BC Bike Race Summary

We are back in Calgary -- we are a little sore and mending the bumps, bruises, cuts and minor infections that developed over the last 7 days of riding. Thank you to all of you for your emails, phone calls and in-person appearances @ the race for encouragement!!

Here's a few reflections from the 2008 BC Bike Race:

FACTS & STATS:

We rode more than 43 hours and 400 kms. The winning team in our category did the entire race in just over 29 hours.

On average, Scott burned an additional 5000 calories each day of riding. His largest calorie burn was on Day 2 when we biked 127km and he burned 8393 additional calories in the +39 heat.

We routinely saw 20% to 30% grades on the climbs. The steepest grade was 50% during a hike-a-bike portion of the trail!

WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE FOR TRAINING:

Our cardio was there to help us do the race. Our legs recovered better than we thought. But the problem for us is pace and technical skill. The single track was amazing, but very, very technical - loose rocky descents, tight turns and roots everywhere -- true BC fashion. Due to the weather, we didn't ride trails as much as we'd like to build those skills. And we'd have to train to increase our pace -- we could always get to each point, but being faster would allow us to meet all cutoffs, be on our bikes less and, thus, allow for more recovery.

OVERALL REFLECTIONS:

We are truly amazed by experience -- in awe of the trails we experienced, how we pushed each other beyond our limits and how difficult the race was.

We didn't have any flat tires for the entire race! And overall, the bikes were in excellent condition (Katie's bent rear rotor on day 1 in 15km was the only major mechanical - and her legs suffered dearly, as the tire wouldn't spin freely!)

Thankful for no major injuries and just happy to have experienced this epic ride together!

We are going to do NOTHING for the next 7 days -- except eat, watch the 2008 Tour de France and oh ya, back to work! We don't plan to touch our mountain bikes for several weeks -- although we do have a few favorite trails we are eager to ride now that we have good weather. After our week off, we'll start commuting to work again on our road bikes. And we have a few other bike accomplishments to try and check off our list to take advantage of our level of fitness -- one of the coolest will be to do the Highline 100 (One Day Century of 100 MILES on our Road Bikes!)

Here's a few photos of some of the challenges on the trails...

Here we are on Day 1 before racing -- ah, smiling and fresh! And here's all the great swag we got from the race -- the Dakine bags are wicked and the keep-sake handle bar, sunglasses, jersey, t-shirt and socks will be great reminders of our amazing experience!