It has been a pretty wild past ten days with a horrific wildfire devastating my hometown of Jasper, hosting the Rockies 24 in Canmore, then figuring out a plan until the evacuation order is lifted from Jasper. Thankfully my buddy was able to snag my passport during the initial evacuation orders, which opened up the door to head south of the border for an Evac road trip and some racing.
Having to make do with whatever I packed for the Rockies 24 weekend meant the old 2000 GMC Sierra 4x4 was getting an unexpected 2200 km road trip to Colorado. The AC had been broken for a while, I managed to fix it the day before leaving but unfortunately it only lasted the first seven hours of the 23 hour road trip. The first stop was Missoula to pickup Usha Khanal who had flown in from Nepal to race the Breck Epic. It was then onwards to Wyoming/Idaho to visit our friend Kait Boyle, and race the NUE (National Ultra Endurance Series) Pierres Hole 100k.
The race made a great pit stop to break up the drive as well as inject some altitude into the system with the event taking place at 2500-3000 meters. The race itself took place on a 50 km lap, which was 95 % flowing singletrack through the lush alpine meadows of the Grand Targhee Ski Resort. The impressive Teton mountains were the backdrop, which made for a nice setting to race our bikes.
We camped on site the night before to make the 7am start a little easier. Having to take a second dump at 6:50 am meant I was on the edge of missing the start so I went blasting across one of the ski resort parking lots. A worker yelled, "Look out for the ropes!" As I looked back to see what he was talking about, my bike hit an invisible yellow rope strung up 100 yards across the parking lot and made a slingshot as my bike and I hit it going from 35 km/hr to zero. I had to press hard on the brakes so I didn't get launched back in the opposite direction! This made for a great adrenaline rush to get my body primed for the 100 km to come!
Hitting the start line just in time, the body unfortunately struggled right from the gun, not sure if it was from getting dehydrated driving the truck without AC for a day and a half in 30-35 degree weather, or the altitude, but it took a lot of mental strength to push the diesel into race pace. Even though the body was a bit off I was still pretty confident I had the legs to take it to the field of marathon racers so attacked half way up the first climb. I was hoping the attack would help shift the engine into race mode but it continued to sputter a bit and a few riders would soon link back up for the rest of the first lap.
Heading into the second lap I again attacked up the climb, getting a solid three minute gap which should of allowed for a pretty nice cruise for the rest of the lap as the course was full of cornering which meant it was really hard to make up anytime. Basically the harder you went the more you had to brake. Unfortunately mid way through the lap the rear tire sprung a slow leak which required a two minute stop in the feed zone to fix. From here Evan Plews nearly caught up, meaning a tough last 25 km to hold him off while the tire continued to slowly lose air. Thankfully it held just enough air to get myself across the line in five hours and 23 minutes, just over a minute up on 2nd place. Other than the slow leak the Hei Hei ran flawlessly with the full Shimano setup and Nobl wheels. It was nice to chalk up a win mid road trip as well as solid training day for the engine before Colorado. Getting a bit of gas money at the awards was a bonus! Next up was a high altitude training day around Victor Idaho before continuing the road trip south taking as many backroads as possible to keep the speed down and the windows open to cool the truck cab.
The highlight was the campsite in Iron Springs Canyon in NW Colorado as well as the dirt roads through this part of the state. Now in the high altitude (2950m) of Breckenridge we are busy acclimatizing and preparing for the Breck Epic which starts on Sunday!
Over and Out from Colorado.
