Team Winded www.bcbikerace.com FINAL Day 7 trip report

Well we finished!

The morning started out on a sad note. Trevor's beloved Blur had a sheared
titanium pivot swing arm. No spare parts, the bike was not rideable. It
explains why the bike felt 'funny' on the big downhill on Day 6. So the
organizers scrambled to find a replacement, and a Specialized Enduro (like
my previous two bikes) was donated by another racer who couldn't finish - so
nice!

Because of this we were the *last* riders to enter the team time trial. The
ride today was really fun, and would have been downright giddy on fresh
legs, but we did really well even though a foreign (and heavier and lousier
at climbing) bike was in the mix.

So what are the final 7 day time results?

Best ride time (open mens): 25:02:15
Best ride time (open womens): 35:19:19
Best ride time (open mixed):32:16:28
Best ride time (open vets 80+):28:38:35
Best ride time (open vets 100+): 34:53:55

And how did team Winded do? Pretty good, but we are now thinking we reserved
a little too much in the 1st 3 days, as we found ourselves riding with a
whole new crew from day 4.
- 36:33 26 Ride time
- 14th/23 in our 80+ category

It is worth noting that *every* team n front of us is not from the flat
lands like Ontario, but from mountainous areas like the North Shore,
Colorado, etc. :-)

We are real happy that we
A/ finished ;-)
B/ didn't suck, and competed with people around us
C/ really enjoyed every single day of riding

Team Winded signing out and enjoining real life once again!!!

Cheers,
Stuart and Trevor.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Day 5 tbd :-)

Cheers,
Trevor and Stuart
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Team Winded www.bcbikerace.com Day 6 trip report

Ouch. Yesterday hurt everybody.

A few of the leaders rode with pretty big injuries - 2 busted ribs on the mixed team, and a 8 stitch head gash - and still beat the pants off of people. People are starting to look a little rough at this point, as everybody has lots and lots of scratches.

Trevor took a pretty good tumble yesterday, but luckily the bike was ok. The trail was clinging to a cliff face with a mountain riiver below, and there was a really cool section of 'glass bottom' trail, where we had to ride on about 50' of chain link fence that you could actually see through ie down the cliff face. The end of the fence curled up just enough to catch something, say for the sake of argument, a peddle. At 25km/hr, Trevor's bike stopped dead and he kept going. Luckily it was bruises and scratches on the arms/legs. What was funny was that the trusty wrist heart rate monitor blew into about as many pieces as possible, and Trevor, a little confused, was trying to put it on again on trail. Stuart ended up carrying the monitor head and Trevor would call back 'Smithers!! What's my heart rate?!!?'. Seemingly unimportant, they aren't. They allow you to control your pace so you can make it over the long haul and not blow up. A little duct tape at the aid station helped to attach it to the handlebar.

At the end of the day, which took us a touch over 6 hrs with 75km of distance and 1560m altitude gain, we found out that *many* others yardsaled at the exact same spot, some with a lot worse ouchies.

Now the trail itself was largely all climbing today, punctuated by one fast and easy down hill, and one *very* technical, droppy and super steep section dumping us into Whistler. Most people walked it (we didn't ;-). Of course their were several punishing and long climbs. There was one really nice and mesmerizing twisty section riddled with stunts (curvy bridges and skinnies). What we love about the race is that it favors all around good riders, not just ex-Olympians or people with giant lungs down to their knees, or high altitude dudes from Durango (7000'), due the high degree and general difficulty of the single track

We didn't catch our results today, but we are pretty certain we held steady or moved up due to the crowd we rode with. Amazing how eventually you will see the same people all day long. A race like this certainly puts you exactly where you belong.

We finished again with the "100 plus" category leaders, lead by a 59 year old phenom from Nelson BC

Day 6/7 we moved out of the flatulence imbued tents and are now staying in a *huge* suite at the Westin, overlooking the village and underlooking the mountain. This is a real nice way to end the trip :-)

Cheers,

Trevor and Stuart

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network    

Team Winded www.bcbikerace.com Day 5 trip report

Curvilicious!!!!

Man-o-man today was singularly the most fun we've ever had mountain biking. Everyone crossed the finish line grinning like mad Chesire Cats. Todays ride ended with 10 km of downhill (750m) of the most exhilerating twisty, droppy, loamy, rocky, bermy, and *fast* track you could ever desire!! Another 58km day and 1400m elevation, comprised by 2 big hills. We started in the little town of Sechelt at sea level. Luckily we trained at altitude in Ottawa .....
We are now waiting for the ferry to go to Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver, and then onto a bus to head out to Squamish, for the final *big* day. We took extra recovery drink today :-)
We don't know the results yet for today, but we are pretty sure we're holding steady.
We've attached some photos for you viewing enjoyment.
Cheers,
Stuart and Trevor.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Team Winded www.bcbikerace.com Day 2 and Day 3

Well, I accidentally deleted day 2 trip report and am running out of BB
juice as well, so we'll give you the rundown on both days.

Day1 (108km/1300m)

Day2
Longer (118km) and more altitude (1800m), but we both felt better.

Our friend Jeff from Ottawa caught a 3hr penalty because his partner is so
much slower. So the partners wife calls him a 'fuckhead; and threatens to
throw out his bikebox stored at their house. Very funny. Needless to say,
they no longer are partners, as Jeff has a more well matched team.

So it seems our competition is 2 girl teams (#2 and #3 overall women) and 2
guys from Toronto both of whom we beat day2 (and lost to, by a hair, day3).
The women are *so* impressive. Trevor thinks his wife would be very good at
these endurance events. These women are impressive.

Day3
Distance 85km Altitude 1400, with a kind of tough 1.5 hour hike a bike up
800m of gravel. Great views though :-). It finished with 10km of typical
west coast single track, pretty much as or more difficult than anything we
see in Ottawa. The trick is just go fast !

We really paced today, and took it slow up the 800m walk due to Trevor's bad
knee, and as a result lost 2 spots overall, hopefully to make it up day4.
What is good about this is that we everyday pass a lot of teams the last
20km, and usually finish hanging it all out, which is fun.

Day4 part 'une'
Started to write this on the way to the ferry terminal. -up at 4:30 am. Race
starts at 11am this morning as we will have 2 ferry rides. The day should be
interesting coming down to Sechelt on the Sunshine coast on more of this
single track stuff.

Day4 part 'deux'
Wow. What a day. Heart rate racing, crazy west coast single track (Stu is
learning very fast to be fast in a trial by fire !), and we felt lots of
power. Both Stu and Trevor felt great in fact and we pushed hard right to
the end. Today was 58km only and elevation gain of 1325m, but it was
exceptional from Earls Cover ferry to Seychelt, after 2 ferry rides from
Comox. We felt good by beating 2 'yellow jersey' teams for BC Bike Race
categories: the open-womens team and the veterens-100 team plus the Toronto
guys. Yes .... we were very happy to beat some girls and a couple of over 50
year olds.... They are incredibly strong and crazy impressive atheletes
actually. The race leaders usually beat us by 1 to 1.5hrs - don't know how
they do that. Today moved up 11 places in the overall standings, so we are
happy with that. Tomorrow is a tougher day 5, apparently a classic route
from Seychelt to Gibsons with fully half as single track. We plan to be
'solid' but not hammer it too much, since day6 is going to be brutal by all
accounts (Sqaumish to Whistler Checkamus Challenge ). People train
exclusively for just that one day race! We had dinner in the Seychelt nation
long house, and the dufas' ran out of food and brought in KFC... Nice.

Day 5 tbd :-)

Cheers,
Trevor and Stuart
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Team "Winded" mail-Blog day1 www.bcbikerace.com

Just a quick note folks. Went really well as we were in 'pacing' mode , we
finished in the middle over all today.

Highlights: loamy tight singletrack, 500 fireroad dowhill, people very
friendly (met Jeff who was at Mike's party, had no idea he was here), we
didbt have energy crises and finished happy,

Lowlights: too much fireroad, Stan's tubeless kit flatted for Stuart so now
he's tubed,( poor guy on my back wheel got sprayed with latex) sore little
toe for me, we are already sick of **so** much eating.

Time in saddle was 6 1/3 hrs, 108km, 1450m vertical.

Tomorrow is a bigger day (raining :-( ). And they keep getting bigger.

For the mto folks, Stuart met a guy named tim from Brockville who lives @
Butternut Bay and who lobbied the gov for the noisewall we built there a few
years ago

BC is beautiful

Cheers,
Trevor and Stuart
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Subject: T-Blog (Day minus 2) www.bcbikerace.com

Hi folks,

Well, after training all winter for the CSM, the Keski, and then this spring
for RL 'challenge', time is up, 170hrs of saddle time, team 'Winded' starts
its 7 day Mountain Bike race on Canada day, geared up for ~550km of
horizontal and ~11km of vertical trail riding from Victoria to Whistler.

Assuming my thumbs won't be too tired to send out an email everyday, please
let me know if you want to be dropped from the "T-Blog".

Special thanks during training and race week goes out to Ana and Heather,
spousal units extraordinaire in their support of Stu and I in our training,
done with grace and understanding, all the while not filing for divorce even
once!! And of course to our kids who, although sometimes have trouble
recognizing us, will very much be missed this week; Sam, Sophie of my loins,
and Nathan of Stuarts loins (we think).

Cheers!
Trevor.
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