I had no internet out in the boonies so I wrote it all down. Here's Day 1:
We pulled into Panorama Saturday afternoon in "The Bus", Dad's amazing motorhome which would be my house on wheels for the next week.
We got a nice quiet spot near the ski hill. Some rent-a-cop threatened to evict all of us as the lot was for "day guest use". I think he figured there wouldn't be a huge influx of people after 7pm on a Saturday so he relented and let us stay. I slept ok, a little nervous. I've never tried something like this before.
Day 1: Panorama to K2 Ranch 52.3km 2478 metres of climbing
Holy shit, that was a long ride. I've never been in a group of riders this large. 500 + riders left Panorama mountain village at 11am for a nasty climb to the top of the ski hill. It was overcast and cool, good for a climb. My gimpy knee was not going to like it. It took 2 whole hours to get up there, I don't do well when there's little warm up before this much climbing. Then came the nastiest hike a bike I've ever done. Then it started to snow. Me, being the smart guy that I am, have no jacket. Way to go, dummy. We then got a nice technical downhill section. Well, it really would have been more fun if there weren't so many bottlenecks. A lot of endurance type riders seem to have limited skills on technical terrain. Actually, it was probably more because of the congestion. Maybe I need to get my ass to be faster so I don't have to worry abut that sort of thing. I wiped out hard twice after people just stopped in very inappropriate parts of the trail.
We hit a long fireroad descent towards K2 ranch. I of course didn't check my tire pressure. Pinch flat. Great. Niall, my Transrockies partner, kicks serious ass in fast tire changes and we're off rather quickly. 6 hours and 26 minutes later, in a slight drizzle, I finish one of my slowest ever 55km rides. And tomorrow's climbing is even tougher. Great.
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