I woke up around 6am and packed up the rest of my gear. Tim had already moved his stuff out of the room so I Tetris’d my bike through the door by my self. It wasn’t an easy task, those entryways in the Banff dorms aren’t built for bringing mountain bikes in and out. I did a final once-over of the room and went to the lobby to check out.
Upstairs I found Tim doing some final adjustments to his bike. Yesterday we said we’d hit up McDonalds for breakfast, since it was about the only place open early in the morning. So we headed over there since it was still about an hour before the Depart. On the way we ran into David, who had just finished putting his bike together. He was on the same flight from San Francisco as me, but somehow the airline had lost his bike. It was finally found last night and David got it around 2am. I’m sure he was extremely tired.
With breakfast done, we walked back to the Y and started waiting. It’s amazing how slowly time seems when you’re nervous and excited. During this wait I started feeling like something I ate last night, really didn’t want to agree with me anymore. I figured it was nerves, and hoping in the back of my mind it wasn’t something more.
Finally, Crazy Larry gave several minutes of something that was a mix of a send-off speech and safety briefing. If anyone doubts it, he really does live up to his nickname. Somewhere in all of this Salsa was handing out top-caps that were good for free pie in Pie Town, NM. I really wanted that pie, but since the race hadn’t even started, I still wasn’t sure if I’d even make it there. There are so many things that could go wrong.
After what seemed like two hours (it was probably close to an hour since breakfast) we finally started getting underway. With a fun group roll-out from the Y, we made our way to the ‘official’ start, the trailhead of the Goat Creek trail just south of the Fairmont hotel. This first section was fresh in my mind, having done it yesterday, and it flew by, or maybe I took it a little fast. It was fun to start the ‘race’ and I wanted to ‘race’! I think the most surprising thing about this first 10 miles, was the number of mechanicals and gear mishaps people had. There were a ton of lost water bottles, a few true mechanicals. I even saw somebody on the side of one of the climbs sawing of part of his rear rack with a leatherman, as it looked like the other side had already sheared off. (This was Jeff Sapp by the way. We’ll meet again down the road.)
The crowd started thinning out, and ended up riding around a few very strong riders (folks who would come in days ahead of me) through the ‘newer’ sections. I hadn’t ridden these sections when Sean and I toured in 2013, so this was all new to me. I was still in it to race, but I started to realize I needed to dial back a little bit.
Eventually we popped out by the dam, and I could see the Smith-Dorian road. I thought, ‘all right time for some gravel riding!’ But, I had forgotten about the single track that runs along the bank of the lake. So now the pack I was riding with has thinned out quite a bit and I’m basically riding alone. I’ve ridden with this GPS for quite a while, but I’ve never had to rely on it for as much navigation as now. I really want to stick to the trail and I don’t want to get DQ’d on day one for skipping something. So I’m on the single track and I’m checking to make sure that I’m on the right trail, because I don’t see anyone else (not that there was any other spur I could have gone down), and of course my front wheel runs up on the trail edge on my left side. I’m not paying enough attention and I over-correct, and then I over-correct again and then I’m on the ground. I hit my right leg hard on a rock in the trail. Immediately I’m worried about the worst. ‘Did I break my leg?’ ‘Do I need stitches?’ ‘Of course this would happen within the first 20 miles.’
I’ve crashed before, and crashed a lot harder, but I can’t just call my wife to come pick me up from the side of the road this time so I’m certainly worried. I check myself and I don’t have any broken bones and the damage doesn’t seem to be too bad to keep me from riding. I’ll need to clean it up for sure, but I figure I can just throw a bandaid on it and keep going. So on I go, a little shaky, but still moving forward.
Eventually the single track ends and I’m on that big dusty Smith-Dorian road. The route leads back to some very fun flow-y single track, but at the next trailhead there’s a pit toilet, and yesterday’s dinner still seems to be disagreeing with me. So I pit-stop for a minute and then try to do a better cleanup of the open wound on my right leg. I realize that the regular bandaids I have in my kit aren’t going to do a great job of keeping the dirt and junk out of my cut, and the small Hydroseal’s I have with me aren’t going to cut it either, but I try anyway.
I really feel like the first 60 miles or so are some of the hardest consecutive sections. There are other difficult sections that stick out in my head, some taking a whole day, but this first section of alternating gravel and single track as the introduction to the route really does seem like a tough one.
I enjoyed the single track, but I didn’t really train on that kind of riding, so it was a lot harder for me than some of the other riders. I ended up falling back in the pack, but I knew that if I was going to make it as far as I wanted to today I’d have to really start pacing myself better.
Once I got back on the main road and I saw the Kananaskis rest area that we camped at on the tour I felt like I was getting a second wind. It was a nice easy paved climb to the Bolton Creek trading post where I stopped and grabbed some food. I saw Steve getting ready to leave as I was just arriving. It was interesting to see how spread out everyone was already in the day.
I wanted to get a hot meal, but didn’t really find anything there. Instead I bought a cold sandwich and a cola and stowed them in my jersey pockets. For lunch I ate the sandwich from yesterday along with a Gatorade. I started to cool off and my stomach was starting to give me some grief again so I put my rain jacket on and headed out again.
Back on the paved road I remembered there was a quick left turn coming up that led up to the power line trail and Elk Pass at the AB BC boarder. (I also remembered there is a pit toilet there which I was in need of.) Pit-stop taken care of I headed back up the trail. This first real pass worried me a little. In 2013 Sean and I had a lot of trouble with this pass, we had some navigation issues (my fault) and a lot of mud to contend with along with a pretty challenging climb, at least it was for us with all of our gear. It seemed like this would be the first real test of my fitness and answer that ‘Can I really do this?’ question that kept echoing in my head. I wouldn’t have to worry though as the trail today was dry and my training and lighter setup paid off. On the way up to the Provence border I ended up riding with Austin from Oklahoma for a while. It was fun to chat with someone while riding, something that I don’t get to do that often.
Over the border into BC the road starts improving and the miles start ticking off faster. I was super pleased that I would easily ride the distance that took two days back in 2013 in under one day. For me there was a lot of enjoyment in re-riding the sections I had seen before. This was a ride that is, for some, a once in a lifetime thing, and I was so happy I got to do it again.
It was still light out when I got to the base of the Koko Claims climb and I was definitely nervous about what was up ahead. There was a group of us that all started in around the same time and yo-yoed each other on the first sections of climbing, the parts that are ridable. I thought that this was a bit too easy from the other reports I’d heard. Somewhere around here we are going to have to start pushing up a wall of rocks. I wouldn’t have to wait long for that. The road goes from ridable, though a bit steep, to a flow of baby heads and larger boulders at an extreme angle. If I didn’t know this was the ‘road’ I would have thought it was just the remnants of an avalanche or a slide. Pictures can’t do it justice. There’s just no way to get a sense of how steep and rough this section is. It is unridable, in part because of how many rocks there are, but also because of the grade of the trail. It is all pushing for a couple of miles.
My standard cadence quickly became walk up two steps brakes on, push the bike up, brakes on, rest, repeat. I had done some hike-a-bike pushing practice, but I didn’t do enough I guess. I was winded at the top of each false summit, of which there are many.
Eventually I made it to the real top of the tough climbs, and I was just exhausted. It was still light out, but there was a warming cabin near the top with a wood fireplace and I was just ready to stop for a little bit, or maybe for the night. The few folks that were up on top around this time were mostly in the same mindset. This was about enough for us tonight. I was solidly in the upper mid-pack, and though I had some daily milage in mind, I figured I could make it up on some days that didn’t involve so much hike-a-bike. I started a fire in the stove in the warming hut and claimed a spot on the floor. I know I could have gone farther but the nice warm hut was just too tempting.
