The Other Side of the Road

September was spent overtraining myself to the point of resembling a hungover drug addict on East Hastings st in Vancouver, recovering for a couple days and then repeating. It seems alot easier to overtrain oneself after an already long race season then it is at the start. After I wrecked myself really good the last time I opted to go to the backcountry with my Dad, brother (Dustin), 7 horses and a dog for 5 days to get away from the bike.

Day 1 one we left the highway and hit snow 7 km into the ride. Soon after we spent 4 hrs cutting deadfall off the trail. We eventually rode into camp under a full moon through 6 inches of snow. 5 days later through wintery conditions, cutting out 20 yr old trails and wading through rivers we reached the highway again. Dustin and Dad went home, I hopped in the truck and drove across the countryside, hopped on a 34 hr flight to Australia and am now hanging around with Kangaroos. Thank you Lilla and all the boys at Freewheel Cycle for helping me get organized for the trip!

Being in Australia is like being in Canada. The only difference is that everyone drives around on the wrong side of the road. That is sketchy. So are the Kangaroos. And divebombing magpies. Everything else is great. Sunny days. Hospitable people. And the accents are cool. The customs officers are pretty rad as well. I heard they were pretty stingent with checking through luggage for foreign food etc. The officer checking my luggage must of been a biker himself as he rolled me through the line. Pretty stoked as I wasn’t sure how my unlabled bags of seeds, buckwheat, random pills and green powders was going to go over.

With the 24 hr Worlds coming up Saturday I am trying to keep the biking under control to prevent any further burnouts before the race. There will be ample opportunities for that over the weekend.

I will update my blog once I figure out where live updates of the race will be available. Last yr it was at http://www.24wsc.com/.

Leading up the the race 24 hr Twitter updates are at. www.24wsc.com/twenty4-tweets.

I rode out to the course for a couple laps yesterday. There is going to be carnage. Gap jumps on a 24 hr course won’t mix well with lethargic bikers in the middle of the night. Other then that the course is pretty tame. 2 big climbs, 2 fast rocky decents and roo’s all over the place.

The race starts 12 pm Saturday over here, when translated in Australian, that is equivalent to 6 pm Friday evening Pacific time in Canada. Not sure how that works but as it sits now I got ripped out of a day of my life which I will only ever reclaim once I return to Canadian soil.

Right now there is a small problem with Jet lag. Off to deal with that. aka 10 hr + sleep.