My friend Erika and I decided last October that we were going to do Transrockies a 7 day Mountain bike Stage race in Canada. At the time we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We just thought it sounded pretty neat and heard from some past competitors that it is awesome. So we signed up Team Vanderkitten/Velobella. Lets just say it was a week in my life that I will never forget. Leading into race week I had 3 goals:
1. Finish Transrockes. I know a few people that weren't able to finish due to injury or just inability.
2. Stay in one piece. No crazy crashes, worked too hard for this to end it trying to ride too much
3. Podium. Would be pretty cool to be on the Podium after Stage 7.
TRANSROCKIES 7 days- 330 miles--47000 feet of climbing --44 hours
Stage 1 Panorama to K2 Ranch 28.2 miles, 7436 feet of climbing--- 4hrs 5min
I am not sure if stage 1 was just tough or if it was Erika putting down the hammer on the first day. She killed me. The day started out climbing and that is pretty much what we did for 2 hours or so. I was having trouble with the heat and altitude, but we just kept climbing. Pretty soon you think you are on top but then they send you up about a 50 meter hike a bike. We thought the hike a bike was hard, we had no idea what was in store for the rest of the week. This hike a bike was nothing. We got to the top of the climb and asked some guy how the down hill was, he said awesome and rideable. Ya right. We traversed across the ridge line which in places was completely unrideable and well just plain out sketchy. At this time we were in 1st for the open women and as we started to head down a rocky face the second place girls passed us. There was a man yelling to walk because everyone was flatting, Erika and I looked down the rocky face and had no trouble getting off of our bikes to walk. This was to our advantage because the Nipika girls flatted. We made a mad dash pasted them hiking our bikes down the face, crossed a creek about 5 times, and finally to the rideable section. Got onto the a fire road and rode our hearts out. Erika had visions of Leaders jersey dancing in her head and put the hammer down. We had one more small climb before the finish which was a little brutal after descending for so long but we managed to stay ahead to take the leadsers jerseys for the day. We were pretty excited. Pink Jerseys, very cool.
Stage 2 K2 to Nipika 45 miles, 9299 feet of climbing ---7 hrs 40min
Stage 2 started out on the road, so Erika being the roadie, took off to stay in touch with one of the front groups. Free speed I think she called it. I don't like riding in packs much, so I hung on the back. We managed to climb really well that day for the first climb, which never seemed to end. I don't know how long we climbed before we turned onto a jeep trail that was so steep we were off our bikes shortly and huffing it. I think we hiked with our bikes and everyone around us for probably 30+ min until we got to this opening and the course went straight up where avalanches come down. Up, up, up. I have never hiked up something so steep without being roped in it was crazy. I stopped to catch my breath at one point and looked behind to see Team Nipika at the base of the Avalanche area. I swear it was like 2 min later and they were passing us. They were like Mountain goats climbing a wall, it was crazy. The decent on the backside was fairly unrideable for Erika and I. I am sure our husbands would have had a blast riding it, but not us. So down we hiked down the first few pitches. The trail was pretty fun once they became rideable. There were plenty of stream crossings and lots of mud and roots to be had on this Stage. We hammered the next climb but never saw Team Nipika again, bummer. I can honestly say after 7 hours and 40 min in the saddle I was really happy to be at Nipika and my famiy. I made the mistake of wearing some running socks and got dirt between the sock and heel and rubbed a raw spot on my heal that grew each day. All in all it was a pretty amazing day. I was proud of us at the end of the day, I don't think I will ever do anything like that again. (Unless I do TR again.) It was pretty amazing. And some of the views were stunning. Definitely an awesome experience.
Stage 3 Nipika to Nipika TT 27.28miles 3703 feet of climbing-- 4hrs 51min of pure mud
Kris went out Tuesday morning to ride the course. Erika and I didn't race until 2pm. He thought it was great, rooty, a little technical, few hike a bikes....fun. Well at about 9am it started down pouring and it rained and rained and rained for the next 6 hours, the course went from fun to complete disaster. We were really hoping to be out on the bike for 4 hours Tuesday. Not so much luck. The first 3rd of the course was the hardest, we were faced with what I called jungle walls. We were literally climbing (hands, feet, bike, what ever you could use to get up) up a mud wall. It was crazy. Once we got through about 12 of those it was pretty good trail for about 5 miles technical and rooty, but fun. Erika and I were pretty happy to finally get to the climb for the day on a jeep road. A little break from the nasty. After the climb came a small crazy decent and then off to riding on cliff wall. It is odd because I am not afraid of heights, but I hate riding on cliffs. I kind of get all stiff and can't move well. So I tried my hardest to ride the edge but I think I cursed out the cliff more than I rode it. I got pretty mad at myself for having so much fear, but sometimes when you tired fear can be harder to overcome. I am pretty sure Erika has a good idea of my dislikes in riding. Needless to say we made it to the end covered in slop but still smiling. Team Nipika definitely had an advantage on us since they had helped build some of the trails and they put some time on us. My heel held up alright but I think it was missing another layer of tissue. Kris helped to clean up both our bikes and replace cable/housing on mine so our bikes would keep working . We went to sleep that night listening to the rain, it was starting to look like it was going to be a messy 4 more days
Stage 4 Nipika to Whiteswan 66.4miles 6712 feet of climbing ---6hours 58min
What can I say, the longest stage of the Transrockies and Erika and I found a way to make it longer. I woke up Wednesday morning having trouble walking with my heal being messed up. I could hardly put on my riding shoes. Pain!!! I tried to stay positive but was not looking forward to today. We started in the rain again on some slippery single track in Nipika and then headed out on a fire road for some time. About an hour in my heel was numb, which was good I supose, I was able to ride and hike a bike with less problem. We were hammering along having a great day. The TR course is marked with ribbons tied on a tree every so ofter. Pink meant keep going along same trail/road, pink and blue on right--take right turn, pink and blue on left--take left turn. Well some silly loggers had some blue ribbon up next to a pink one on the left so we followed some other riders up the wrong mtn. The men in front of us were from another country I thought he kept asking me if I saw the river. So I kept saying yes I see the river, but turned out he was asking if we had seen a ribbon. Damn accents. So we had just made the longest day longer and lost more time to the leaders. Erika and I had a great ride this day once we figured out which way to go. We hammered the climb and flew down the decent, freezing our rear ends off and coating ourselves in layers of mud. In the end we only managed to lose about 20 mins for a 2nd place finish in Whiteswan.
Stage 5 Whiteswan to Elkford 54.3 miles 7393 feet of climbing--6hours 35min
We were struck with more rain again . I was so thankful for the warm cycling gear that I did bring. It wasn't much, but it was enough. This day was another day of climbing. Erika and I were rocking the climbs. We passed team Nipika and never looked back. The climbs were nice, the first one was an old jeep road which was a good grade, the second was an old trappers trail. It was actually pretty cool it winded up next to a creek so we were constantly hearing the relaxing sounds of water. It rained off and on through out the ride but for some reason we didn't mind it as much. Probably because we were in front of Team Nipika. We got to what we thought was the top of the climb only to learn we would spend the next 30 min on and off our bikes hiking/riding. Not that it really surprised us. Once to the top we were to descend the famous TR decent known as the Rock Garden. Probably 1/4 mile of fairly steep trail with small and large loose boulder like rocks that covered the entire road. I chose to run down the entire Garden I was too tired to man handle my bike and worried about crashing. Erika tried a couple of times to get on but the rocks told her who was boss and she ended up running down too. We were sure after the Rock Garden Team Nipika would be on our heals so we rode like crazy to get to Elkford first. We had a great time doing it the rest of the trails were pretty fun and were so happy to be in Elkford. We got our second stage win. Yippie. We rolled in and rode straight to the bike wash like we were told to do by Kris, cleaned the bikes, then cleaned ourselves. We were pretty impressed that our bikes were still working, just covered in mud for 3 days now and not really any problems. I hobbled around the rest of the afternoon with my heel taking another beating with the hike a bikes and now trying to swell. Thank God for compression socks and neosporin.
Stage 6 Elkford to Crowsnest Pass 62.6 miles 8092 feet of climbing--- 8 hours 23 min
The mud was definately slowing everyone down, there were puddles everywhere and mud just didn't let the bikes roll. So Stage 6 was by far the longest (time wise), coldest, most brutal, and mentally toughest day of Transrockies for me. It started out with a road climb to some really sweet single track. Well the single track was rooty and you had to stand and pedal for a lot of it which tore my heal apart. I had a lot of trouble riding in the beginning. Tears would start to run down my face from pain....stupid heal. I never had doubts about finishing, just wanted the darn thing to go numb like it had each 3 days prior(it did later). So I did my best, but I know I slowed us down. It was hard mentally to know I was the weak link. I tried hard to keep the bad thoughts out, but it was hard. We finally got to a dirt road to descend on and it started pouring rain it was all but maybe 45 degrees, the snow line was just above us and some people even said they saw snow on the side of the road. We got to check point/feed 1 by shivering our way down. I can honestly say this was the only time during TR that I really wasn't having fun. It sucked!!!! We were covered in mud and freezing our asses off. We stood at the checkpoint and probably looked totally dazed. We grabbed a couple of things and headed to the climb, praying that it would bring us warmth. It did warm us up a bit, but not enough to take off the jackets. We climbed what seemed like for ever, until we finally descended on some fire road and logging roads. The logging roads were crazy they, the biggest mud fest of all. I am sure Erika and I ate our fair share of nasty mud and cow plop this stage. Then we were in for the 3 sisters. The 3 sisters are a set of 3 peaks in which some are ride able and some are hike a bike. It was brutal after being in the saddle for over 5 hours. Erika and I had fun trying to ride as much as we could and passed many hike a bikers as possible. Actually I just didn't want to hike a bike because it tore my heal apart. I would do anything to stay on the bike at this point. But after awhile we too were doomed to hiking. The mud puddles and muck were everywhere, it was actually kind of like a puddle obstacle course. Once again we were impressed with the Kona and Ellsworth for even working at the end of the day. We finally made it to Crowsnest I think both of us wanted to cry, never been so happy to be done with a race in my life.
Stage 7 Crowsnest Pass to Fernie 46.4 miles 4241 feet of climbing-- 5 hours 45 min
The final stage, what more can I say we were pretty excited. We knew that in less than 6 hours we will have finished Transrockies. We started in the rain again on the road and Erika was all over the free speed. So I drafted as best I could. We hit some steep double track in the first 20 min, my chain slipped and I was off and hiking up. By the time I got back on my bike I realized my eyes were watering and I was sniffling. I didn't realize that I had pretty much been crying the entire hike up the steep. I was in a lot of pain at this point. I really wasn't sure how I was going to make it, I just knew I had to. (Over a stupid heel ) I wanted to scream. Erika was long gone and I needed to catch up. So I worked hard to move through everyone but wasn't making much ground and my legs were on fire. Erika had waited for me thank goodness and we hit the next road section together. The best part about this section was that to make the puddle obsticle course harder there was a barb wire fence right next to the edge of the impassable puddle. We cleared it and kept riding. This stage took us through everything mud, rivers, more mountains, and we got to finish on some pretty sweet single track. My cleat started to come out so we had to stop and fix that, which took some time because I had to get the mud out of the screws. Our bikes were once again covered with a few layers of mud. We finished the single track and hit the road in Fernie for the Finish. Erika and I had talked a little along the way about the finish and we joked that we might get choked up and cry at the end. Well our emotional release went a little differently than expected. We got to the road and my bike was squeeking really loud with every pedal turn and Erika's was grinding non stop. We made some comments and when it just kept going we started laughing. We had these beautiful bikes 7 days ago that now sounded like junkers. We went through the finish laughing in 5 hours 45 min and I honestly couldn't believe it was over. What an amazing ride!! An experience of a lifetime, and I got to share it with a good friend. I couldn't have had a better partner to do the race with and I am so thankful she put up with me to do it. It was sureal for some time after we had finished. It hit in full force though about 2 hours later when my ankle and heel were already swollen and my body started to shut down. It knew that we were done and it was time to rest.
We did it. My goals were met.. I finished, in one piece, and we were 2nd overall in the Open Wms division. Erika and I, both moms of 2 children, and we did it.
Now my bike on the otherhand did make it but is in need of a complete overhall...lets see entire drive train is toast, chain, middle ring, granny gear....toast, headset frozen and locked, front cable and housing solid and not shifting, free hub body on rear hub is toast, bottom braket not too smooth but kind of still turning, grips have permenant hand prints in them, turned my bike over and water and mud came running out of the seat tube (not good). So it needs a little TLC.
So there it is. Transrockies 2009. Next year BC Race with my hubby?!?!?
