Day 4 Stream crossing

Day 4 Stream crossing
Originally uploaded by Steed Cycles

TransRockies 2008 Day 5
August 14, 2008
Whiteswan Provincial Park to Elkford
88.5 km/2247 climbing

Day 5 starts with a 14 km road ride. I bridged up to the first group and had the benefit of nice cruise to the first climb. Trevor unfortunately got stuck in no man’s land and had to work the whole way.

After the time trial in Nipika, Trevor commented that after viewing the evening video of the day, he had seen none of the spectacular scenery we were riding through. When you are hammering and it is a technical trail, you rarely have time to look at anything else other than the trail in front of you. He insisted that he wanted to make sure that he had the chance to look at the scenery around him over the last 4 days of the race.

Stage 5 rolls through some spectacular scenery. The initial climb is under the shadow of Mt. Doorman, a spectacular peak that towers over Whiteswan Lake. We took the time today to make sure that we enjoyed the scenery available. After yesterday, we made a plan to stay well within our comfort zone, especially seeing as tomorrow is an epic day. The temperature has been progressively rising all week and when combining tomorrow’s long mileage and major elevation, with the expected 35C I am sure we will see taxing conditions.

As planned we held it in check until the last aid station which is just before the climb to the top of the rock garden. We then let it loose, and over the climb we reeled in several teams, and extended on others. We survived the descent, in fact for the first time I actually cleared the vast majority of it only becoming unglued when a team of absolute crazies came flying by. Trevor was also put off his bike by the same pair. At the time it was annoying, but in retrospect, it was an awesome piece of riding.

The finish arrived and Trevor got to high five his mom and dad as we rounded into the finish chute. He hadn’t seen his parents in quite a while so he bolted quickly to our accommodation doing laundry on the way. (What a guy!) I hung for a while, getting fed, showered and having a massage.

The adventure continued on our way back to our accommodation as we lost the serpentine belt on our vehicle and had to park it half way up the Crowsnest Pass. Thankfully, Trevor’s dad has a lot of connections and amazingly we were towed into Blairmore in under an hour. By chance, we had arranged to stay in Blairmore two nights and seeing as the finish is here tomorrow, losing the car to repair should not put too much of a crimp in the overall plan. Trevor’s parents will drive us to the start tomorrow and we hope that by then end of tomorrow we will have the van back.

Tomorrow may be the toughest day of the week as we crest the Continental Divide riding over Racehorse Pass. The mileage is high and it end with three vertical walls of 200m plus before descending into Blairmore.