Dirt 4 Life

You Shoulda (New Mountain Bike Trail)

An awesome weekend of riding. Saturday we rode 65 kms. We started out on Little Elbow Trail, after a 20 km gradual climb we got to the summit elbow pass. We were surprised to see how much snow was still in the backcountry. We had planned on riding over Misty Range however with all of the high water and snow around we decided we would be best to just ride to to Elbow Lake and back on Big Elbow Trail. We got to Elbow lake and had some food to refuel before turning around and heading back towards Big Elbow Trail. The second half of this ride was a lot more fun. Lots of fun rolling hills and some fun tight single track. We got back to the car after 5 hours of riding. We then jumped into the Elbow River to cool down our legs.

On sunday we decided we would go out and ride the new trail we just recently found called You Shoulda. The trail is a perfectly flowing trail. To get onto this trail it requires a 2.5 kilometer climb up a gravel road. The trail is so worth the climb up the gravel road. We took some photos of shots of us on the burms on the trail. We rode the trail twice. The second time we didn’t stop for photos we just rode the trail nice and fast hitting all the burms and killing the single track sections in between. I am so happy and thankful to the people who built this trail. I am very happy to see good fun trails being built out in Bragg Creek area.

Thanks guys.

Training on Stage 2 of Intermontane Challenge

Once again Chuck from Intermontane was nice enough to take us out for another ride on another section of the Intermontane Challenge course. We went out early Tuesday morning, we met at Chucks place and carpooled over to the trail head. Once again another smoking hot day in Kamloops. We started off with about 10 – 15 minutes of road riding from the parking lot over to the trailhead.

Once we started up the trail there was no rest from the relentless climb to the top. We climbed for about an hour on a completely exposed doubletrack road. I think Chuck was trying to wear us down by putting us in the heat. It worked, we could barely keep up and could not keep the sweat out of our eyes. We finally reached the singletrack trail, we thought that we must be close to the top at this point. Not a chance we climbed for another hour in the heat on a singletrack trail to the very top of the mountain. The views of Kamloops and the surrounding areas was amazing. We attempted to climb the wall but only I was able to make the climb, but Grace and Chuck put in a tremedous effort.

We stopped and took lots of photos, I used photography as an excuse to not continue riding and so I could get a rest. We started our descent down a fun piece of singletrack with some steeper sections Grace whimped out and walked a few as she’s not quite used to this kind of riding yet. The rest of the singletrack was among small brush and rocks where Chuck took photos of Grace and I going down the rock garden. At the bottom of the rock garden the trail turned into double track which was fast, fun and very dusty. There was more singletrack awaiting which was a fun swooping trail.

 Back to the road to end our ride with a few minutes of road we were back at the truck. A great day and a great ride guided by Chuck from www.Intermontanechallenge.com. This race is going to be hot that’s why they call it the challenge it’s not just the riding. It’s Everything.

Thanks again Chuck!

Saturday Training Day In Kamloops

We arrived in Kamloops Friday night and got a hold of Chuck from www.intermontanechallenge.com and made arrangements to ride the 5th stage of the race with him early Saturday morning. We meet at the TRU where the race is being staged out of. Chuck had brought us jerseys for the race and some samples of the food, FUBAR, who his sponsoring the race. The FUBAR drink and bars are really good, I will have to try and make them myself. Recipe to follow.  

Chuck did a great job of explaining us his vision for how the race is going to go down and how big of a role the TRU is playing. We are now definatley going to stay there as it just makes the most sense since the race is going to being and finish right out front of the accomodation. We took off from the start / finish line and headed up to Kenna Cartright Park and started climbing right off the bat. We climbed almost all the way upto the tower on double track. Grace and I were a little concerned that this was what the whole day was going to be like. The sun was beating down on us and we were definately realizing that heat is going to be an issue for us in this race.

We finished climbing and finally got into some single track. Super fun trails that were not super technical but definatley did not feel like we were riding in a city anymore, this was full on mountain biking and this is in the backyard for people living in Kamloops, what a perfect life. We kept going round and round on what seemed like an endless amount of awesome loops rolling singletrack carved into the desert like terrain. We finally got to the last loop and Chuck asked me if I wanted to lead as the final loop out was easy to navigate and even I wouldn’t get lost! I started whipping down this undgulating piece of singletrack, loving every minute of it. I finally ended up back on the trail we began on 2 hours later and missing lots of sweat. It was a perfect ride.

Chuck asked us if we wanted to go for a Coffee, or a beer on a patio, or beer on his boat and a float down the river. With out even a thought we took the boat and beer option.

We picked up some beer and went to the boat with Chuck and Wendy and went for a float for about 4 hours down the river in there boat. 30 -35 degrees, 2 hour bike ride, 4 hour float, a couple of beer each. The absolute best way to begin a holiday.

May 25th Round and Round Spokane

As with every endurance race it started off with lots of waiting around and unsettled nerves. There was no shade to be found in our pit area and it was the hottest day we had seen since last summer. People were trying everything to get out of the sun as we all knew that once the gun went off at noon there would be no hiding from the heat.

12:00 and the gun went off. Being in the states they use a real gun, just with blanks, one of the loudest things I have ever had the misfortune of being less than 5 feet away from. And we’re off and running. Hundreds of racers all running up a single track trail and back down the other side. All the spectators chearing us on. After a quick ½ mile run, the game is to find your bike and get on with the race as quickly as possible.

The first lap is always very busy and congested. Grace got off to a blistering fast start and got ahead of most of the people that could not ride the technical sections. I however got stuck behind a lot of them and therefore had to walk some of the sections I would never of dreamed of having to walk.

Very quickly I realized that the heat was going to be a problem. As I got going fast through some of the single track the sweat blowing out of my helmet felt like somebody was shooting me with a water pistol. Grace and I were each carrying about 1 litre of my home made electrolyte drink per lap and 3 energy balls each.

Grace and I played cat and mouse for the first 3 laps usually I would get into the pits and see Colin for a refuel of drink and food just as Grace was getting ready to leave. On our fourth lap I started having stomach issues. This seems to always be a problem for me. By the end of the fourth lap I had figured it out and fixed my issues, the sun was also going away which helped as it was now not as hot and I no longer felt like a pizza in a brick oven.

As the sun set and Grace and I were able to settle into the idea of 8 hours of mountain biking with artificial light, a tunnel vision of rocks and dirt. This 24 hour course is a non technical mountain bike course which is nice for the night as night riding makes everything that much more technical. By the time we did our second night lap I knew every bump and every rock. I began to feel I could ride this course with my lights out but that might have just been the heat stroke talking.

Ashlea showed up at our pits at the perfect time with our Pizza. Grace and I came in to find warm pizza and coke waiting for us. I pounded down a slice of pepperoni pizza and a can of coke and headed back out onto the course dreaming of finishing this next lap so that I could have more pizza and pop. This became one of my mental games to keep me going. If I finish a lap I am allowed 1 slice of pizza and pop.

6 am and 18 hours done, Grace and I can now remove our lights and head into the final stretch. We had 10 laps done and were on pace to finish with 13 or 14 laps. I had expected the sun to come up and start heating our cold and beaten bodies. And that is where mother nature threw us a curve ball. The sun did rise however it did not bring any heat. We sent Colin over to the espresso shack to get us both a mocha to try and heat us up from the inside out. We were wearing a lot of warm cloths but the body just wasn’t able to shake the cold. I realized as I was drinking my mocha that one of my eyes was shut and I could not get it to open. My other eye was barely open. I decided without saying anything to Grace or Colin that my best bet was to sleep for a little while until it warmed up. I rolled out of my chair and went to sleep with my face down in some cloths on a tarp. 45 minutes later I woke up and saw Grace had followed my lead and was sleeping on the ground also.

Grace and I decided we may as well go out and get at least one more lap finished. Grace went out in a blistering pace but decided to ride the last lap with Phil so she waited for Phil to catch up. It didn’t matter what time we finished the lap as we were not allowed to cross the line until noon. We rolled into our pit area 50 feet from the finish line at about 11:15am and decided that was enough pain and suffering for one day. We hung out and waited the forty-five minutes for the finishing gun to go off. We crossed the line with many other racers who were all waiting for the gun to go off. It was a very anti climatic finish to an odd race. We usually go full boar to the end however this race just did not for some unknown reason create that urgency and excitement for us this year. This may have been due to our 6am nap, which we don’t normally take when doing a 24 hour race.

All in all it was a good race and a great way to start off the season of mountain biking with a 5^th place for Grace and 13^th place for Phil. It reminded us that we are not invincible and that we need to do a whole lot of training in the heat so that we are ready for Intermontaine in July in Kamloops.

Thanks for reading and here are some of the pictures from our race.

Waiting to start Spokane Race

 We have done a bunch of shopping and bought a tonne of food. Most of the food that we have bought is raw. We will see how this goes. We have some backup espresso shots and red bull just incase we need a pick me up in the middle of the night, but we will see what happens. The weather down here is hot, hot, hot. It was about 27 degrees today and not a cloud in the sky. We went for a quick 30 minute ride just to loosen up the legs and make sure the new Crank bros. pedals that we picked up from Mountain Bike City were good to go. Everything thing seems to be in order. We have 35 energy balls each and I have made about 18 litres of my new energy drink. We also have about 20 litres of fresh water to drink also. We have our Video cameras with us and a couple of still cameras aswell. Before we know it, it will be sunday at noon and we will be finished. I will post another entry about this race once all the dust settles. That one will have pictures and hopefully a video attached.

Perfect Weekend of Riding Part 2

Part 2

We were to meet Mike L’s group at 8:30 am to start the ride so the alarm went off at 5:30 am that was the worst part of the day but we needed to have our green shake before we left for the ride. It took a while to wake up but after packing all are our stuff and Phil made some energy drinks for the ride we were on our way by 7:20am.

We arrived early to Sulphur Springs trailhead and Steve K happened to be riding today as well although he had his own group and they left before us but that won’t be the last time we’d hear from him. Everyone else started to arrive for Mike L’s group and altogether there was 8 of us.(AJ, Deano, Mike, Aldo, Cal, Michelle and us) The morning was cool as the sun was not shining through the clouds yet so we put on our leg and arm warmers but we warmed up very quickly.

The ride started the same as yesterday with a quick ride to the snow and then a long walk in knee deep snow as we slowly started to climb the snow went away and the trail was drier. The first of the killer climbs took most riders by surprise and there was a bit of walking but everyone made it to the top. Phil once in awhile would speed on ahead and setup to take pictures of all of us. Click on the link at the bottom to see the album of pictures.

Our group soon caught up to another group and now there was 12. We reached the switchbacks and had a fast ride down with brakes squeeling and dust flying. At the bottom of the switchbacks there was Steve K’s group. Now there were 15 our group was growing as the day went on. As we cruised to a finish of the first lap it was decided that we do the lap in reverse and take Moose Mtn Road upto the the turn to the switchbacks and at the bottom of the switchbacks we went straight which took us flying down to the main road where we finished the ride out on Riverview trail and hammered back to the parking lot.

This was an amazing day for a ride it’s the first day of warm weather. Thanks to Mike L’s group for a great ride it was nice to ride with some other people as we train for our race next weekend. Hopefully we will have SPOT with us so you can follow us online for our race.

Click here to check out more of the pictures from this ride.

Perfect weekend of riding

Part 1

Well our weekend started out perfectly. Saturday afternoon bikes loaded, bags packed with energy balls and our new homemade energy drink (recipe coming soon). We drove out to Bragg Creek admiring the fresh painting of snow on the mountains. When we got to Station flats parking lot we found a few people and cars there but not too many. We quickly got geared up and got out onto the trail. Within ten minutes we hit snow and alot of it. We started the death march through the snow heading up towards the big climb. Once we started into the big climb the snow quickly disappeared and left us with a nice dry dusty track. We hammered up the hill passing a few recreational bikers on the trail. We quickly got to the top of Sulpher Springs, we ate one of the new lemon cranberry energy balls and took off over the edge down into the switchbacks. At the bottom we turned left and headed towards some more climbing. We passed some more bikers on the climbs again and then got to the top of the final decent, one last look at the mountains and it was all downhill from there. We finished off our first lap in 1.5 hours which wasn’t bad concidering the snow we had walked through. We decided another loop was in order.

This time we thought it would be fun to mix it up a bit and take the Riverview trail to finish. We hauled along the riverview trail bouncing off the boulders like we were in a pinball machine. We quickly finished Riverview trail and popped out into Paddys Flat’s Campground. Being May long weekend you could smell the campfires and bbq’s as we rode out of the campground and back onto the trails. We quickly got back to the parking lot and had some food while we contemplated getting up early Sunday morning to do the same thing over again with Mike L. bike group.

Click here for Part 2

Sulpher Springs Trail – Riverview Trail

We had an awesome ride tonight, we started from Paddy’s Flats campground and headed straight up sulpher springs trail and climbed all the way up to moose mountain road. The trail is beautiful and dry except for the very low point, which still has a little bit of snow in it. We then climbed up moose mountain road until the top entrance to the switch backs. The sun was still up but was quickly falling behind the moutains. Our dog buddy was having a great time little did he know we were just about to start our long fast downhill ride. We flew down the switch backs which are in perfect condition, nice and dusty dry. I took lots of shots of Grace with our new Canon Rebel XS camera with the new 250mm lens we got for it.

We then continued straight down the riverview trail until we hit the road. As we crossed the road onto the last piece of our trail. It was starting to cool off and the light was quickly deminishing. Buddy did great tonight and even kept up with us all the way down the riverview trail back to the campground. Once we hit the gravel road in the campground buddy slowed right down to a slow trot. We rode back to the car convincing him to keep moving. We ended up with a nice pieceful ride home as buddy went to sleep and didn’t wake up until we got home.

First true ride of the year

We went out to ride on the trails tonight to do some mountain biking as the snow is almost melted. The ride took us up Moose Mountain Road to the second entrance to Sulphur Springs trail to the left a little more climbing and some walking through the snow we finally reached the top just as the sun went behind the clouds.  As we headed down the trail was it cooling off but Phil took some great picture

s of me riding down the switchbacks. We went all the way down to the Riverside Trail which was actually quite dry with only a few patches of snow but a beautiful view of the river.

It was great to get out on the trails as we have a 24hr race on May 23 in Spokane so some mountain biking on trails may be a good thing before the race. The weather is starting to look clear so hopefully we are on the way to clear trails and warm weather. Check out the pics from the ride shot with the new camera.

Down the switchbacks

Indoor workout – lunges & box jumps

Great workout tonight with lots of lunges and box jumps this will definately help us this summer on the trails. With the snow falling yesterday and the temperture dropped we opted to go inside for some cross training.

Workout

6x( 10 min warmup, 10 box jumps, 6 lunges with front leg on bosu ball, 6 lunges with back foot on bosu ball, sideways walking with theraband around ankles at least 100 meters)

Finish the night with some great food like strawberries and tomatoes and a glass of water.