Well hockey was cancelled tonight due to a booking issue with the ice. As cranky as that makes me at least I have a little extra time to whip off a blog post about the weekend.
Knowing the Bow 80 wasn't going to run this year due to issues still being dealt with from the flood, I figured I should add another race to the docket. I'd heard about Six in the Stix from Christine last year and looked it up. 6 hour relay in Cranbrook! I'm in! I thought it'd be more fun to do it with a friend and since Lauren and I had our Giver8er shortened from the deluge in May, we thought we'd take on another relay together. Yay!
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| Road home Sunday |
Saturday we packed Sante and the bikes into the Rav and headed to Cranbrook. We did contemplate blowing it off and staying put since the forecast at home was for pristine September riding weather and the forecast for Cranbrook was, well, sketchy. But we made the last minute decision to head out and I'm glad we did. The drive down through the Crowsnest Pass, in good weather, always makes me smile at the Alberta landscape with the rolling ranch fields back-dropped by the formidable Rockies. So awesome. We had some excellent views both there and back.
Arriving in Cranbrook mid-afternoon, we went straight to Favorit Cycles to get our grab bags and directions to the course. Then we hit the trail with Sante. A nice cool sunny afternoon ride with the long-legged happy bike dog. The 12 km course had some high fun-factor. It started out pretty easy (which had Lauren contemplating a full suspension lockout and 50psi tire pressure) until you started the persistent climb, which, when finished rewarded us with a 4 km descent. Some techy fun stuff to start then full on swoopy sweepy fun without much brake action required all the way to the finish. Nice!
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| Hot Shots for Thai Food |
Pre-ride done, we checked into our awesome room at Elizabeth Lake Lodge and made some dinner reservations at Hot Shots, which was recommended by our hotel guy for having the best authentic Thai food around. Reservations for 10 please! Gloria and Jeremy were meeting us as well as Christine and her race girl crew from Crowsnest Pass. The food held up to its reputation! Yum!
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| Hotel dog! |
Next morning it was race time! So, of course, it was raining. Not too hard, but enough to make the morning chill even chillier. We set the event tent up over top of the back of the Rav so Sante could hang out in the back with the hatch open and we'd have some shelter from the rain. Then Lauren was off to the start line! When she met me for the tag-up in the chute an hour later she reported it was a little slick out there.
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| Start announcements. |
Yep! Rain and rocks makes rock snot. I'm not sure if that's what gave me issue at the summit or if I just made a mistake, but I had some trouble maneuvering through some tight slabs of rock and had a slow speed fall. I fell to my left. I don't think I got a foot unclipped in time and that's why I hit the ground with both palms out. My knee and thigh hit rock and bike at the same time. Dude stationed up there got an ear-ful of F-Bombs while I rode the pain wave for a good 90 seconds crouched on the ground. Then I checked the bike. All systems go.
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| My finish! |
So off I went to tackle the descent. Only my hands were in so much pain I had a hard time gripping the handlebars for a while and it really hurt to shift into my middle ring. No further incidents though. The rocks were slick for sure but I rode the course and kept things upright. When I got to the bottom and assessed the damage, both my hands were black and blue and swollen. The left one worse. I could brake though, and grip and steer, and left-hand shifting is required less often than right-hand shifting so I figured I could deal with the pain and was good to go. I rotated through the rest of our laps with Lauren, each of us completing 3 at just over an hour each. The final lap was a dry one!
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| A little banged up. |
Turns out we finished 4th out of 9 women's teams. Yay! Pretty happy with that result. Other Spin Sisters with us had even better results. Sarah rode the solo 40+ category and took second place with 6 laps, and Gloria and her husband took 2nd in the mixed category. A great final race of the season for the Spin Sisters race team! We even had Christine in a Spin Sisters jersey for the race. After all, Crowsnest Coffee Company -- of which she's an owner! -- sponsors our team! She placed 2nd in the <40 women's solo category with 7 laps completed! Sweet racing my friends! And despite the shivering and blue lips between laps, a great time all around!
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| Pit station. |
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| Lauren! |
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| Christine! |
.JPG)
