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To the TransRockies

Gretchen Reeves / 10.08.2010

After almost three days of driving, Cannon and I made it from Colorado to lovely Fernie, British Columbia and the start of the Transrockies stage race. We had a great trip up in the camper, stopping along the way to ride and dip into a couple of lakes where the water is pleasantly warmer than our lakes in CO. Our favorite stop was Whitefish, MT where we hit up some newly built trails and camped at a spot called Beaver Lakes. Cannon reminded me that we were now in grizzly country and that I should be cautious with our leftovers. Don’t want to lure the bears in the camper with all the crumbs that seem to end up on my hoody!

We pulled into Fernie Saturday afternoon and met up with our support person, Andy Keck, also from CO. He will be bumping the “house on wheels� along for us and helping us keep the bikes together. Registration was a breeze and we got some pretty sweet stuff in our goody bags which our moms will be excited to hear.

The first thing I checked out were the stats of the race to see what kind of terrain we will be up against for the next week. The course will take us from Fernie to Canmore, travel a distance of 250 miles, and climb over 40,000 feet. This is a shorter distance than in previous years; however, this year’s version will be more technical with larger percentage of singletrack. Looks like we picked a great year to do it!

Andy was on weather detail and the report was 75 and sunny for our first stage. We started to doubt this as we fell asleep last night to the pitter patter of rain turning into meatballs at times. We awoke to the same sound this morning and figured the weather man was either a little loopy or perhaps just optimistic. At any rate, it was time to get psyched up for some mud.

After a Slovakien warm-up (this is where you sit in the car with the heater on until it’s time to line up), we headed to the start line. The first stage was a time trial and something about the beeping clock as it counts down to the start makes me nervous. This quickly went away as we headed out onto the course. It was as if Cannon and I were on one of our regular weekend rides, only this one was a little faster. The first climb went from steep to steeper to where you start thinking the course markers are playing a joke on you.

The good news is that the descent was just as steep. And with the fresh coat of rain on the trails, I felt like I was back in my Georgia roots, literally. Cannon was gentlemanly enough to let me take this one first and we had a sweet ride down. The remainder of the ride was rolling, technical singletrack with a side of mud. Super-sized mud, in every crevice of your bike and body, and 3 hair-washings later there is still a little more mud. It’s like that Moab dust that you still have in your car from last October. Mountain biking rules!

We did manage to slip past the other coed teams that started in front of us and found ourselves at the top of the podium today. The times are very close and we expect there will be a good battle with our competitors throughout the week. Stay tuned for our take on the race and some photos later this week!

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