TransRockies, Day 1

The subtitle of this post is "20 miles of mud-choked smiles." It was a tough day one for TransRockies, especially for those of us competitors who don't really know how to ride a mountain bike. That didn't stop it from being 30 kilometers of giggly fun, but, yes, Keith and I did take four hours and 32 minutes to wrap it up, and yes, if I knew what the conditions were going to be like and I was given the choice of whether to ride my bike or leave the bike at the starting line and run the time trial instead, I would have picked the latter option. I would have definitely moved faster on foot without the slippy wheels/mud-clogged anchor.

This is my partner, Keith, and my friends Sierra and Jenn from Whitehorse, Yukon. Sierra and Jenn are racing in the Women's Open category. Keith and I are in Mixed Open. It rained most of the night and all morning, and by our 11:34 a.m. start time, the trail had been thoroughly soaked and torn to shreds by the nearly 400 competitors who started before us.

These girls started just a few minutes before we did. I like their strategy - if you can't be the fastest, you should be the most stylish.

This guy finished the race before we even started. The look on his face gave us an idea of what we were in for.

The route gained more than 1,600 feet right out of the gate, in less than six kilometers (like how I'm mixing my distance/metric measurements? Expect that from me a lot in TransRockies.) It was a super fun climb; definitely my favorite part of the day, and I'm not joking about that. It was mostly rideable and incredibly scenic, and I have decided that gravity is not my friend. Yes, I would rather just ride uphill and skip the descent. As I said to a guy climbing in front of me earlier today, "I like riding uphill because at least then, I own gravity. Once I turn my wheels downhill, gravity owns me."

A few too many times I shouted to Keith in a rush of glee, "It looks just like Juneau! Oh, Keith, I miss Juneau." (And I promise, this was said without an ounce of sarcasm.)

Another picture from the climb. After "trail amnesia" sets in, I can always tell which parts of the ride I was in a great mood and which parts I was grumpy, because the good-mood stretches are saturated with pictures, and the bad-mood stretches have no visual documentation.

Top of the first climb. Keith endo'd just a few hundred meters down the trail and we both picked our way down after that, mostly on foot. The surface was cheek-clenching steep, covered in sticky mud with veins of wet roots flowing across the width and length of the narrow, switchbacking trail. It was much more technical than anything I have ever attempted to ride, and I wasn't about to start on day one of a seven-day stage race that I'd like to finish.

This was part of a five-kilometer downhill section that we were able to ride. This is only my and Keith's second time riding mountain bikes together, and we found we're both well-suited to each other as partners. Both of us prefer self-preservation to taking big chances for a small boost of overall speed. As he said to me earlier today, "I'm a trail runner, and after this race, you probably will be, too."

About midway through a long, rolling descent called the Coal Discovery Trail, I was pretty much ready to chuck my wheels in the woods. The tires got so clogged with gummy mud that they were worse than slicks, fishtailing down the chewed-peanut-butter trail even when I didn't hit the front brake, and I was side-slipping off the slope on a regular basis. I finally got frustrated enough with it that I announced to Keith I was just going to jog the rest of the way, and I hoped he didn't care. I did jog a good most of it, and my mood improved again pretty quickly. By the time we were freed from our self-renamed "Mud Hell Discovery Trail," I was singing at the top of my lungs, a song that Keith had running through his head all day thanks to our friend Dave and a clever shirt, the "867-5309" song.

Keith and I at the finish line, giving our best defiant sneer to stage one. One of the advantages to not riding much of a 30-kilometer stage is that you don't really get tired at all. I can't even feel it in my legs or head, so I'll chalk this one up as a free day and hope we get a fresh start tomorrow.

This is my kind of bike race

That title is misleading. There's been no bike racing yet. The event actually starts Sunday morning. Keith and I seeded ourselves in the bottom half of the recreational racers, so we begin our 30-kilometer, 1,300-meters-of-climbing time trial in Fernie at 11:15 a.m. After that moment, this week is going to be hard; real hard. I look at the elevation profiles and kinda wish I could just leave my bike at home, because it's going to be a heavy thing to carry. But it will be fun. I'm really looking forward to TransRockies.

Meanwhile, I am already settling into the posh lifestyle of the race. I drove up to Banff on Friday so my car would be near the finish when the race ends. The drive between Missoula and Banff is one of the more spectacularly scenic 400-mile stretches of road I've ever had the privilege to gawk at while creeping in a line of 50 vehicles behind an oblivious 70-year-old driving 35 mph in a red Mustang. I stopped in Kalispell to have lunch with Danni, and borrowed several jerseys from her (including one Good-n-Plenty jersey; not quite as appropriate as Sour Patch Kids, but close.) Ate steelhead and stuffed mushrooms with Keith, Dave W. and Jason the Ski Stop guy in Banff. This morning Keith and I made our way back to Fernie, but not before stopping for four hours at his friend's cabin on a lake in southern British Columbia. We swam and tried out the standing paddle board and went on a boat cruise around the lake amid perfect temperatures and sunlight. It's been a small taste of what it's like to go on a normal vacation; I've almost forgotten. The gorging and relaxation has been short-lived, but appropriately so. I can't wait to start the bike adventure.

Yes, this is going to be quite hard, but don't cry for me. There will be plenty of grilled salmon and massages at the end of the trail.

Dear Canada, fear me again

My TransRockies partner, Keith, and I during our top-secret, race strategy building retreat in Glacier National Park

A couple of years ago, before heading north to Whitehorse, Yukon, to ride solo in a 24-hour race, I wrote a letter to the country at large called "Dear Canada, fear me." Since I seem to attend a summer mountain bike race that begins in Canada at least once a summer, I decided to update it.

Dear Canada,


Jill Homer again. I’m sure you remember me. I’m the 2008 solo women’s winner and current women’s record holder of the 24 Hours of Light. What do you mean you haven’t heard of that race? It’s in Whitehorse. You know, the capital of the Yukon. It’s a burgeoning territory that is home to more than 30,000 Canadians. Yes, I realize that’s a population density of 0.11 people per square mile, but I’ll have you know that the 24 Hours of Light is brutal enough for the masses. Competitors sometimes ride wearing nothing more than fairy wings and tighty whiteys when it’s 33 degrees out, through thigh-deep mud, dodging sheets of lightning and sleet, in June. Teams also used to receive a bonus lap if somebody raced the midnight lap completely naked. I think the prudish ways of the south crept up and the Yukoners did away with that practice, but you get the picture. The 24 Hours of Light is the real deal. And among the at least five women who have raced it in the solo category, I am clearly the best.

Why should you care? Because I am returning once again to race in your beautiful — if gapingly empty — country. You may have heard of this one — TransRockies. I’ve committed to pedaling 400 kilometers of punishing, harshly elevated trails across the Canadian Rockies in seven days of structured stages. They used to bill this stage race as “The Toughest Mountain Bike Race in the World.” That was probably before self-supported endurance racers called them out for serving steak and grilled salmon and offering "relaxation expos" where racers enjoy nightly massages as personal mechanics clean their bicycles. Now TransRockies is just billed as “Canada’s Best Mountain Bike Adventure”

Despite the downgrading of overall hardcoreness, TransRockies will be, by far, the largest race I have ever participated in. There are about 500 people signed up for the partner-team race and its less-social, three-day offshoot, TR3. I’m pretty sure I could count all of the participants in every race I’ve ever competed in — foot, ski and bike — and combine them, and still not net 500 people. Plus, TransRockies has something like $30,000 in prizes. There will probably be pros there! That should make me feel all sorts of intimidated; and I’ll be honest — it does. But I am pushing that sentiment aside, because I’m not coming to Canada to be intimidated by people whose motto for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games was “With Glowing Hearts.” (Seriously? That’s just a sharp jab away from “Wimpy Bleeding Hearts.”) That is become I come from a city whose 2002 Winter Olympic mascots were named “Faster! Higher! Stronger!” (USA! USA!) And that is what I shall be!

What do you mean it doesn’t work like that? My TransRockies partner, Keith (who is Canadian, by the way, so don’t accuse me of being a nationalist), already discussed our strategy in detail during our top secret strategy meeting, strategically held on U.S. soil. “All we need to do,” Keith said, “is go faster than everyone else.” It seemed simple enough to me. I can ignore my pedestrian technical skills, my overwhelmingly relaxed style, my penchant for avoiding pain and crashing, and a summer of training that consisted solely of long slow distance, because all I have to do in TransRockies is go faster than everyone else. All 500 of them. Easy.

Actually, I was hoping Keith would haul me with a tow rope, but he just informed me this is no longer legal in TransRockies. What gives, Canada? When did you start demanding personal accountability and independence? That doesn’t sound like a good socialist strategy at all. Oh yeah, that’s right, you’re not really a socialist country even though Glenn Beck says you are. Whatevs.

Anyway, you’re probably thinking by now that I don’t sound like all that scary of a race threat. That’s because I’m not. I mean, I am the women’s record holder of the Tour Divide, which also, it just so happens, to bill itself as “The Toughest Mountain Bike Race in the World.” But all that makes me good at is turning a half pound of Sour Patch Kids and seven packages of Grandma’s Cookies into 150 miles of race nutrition, and at carrying my bicycle on my shoulder through endless miles of mud (come to think of it, this skill may come in handy in TransRockies.) But the point is, I’m just another ’merican who simply wants to come to Canada to have a great mountain bike adventure and a lot of fun. And as long as I accomplish that, I win.

Sincerely,
Jill, formerly from Juneau, now comfortably settled just below the crushing, terror-inducing terrain of the Canadian Rockies