Richard Paine and Stephen Davies are two middle aged men who are passionate about cycling. They combine busy work and travel schedules with sneaky training sessions. They have previously knocked off a couple of TransAlps and love the adventure of multistage mountain bike races.
Steve lives in Sydney and rides with the Tour de Cure bunch out of Neutral Bay. He is a one trick pony who can’t sprint, can’t time trial and can’t descend.
Richard has no such limitations. Rich lives in Singapore and races with the ANZA Mavericks. He is mining a rich vein of form this year which has seen him win the super masters category in the Singapore Nationals for the TT, the road race and the XC.
Today stage was as I had expected the TransRockies to be when we registered for this legendary event.
We started the day with a 3 hour bus transfer from Fernie BC to North Fork in Alberta. Now we work our way north to Canmore over the spine of the Rockies. This years TransRockies is the first race with a bus transfer. It was a difficult decision for the organisers to use a transfer but rider feedback from last year indicated that contestants wanted more good singletrack and less long fire road transfer stages.
The bus trip was picturesque and after the hammering our bodies took yesterday, Rich and I were happy to sleep on the bus.
We rolled out of a paddock at 12 noon under hot sunny skies. Straight into a steep climb on a gravel road which sorted the field out. Rich and I were happy with the hot weather as we hoped some of the local boys would suffer.
The descent on the gravel road down the other side was not my cup of tea. I hate the feeling of the wheels squirming underneath me. Halfway down the Tinhorn boys rocket past in a train, very impressive.
We then turned off the road into rough forestry tracks and onto the first climb of the day. In true TransRockies style it angled up and up until the entire field was carrying their bikes. I have spent more time in granny gear this week than the rest of the year combined.
As we came over the climb we had the full panorama of the Rockies towering above us. Not a tree in sight just cliffs and peaks.
The next 28km was a gradual downhill on wide bush track made up of clay and sharp rocks. Lots of teams on the side of the trail fixing punctures. At irregular intervals, the trail dived down into creeks on rocky technical trails. There was only one line and to deviate would spell disaster. I had an absolute blast. I followed a local lad and when he slammed on the brakes I did likewise.
Into the one and only checkpoint under threatening skies and up the last climb. Moments later the heavens opened up and hailed on us. This turned into heavy rain. Luckily we only had one downhill to go, the ford across the river and a short blast home.
We arrived in the middle of the rainstorm after a short but an incredible day. We spent the day in the high mountains with spectacular scenery. It felt very wild and uncivilized.
From a competitive point of view today was the day that got away. After such a brutal work out yesterday we were not all that fresh today and faded in the last half. We held onto the Tinhorn boys until 10km from home but they were too strong for us.
10th place but time lost on the teams around us. The next 2 stages are long and tough in poor weather. We will know if we have the legs tomorrow night.