Pre-Race (3rd in series)

I woke up two days before the race to an ominous sky and thunder.  The weather forecast had predicted rain for that day, but the extended forecast looked good.  I kept the T.V. in my room on the Weather Channel, although up there they call it the Weather Network.  Initially it was hard to figure out what they were talking about since everything was in Celcius and kilometers/hour, but after a while you get a mental conversion.  Nothing too outrageous in terms of temperature or storms was predicted for the entire next week.  The hottest day was supposed to be on Wednesday, the 4th day of the race, and it was only supposed to reach about 80 degrees Farenheit.  There were horror stories about years past when temperatures would hover close to triple digits and you would hear about check stations running out of water.  Luckily none of this would come to pass. 

I was in Panorama Mountain Resort for the next two days.  There was a ski lift right outside my patio door that was moonlighting as a lift for downhill mountain bikers in the summer.  The large mountain to my right suggested that this was a great place to come and carve some turns in the powder come January, and the crowds here are nothing compared to the chaos that surrounds Lake Tahoe for the winter months.  Everyone was laid back, but there was a nervous anticipation in the air.  Or perhaps it was just me. 

My partner would not arrive until late at night so I had the whole day to check out the resort and get in a very light ride.  The night before, I met four guys on the bus that were from San Francisco.  They were very nice and invited me on a training ride with them in the morning.  I waited for their call as I put my bike together out the travel box.  There wasn’t too much to do, but I certainly wanted to make sure that the bike was in working order; remember that was one of the requirements.  I met them downstairs and we started off downhill towards the main road.  Looking around the resort, it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful place to begin this epic race.  It seemed as though the mountains were giving our little area a bear hug, huge mountains jutting into the air and surrounding us with a warm embrace and more trees than you could ever count in a lifetime.  A river roared at the base of the hill and kept cutting through the mountains as far as you could see.  We head to the right, (I had no mental compass whatsoever) and immediately encounter one very large moose just on the shoulder of the road, munching on some grass.   He (she?) was not really caring about anyone or anything.  One of the guys hopped off of his bike to take pictures of the giant.  I thought to myself that this was just par for the course.   Why take pictures now, you’ll practically be riding over them on the way to the finish line?  I pictured moose walking down the main street in Fernie, like <i>Northern Exposure</i>.  What I didn’t know is that I would never see another moose the entire trip!  

The next day was the last day before the beginning of the race.  My partner arrived the night before and slowly began putting his bike together.  He is a bike mechanic, so he’s a little more thorough than I am.  We also went on another very easy ride to stretch the legs.  

 Later in the evening we had our pre-race festivities that were to include a presentation on what to expect during our time in the wilds of Canada and a buffet dinner.  The presentation started with someone explaining about how the race started five years ago and how incredible the race was and blah, blah, blah.  Then the guy who actually put the daily routes together came to the stage.  He laid out the terrain and the specifics of what we were going to encounter going into Day 1 of the race.  Pretty exciting and scary stuff.  Remember those beautiful mountains giving us a bear hug?  Well apparently their embrace is a little overwhelming, since there is no easy way to get out of the resort.  They tried going up the downhill course, but all of the riders passed out.  Not a good way to start the race.  Then the second option, which was agreed upon, was a two mile “hike-a-bike section” up the face of one of the mountains.  According to our announcer this would be a 20-30 minute hike.  As we would learn in the next 7 days, he was a lying jerk.  No, he was a really nice guy, but a liar all the same.  We absorbed the bad news, got in line for the buffet and ate like kings, carbing up for the next day’s start. 

My nerves were starting to get the best of me.  I was excited to get this thing over with, but the idea of the pain I would endure over the next week was enough to make me want to choke on my pasta.  Tomorrow would come too soon and not soon enough. 

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Tags: bicycling, Canada, cycling, mountain biking, mountains, racing, sports