of steep climbing, things started to thin out and the natural order of things sorted itself out. There were a couple of fast, loose, tricky descents that claimed a couple of bad falls for folks.
At the bottom of the first descent, there was a sharp left turn, followed by a sharp right turn. Dave decided to test his brakes on the latter turn and made the mistake of following the rider in front of him who missed the turn. He saw the turn after it was too late and ended up locking his brakes up which would end up having a dominoe effect on Dave. Dave crossed tires with the guy and the next thing I know there is Dave trying to tackle some good old Fernie dirt! I immediately cringed as I knew that Dave's shoulder is not currently attached to his scapula and for as tough as his mind is, and the ability to have a high pain threshold, I also understand his shouler is currently in pain, and landing on it like you are doing a penguin dive into a pile of dirt cannot exactly help matters. He resolved to get up quickly and try to ignore whatever additional damage might have taken place. For those of you who know Hersey you are probably currently grinning while shaking your head saying "yup, that sounds about right".
After the tumble in the jungle, we began our biggest climb of the day. It was steep, technical, and just mean! There were some hike a bike sections especially when it pitched up and simultaneously served up a jumbo size order of roots! At that point I kept thinking how do the fast guys not only ride up this stuff, but they race up it.
After some more hike up some off camber trail that went up a gulley (the views were silly beautimous) and continued the hike a bike conga line until we crested and got treated to some fast and steep (and rooty) descending. By the time we got to the bottom, my hands were aching from holding onto the bars and brakes and trying to control the bike. Any lapse in judgement here would have resulted in a spectacular fall like in cartoons where the rolling would not stop for a while and the little dust cloud would have just added to the scene. With some luck, we made it down without consequences and it was time to think of the next climb...not as long, but more of the same steep hike a bike, rooty, rocky, hard, ego bashing, etc...we took another downhill that kicked us out at the aid station where we stopped and tried regroup.
It was good timing since DH had lost one of his agua bottles in the infamous ground tackle and he was due some hydration. We hit the roots again and I got to watch 'the tackle part DUH'. Part duh was a little less sensational than its predecessor but the end result was trying to unravel the spaghetti of arms, legs, bike. Once again Hersey brushed himself off and got moving again.
The next couple of hours were more of the same above....wash, spin, rinse, repeat....repeat...repeat. The last hour of the race started to lay the hammer on me. It was HOT and if I had a dime for every drop of sweat that dripped of of me, I might have enough to buy a new car. I even found my granny gear! I reflected about how long it had been since the last time I used my small chain ring and honestly don't recall. Suffice it to say that granny and I got reacquainted again. We spent some good quality time together and Hersey was relishing watching me have to dig deep!
The final descent came and it was another Herculean effort to hang on to the mostly downhill style descent until we rolled through the finish.
Day two, in the books....it was much more difficult than I had mentally prepared for so it was a bit of an ego crusher but at least we have an even harder day set up tomorrow!
quickie view along the first climb
green & lush
someone order up a dosage of roots?
last climb of the day...
almost to the crest of the last climb....another 200 ft of elevation gain to go!
Stage two started in downtown Fernie and finished up at the ski mountain. The biggest robbery there is that we climbed significantly more than we got to descend and therefore were shortchanged. That last sentence should set the tone of whine for this entry.
Day two was significantly harder than day 1. If day 1 was hard (which it was), day two was borderline abusive with over 5,700 ft of gain in just under 19 miles. The scary thought is that if day two was abusive, I shudder to think of just how criminal day three will be because it is about the same distance, but includes an additional 1,000 ft of elevation for a grand Mack daddy total of 6,600 ft.
Back to day two biz-nass....we were led out of town by an old fire truck which kept a nice tempo until they sent up us up a side street where our day would start in earnest. We had a punchy climb on pavement until it turned to dirt. At this point the pack was still very much a pack and we had not started to thin the herd out yet. After a couple miles of steep climbing, things started to thin out and the natural order of things sorted itself out. There were a couple of fast, loose, tricky descents that claimed a couple of bad falls for folks.
At the bottom of the first descent, there was a sharp left turn, followed by a sharp right turn. Dave decided to test his brakes on the latter turn and made the mistake of following the rider in front of him who missed the turn. He saw the turn after it was too late and ended up locking his brakes up which would end up having a dominoe effect on Dave. Dave crossed tires with the guy and the next thing I know there is Dave trying to tackle some good old Fernie dirt! I immediately cringed as I knew that Dave's shoulder is not currently attached to his scapula and for as tough as his mind is, and the ability to have a high pain threshold, I also understand his shouler is currently in pain, and landing on it like you are doing a penguin dive into a pile of dirt cannot exactly help matters. He resolved to get up quickly and try to ignore whatever additional damage might have taken place. For those of you who know Hersey you are probably currently grinning while shaking your head saying "yup, that sounds about right".
After the tumble in the jungle, we began our biggest climb of the day. It was steep, technical, and just mean! There were some hike a bike sections especially when it pitched up and simultaneously served up a jumbo size order of roots! At that point I kept thinking how do the fast guys not only ride up this stuff, but they race up it.
After some more hike up some off camber trail that went up a gulley (the views were silly beautimous) and continued the hike a bike conga line until we crested and got treated to some fast and steep (and rooty) descending. By the time we got to the bottom, my hands were aching from holding onto the bars and brakes and trying to control the bike. Any lapse in judgement here would have resulted in a spectacular fall like in cartoons where the rolling would not stop for a while and the little dust cloud would have just added to the scene. With some luck, we made it down without consequences and it was time to think of the next climb...not as long, but more of the same steep hike a bike, rooty, rocky, hard, ego bashing, etc...we took another downhill that kicked us out at the aid station where we stopped and tried regroup.
It was good timing since DH had lost one of his agua bottles in the infamous ground tackle and he was due some hydration. We hit the roots again and I got to watch 'the tackle part DUH'. Part duh was a little less sensational than its predecessor but the end result was trying to unravel the spaghetti of arms, legs, bike. Once again Hersey brushed himself off and got moving again.
The next couple of hours were more of the same above....wash, spin, rinse, repeat....repeat...repeat. The last hour of the race started to lay the hammer on me. It was HOT and if I had a dime for every drop of sweat that dripped of of me, I might have enough to buy a new car. I even found my granny gear! I reflected about how long it had been since the last time I used my small chain ring and honestly don't recall. Suffice it to say that granny and I got reacquainted again. We spent some good quality time together and Hersey was relishing watching me have to dig deep!
The final descent came and it was another Herculean effort to hang on to the mostly downhill style descent until we rolled through the finish.
Day two, in the books....it was much more difficult than I had mentally prepared for so it was a bit of an ego crusher but at least we have an even harder day set up tomorrow!
quickie view along the first climb
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