Wednesday, August 13, 2008

A Post from Ted

Ted’s Blog Update.
So, it’s been three days of racing. I have been meaning to do some blog updates (when we had internet access – we’ve spent two days at Nipika which is an ‘eco-resort’ which means that power comes from solar panels, water is treated from a glacial river that runs next to the property… and there are no phones or cellular access), however our days have been really quite busy. After a day of racing, the first thing I want to do is get into bed – so sorry for not posting before today!
The race ‘courses’ have been… well, interesting. I now have a new appreciation for trail building in Ontario. The course designer is in the forestry industry here, and describes courses better than any sales or marketing executives I know. If you people think I use creative, positive phrases to describe ‘interesting’ or ‘challenging’ situations, then you have no idea. For example, “There’s just a bit of tracking up this part” means bring a rope and climbing gear. “Singletrack” means a goat trail that may or may not be rideable, depending on how much water happens to be running down it at the time. And it’s been a heavy snow year... which means there are rivers running through it.
So, our day has started kind of like this: breakfast at 6am, followed by suiting up and getting ready to race at 8am. Most days, we get in around 5pm. We drop off our bikes for service, get cleaned up, have dinner and watch an awards and slide show presentation, as well as find out what they have in store for us tomorrow.
Because we are just here for the adventure, this means is that we can enjoy the scenery and people that much better. Most of the people we are ‘racing’ with are from places around the world. And BC really is an incredible place. I’ve seen some sights that few people will ever get to enjoy. The most incredible people have truly been our ‘support crew’ of Andrea, Laura and Mark. When we’re either getting ready to head out or truly beat up after a day out on the ‘trails’, they’re always there to cheer us back in to the finish area, take care of us and make sure we have what we need. As well, we secured the services of a local mechanic, Adrian Harding, who has been excellent in undoing the damage that we did to our bikes over the course of the day and make sure they are in top shape for another day of abuse.
Remember to track us on the Breathe Mag web site at www.breathemag.ca/track and you can read the TransRockies version of what has been happening at www.transrockies.com /trc and click on ‘race’. And hopefully I’ll find some time to write something a little more interesting one of these nights. Cheers!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Bud ! So I am totally impressed ! each day I am looking forward to checking in on your progress, I love the Pump and Dump station comments ! Know that we are keeping track !! Karin xo