10 days ago I left the wet coast and headed homeward bound to the mountains up at my Dads in the Robson Valley. The goal of the trip was to free my mind from the bike for a week and make some coin planting trees with my old crew at Rock Reforestation. There is nothing like a good shift of treeplanting to free the mind and set things back on track. The bike was a little lonely as it was only given attention for 3 hrs during the week but after a pretty busy spring it was time for a slow down.
On saturday morning I met the crew in Valemount to plant another 500 trees and then it was off to Kamloops to pick Lilla up and head to Salmon Arm for the Salty Dog 6 hr enduro race on sunday. Getting into Salmon Arm mid afternoon gave Lilla a chance for a nap in the sun and myself to get in a 1 hr ride to try to spin out the week of planting which was in the legs. Suprisingly things felt pretty good. After a treeplanter sized meal of pasta and buckwheat it was off to bed to rest up for the race on Sunday.
Sunday morning my head was still up in the mtns planting pine trees and not ready to focus on the task at hand which was a 6 hr bike race. After some struggles I managed to get some water and bananas organized for the feed zone and with some help from Lilla things started to fall into place. Showing up to the race site was pretty impressive with over 400 other cyclists on site for the 10th annual race.
The race was to start at 10 with a gongshow “lemans” start. This is what they call it when they make a bunch of people run around in spandex with bike helmets strapped to there heads. As far as I’m concerned its an unessary evil. Its like making a bunch of runners swim around a pool before they run a marathon. It pretty much makes zero sence. They have names for these events which include biking and running and I’m pretty sure its called a duathlon, not a bike race.
For this lemans start my buddy Brian Bain and I somehow ended up at the back of the field when they called us up to the line. Not impressed being stuck behind 400 other bikers we decided to jump the fence beside us into the base ball diamond and make our ways to the head of the pack. This plan backfired as the organizer said go just as Bain and I were mid way up in the air jumping over the fence. Now on the other side of the fence with the race starting we were in a rough spot. Needless to say the run was less then stellar.
This turned around once I got on My 29 inch Kona Hardtail and within 5 minutes I was up in the lead. The legs were a little heavy though and by the end of the second lap Travis Hauck had caught up to me and soon took the lead as I needed to stop for 7 minutes to fix an issue with my headset. Once back on track I raced around and around and around a fun 10 km circuit and after 6hrs pulled out a sizeable victory and setting a new course record in the process. Too top things of the prize was a fresh Apple pie which was much appreciated by my pit crew Lilla Roy who worked hard throughout the day cracking the whip down making sure I was going fast enough to get her a pie for her efforts. Mission accomplished.
Overall it was a great race weekend with the Salty Dog Organizers creating a fun family atmosphere which everyone seemed to enjoy. Next up is a couple days training out here in the Okanagan before heading out east to try the legs in a couple short Canada Cup races in Quebec. Over and Out.