WOW! That was 7 long, intense, insane, adrenalin-filled days of racing bikes in the Canadian Rockies!
It all started last fall driving back from the Swank 65 race in Pisgah. Alex asked if I’d consider doing an MTB stage race. Sounds like fun I said. Let’s see, there’s the TransRockies, La Ruta, and the BC Bike Race (others too but that would require traveling to Europe or Africa!). Well we decided on the TransRockies and the rest is history!
TransRockies is a 7 day mountain bike stage race in the Canadian Rocky mountains that covers about 350 miles in the course of the week. It has grown steadily in popularity and this year 300 teams of 2 from 27 countries converged on Panorama Mountain Village in British Columbia for the 2008 edition of the race. While there were some who were in it to finish, I was surprised at the number of high caliber, serious racers that were there to give it their all and really compete. It made for a lot of thrilling days on the bike.
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posted by dave at 11:13 pm
So after a long travel day we made it to Panorama. A few flights and one bus transfer from Calgary landed us at the Panorama Mountain Ski Resort at about midnight local time. That’s 2 AM EST which made for a nice 21 hour travel day for us! But hey, compared with all the folks that came from as far away as New Zealand and South Africa that’s nothing, right?
Saturday morning we got our first glimpses of Panorama during the day - what an amazing place! Even a few snow capped mountains in the distance.
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posted by dave at 10:56 pm
who knew trail work could be so fun?
I usually have the best intentions of trying to make it to trail work days, but I end up only doing it a few times a year. On the weekends I try to spend time with the family - Caroline is extremely accommodating of my bike riding habit/addiction, but leaving her with 3 kids while I go work on trails doesn’t happen very often.
But then it hit me. Hey, the kids love digging in the dirt, moving rocks, hammering things. I should take them with me! It didn’t take much convincing.
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posted by dave at 3:45 pm
