Day 2 Off Course Hike a bike

Day 2 Off Course Hike a bike
Originally uploaded by Steed Cycles

TransRockies 2008 Day 2
August 11, 2008
K2 Ranch to Nipika Resort
73.7 km/3813 climbing

Well it wouldn’t be a TransRockies without some sort of controversy. What a frustrating and painful day. An early start out of the K2 ranch quickly resulted in a nice pack road ride down the west side of Lake Windermere and around the bottom before heading back up the highway to the entrance of Fairmont Hot Springs resort. This was the start of the first climb of the day, initially pavement, and then gravel. We reached the bottom of the Fairmont Springs ski hill and I thought here we go again. See ski hill, climb to top. Thankfully we just rode up the main hill a short distance before we jumped into the trees on a rolling double track trail and continued up. A quick descent down a gravel double track with some hidden water bars and nice switchbacks almost caught me off guard a couple of time. We then rode about 10 km of rolling double track into the first aid station.

37 km down, 1000 m elevation completed. Uneventful day, right? Well ha ha, now the fun began. Out of the aid station we began the second climb of the day, supposedly about 1000 m over 6 km. The climb started slow and then ramped up after about 1 km. From our point of view, pretty much unrideable! As we kept going the route just kept getting steeper and steeper until we were all climbing straight up an avalanche chute covered in loose scree rock. From our location about 40 teams back from the front, the route was to say the least extremely scary and intimidating. It was so steep you could not push your bike; we all had to sling them on our backs and literally move one step at a time to make sure that we did not slip and fall. I am not sure that you could have stopped had you slipped and fell, and I am quite sure that your bike would have been long gone unless someone grabbed it on the way by. Every once and a while, a hail from above would have you avoid a massive falling rock. The air was full of curse and invective, sort of like a fog flowing down the hill.

Trevor and I climbed for about an hour, and we were about three quarters of the way to the summit (we figure we climbed about 600 m straight up), when the leaders actually summited. We heard what they found as they all made their way back down past us, and we all looked for the marked trail. I gather that the top was quite scary; the other side was essentially a cliff into thin air. An exploration in both directions along the spiny ridge revealed no flags and no rideable terrain, and so the descent began.

The view behind us as we all headed back down was kind of surreal; a long line of 300 to 400 riders snaking down this chute, with those at the bottom recently informed of the mistake frantically looking for the trail as many saw their opportunity for a good result. The trail was eventually found with the marker on the uphill side of a tree and not visible from below. To the chagrin of those formerly at the front, when we reached the entrance, our path was blocked by those formerly at the back. The trail was quite technical and many ahead of us were unable to ride the single track. A long walk ensued, but we all understood that essentially we were to blame for our own misfortune. The fun soon started, with bets between teams being laid as to who had the mojo and skill to ride many of the sketchy short descents without dabbing.

Eventually, we all got back on our bike and the race began again in earnest as we all tried to limit our losses on the day. A third climb up to the start of the infamous Bear Creek trail let us accumulate the last of the 3800 m of elevation over the day and then we headed down Bear Creek for the finish in Nipika.

Bear Creek trail was slashed out of the bush two years ago as a relatively direct way to get across the mountains in TR 2006. Although we climbed it that year, for the last two years we have been riding down in the opposite direction. I highly doubt that there are any other riders on this trail over the rest of the year, so I have been quite amazed that each year we have used it, it has become significantly more rideable. Perhaps we have the bears to thank for this as they must use it as an easy way to get to the multitude of berries that line the trail. Apparently, our course designers had to “encourage” a grizzly sow and cub off the trail earlier in the day.

Whatever the reason, better trails, more skill on our part, lack of oxygen from the earlier climbs or just stupid luck both Trevor and I cleared the vast majority of the trail. Out the bottom, we had about 8 km of road riding to the finish, so we put our heads down and pace lined home.

A day that we expected to take about 6 hrs ended up taking about 8, and I am sure that we will pay for the extra expenditure later in the week. Thankfully, pretty much everyone is in the same position.

There were a significant number of upset people at the finish because of the “poor course marking”. From our point of view, it seemed a little unfair that our weeks overall result was going to hinge on this issue. At the finish it became apparent that a number of teams had cut the course as they descended the scree field and had bush wacked through the trees and eventually found the trail ahead of the majority of the riders. The rules state that if you go off course you must enter it again at the point where you made your wrong turn. Further, the trail markers were such that it wasn’t just one or two teams that missed the trail; it was essentially the whole field. I am quite sure that if the top teams had continued over the top in their search for the trail, eventually every single other team would have been up there with them.

In the interests of fairness the organizers decided to let the days results stand, but not to include the results in the weeks overall standings. Both Trevor and I thought that this was the right decision.

Tomorrow, we time trial a 50km course around Nipika on trails that I have ridden several times over the last few years. I am really looking forward to this as it should really cater to one of our fortes, technical single track riding.