The biggest DirtChix ride of the season, so far. Thanks for the invite and thanks to Phil for putting on his skirt and joining the DirtChix to take some pictures. 16 fine girls and 1 photographer were out for the ride, which slowly broke into a few groups so the faster girls could ride ahead. Only one really good tumble not sure who won the dirtiest girl award but I tried rolling around in the dirt but that didn’t work. Thanks to Dana for organizing a great ride. Check out some of the pictures below from the ride.
Here is the latest video angle we are trying with the hero camera. It’s pretty good it gives you a new look on the trails. We shot this video up in the Juniper area of Kamloops late in the evening. Super fun riding up there. Enjoy.
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.
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.
The biggest DirtChix ride of the season, so far. Thanks for the invite and thanks to Phil for putting on his skirt and joining the DirtChix to take some pictures. 16 fine girls and 1 photographer were out for the ride, which slowly broke into a few groups so the faster girls could ride ahead. Only one really good tumble not sure who won the dirtiest girl award but I tried rolling around in the dirt but that didn’t work. Thanks to Dana for organizing a great ride. Check out some of the pictures below from the ride.
