TransRockies
Stage 1- Panorama to K2 Ranch
Cory Wallace, Photo Dan Hudson/Transrockies / 09.08.2009
After a neutral lap around the village the riders began the 11 km, 1200m climb up Panorama Ski Hill with the Rocky Mountain team of Stefan Widmer and Marty Lazarski setting the early pace with Team Scott/Bike Zone from Portugal right behind them. Colin Kerr (Rocky Mountain), Roddi Lega (Pedalhead) and myself (Freewheel Jasper-Kona) were also up in the mix which included some extremely steep pitches which were taking a toll on everyone.
About 2km in we hit a flatter grade where I went into the lead and started setting the pace up the relentless switchbacks to the top. Going over the top the Rocky Team was 5 minutes behind, and Solo rider's Lega and Kerr around 7 and 8 minutes back. Things were going smoothly as the trail rolled along a rock covered ridge, across shale slopes and then all of a sudden the trail headed south straight down a scree avalanche slope.
Pretty sketched out and out of control I was about to dismount and walk down but the video cameraman was zooming in and not wanting to look like a Trans Walker I kept riding down in gong show fashion and straight into a field of rocks resulting in a flat. After one blown tube and 2 blown CO2s I was stuck with nothing to fix the flat so I sat down and waited until the Rocky Team came down the scree slope only to slash a sidewall themselves about 100 meters up from me.
The race was all of a sudden pretty mellow as I was going nowhere until I found a pump and the Rocky Guys were having troubles with the slashed sidewall. About the same time Team Rocky got going again Colin Kerr and Roddi Lega came barreling down the shoot. Kerr, recent winner of the BC Bike Race was showing his west coast DH skills as he took over the lead and was pretty soon out of sight.
Lega, winner of the Transrockies in 2006 with team mate Tim Heemskerk, was also showing off his DH talent until he did a leap of faith over his handlebars. I was pretty entertained watching all the action and almost forgot to ask team Rocky for a pump as they went by.
Thankfully I don't have Alzheimer's yet and Widmer handed off a CO2 and pretty soon everyone was rolling again. At the bottom Team Rocky flatted again. I handed off the co2 they lent me and then watched them down a power bar so they could use the wrapper to seal the sidewall of Lazarki's tire.
With a 16km fire road descent down Brewer Creek I wasn't expecting to see either Kerr or Lega again as I was taking it a little easier knowing another flat would severely dampen the day, but pretty soon I rolled around a corner to see Lega bent over his bike suffering from cramps. "I can't move my legs!" Lega commented as I asked him what was wrong.
Coming off the Brewer Fire Road and to the last 2km climb of the day I caught up to race leader Kerr near the top and quickly took over the lead with Kerr right on my tail down the descent. As we rounded the corner into K2 ranch the sprint was on across the cow-pie riddled field with Kerr taking the stage by half a wheel.
Team Rocky would come in a few minutes later claiming victory in the Team category with Lega coming in a little after them to take 3rd on the solo division. Coming in 2nd in the Team division were the Portugal boys who had taken a wrong turn halfway up the climb and lost close to 8 minutes.
Talking to team leader Juan after the race he sounded pretty stoked on his Transrockies debut. "We were cheering the course marshals as we rode by them as we were loving the single-track." "We have nothing like this in Portugal although we were a little scared of running into bears."
As I sit here at the finish line watching riders come across the line I got a chance to catch up to 5th time Transrockie rider Pat Doyle from Calgary Alberta. When asked why he keeps coming back to TR he said "It's the most pro race out there, the organizers have done this long enough they know what the riders want and that's to be able to come down and ride their bikes for a week through stunning scenery and not have to think about anything else."
I must say the whole scene is pretty amazing as the TR crew basically sets up a mini town at the end of each stage complete with a tent village, shower truck, dining tent and expo. The crazy thing is that they will set up and take down this village 7 times this week and in the meantime still have smiles on their faces as they greet us riders across the finish line.
With supper at 6 and awards at 8pm the riders are busy preparing their bikes and bodies for tomorrows stage which will take them through 72.2km of Rocky Mountain terrain on the way to Nipika resort.
With 2835 m of climbing the stage is the most vertical in this year's race and the pace will be fierce as the solo riders only have tomorrow's stage and a time trial in Nipika to sort things out. Meanwhile the team riders are just getting warmed up as they have close to 500 km to ride still and with just over a minute separating the top two teams things are just starting to get interesting!
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