TransRockies Bike Race
Riders Dig Deep to Survive the Hardest Day of 2010
Paul Done/Transrockies / 14.08.2010
Friendships are always strong and easy when skies are sunny and the going is smooth but life teaches us time and time again that the true measure of the bond in not measured in the sun, but when the weather turns bad and when the struggles begin.
So it is for teams in the TransRockies where impediments like differences in fitness and skill, technical issues and sickness are easily managed when weather is good and trails are dry. When the skies turn dark and the temperature drops, as happened on Friday, waiting for a slower or ailing partner means that the extra hours on the trail aren’t measured in extra sunshine, but in wetness and cold.
Stage 6 of the 2010 TransRockies took riders from deep in the Elbow River Valley along three huge ridgeline passes and then up and over Lusk Creek Pass down into the Bow River Valley to the finish line at Rafter Six Ranch. It was the most epic stage of 2010 and the riders were confronted with Rocky Mountain weather in all its power.
Late afternoon rain and hail the day before had left a coating of fresh August snow at elevations only slightly above the 2200 metre high point of Stage 6. It was going to be cold at the top of JumpingPound Ridge and Cox Hill, the day’s twin summits. Intermittent showers and swirling clouds combined with the sub 5-degree temperatures on top confirmed that it was going to be a day of attrition and survival, rather than pure speed, out on the trails. This would be the day when terrain and conditions would test teams to the limit and when riders would have to be constantly aware of their teammate’s condition as much their own.
Though the TransRockies is intended to be a great test, it’s never been about unnecessary risks to riders and organizers made a decision on the morning of the stage to offer riders the option of cutting out the high-altitude ride along JumpingPound Ridge and Cox Hill, saving about 800 metres of climbing and two long sections above the treeline. Riders who chose to do so would be assigned a penalty but would still be considered officially part of the event as the 65km and roughly 1500 metres of climbing are more than enough to count as a full day’s work.
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