Day 4 started with a 3 hour shuttle from Fernie to North Fork where we would embark on a 30 mile point to point ride and end up in the Little Elbow camp area.
Hersey and I had to wake up early and get out bags dropped off by seven and then load up on to the buses. The first pleasant surprise of the day came the buses showed up and they were the plush coach buses. When we did BC Bike Race last year, we were moved around via school buses and we were fearing the worse for the long 3 hour ride to the race start. The last thing we were looking forward to was a long ride on a stiff school bus with equally stiff bodies. I am a relatively small dude, but those school buses make me feel like a giant with my knees at my chin...hard to get comfy.
The coach buses were deluxe and there would be little reason to fret the ride. I even managed to check my eye lids for leaks and can confirm they are in good order. I even saw Hersey getting a little shut eye.
We got to the start line with an hour to spare and kept ourselves entertained by tinkering with the bikes and swatting at bugs. The start finally arrived and the new TR4 faces were ready to put the pedal to metal, or is petal to the medal or mettle?
Hersey and I had a plan for the day...the plan was to take it relatively easy in order to save little sum'n sum'n for the double big day whammies on day five and day six which are the longest and hardest days for the event.
We headed up the first hill and quickly noticed everyone laying down the hammer. It was a steep first hill to take you up and I admit to being fully awake and engaged after the first 20 minutes slog. We followed dirt road that meandered through a valley until we got to the meat of the day...the big hill.
The climb started off gentlelly enough but the higher we got, the steeper it got. We once again struck the hike a bike pose and slowly plodded along,albeit making progress and being teased by a few false summits. We finally crested and were treated to some very impressive views of the Canadian Rockies. Very very cool.
We motored downhill on rocky terrains which reminded me of Leadville. We had many a stream and mud crossing which caked up our bikes and bodies with some good of Canadian mud. We reached a meadow and could see our aid station in the distance. At this point my shoes were doing the mud squish with every pedal stroke. I did see some big kitty prints on one of the crossings so we were definitely in big critter country....and yes, we did both carry bear spray!
We re-fueled and got moving. We followed a cow path through a meadow/valley which would eventually lead to our last climb of the day. There were some steep punchy climbs and we staggered through them until we got the downhill payoff. The downhill was super fun but I dialed it back snatch after I saw the second bad wreck of the day.
At the bottom of the downhill, we got a taste of some fine Canadian. Rocky mountain water as we had to cross a river that went up above my knees. I was hoping not to yard sale and managed to fight the current and slippery rocks to stay upright.
The remaining 3 miles went by fairly fast as they were on road. We got to the finish line and promptly parked ourselves in front of the food in order to replenish for the first of the two back to back big days.
It was almost 4 hours of ride time through some great country and we will find out just how hard we worked on day four when day five starts....hmmmmm????
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