BIKEMONKEY

Today’s race went from Sneddon’s home town of Sechelt to the Langdale Ferry terminal. Feeling some pretty deep fatigue that kept me from doing any kind of normal warm up. You could tell everyone is a bit knackered from the shelling that has been dished out in huge portions for the past 4 days. Yesterday’s 4-hour race took a toll on a lot of people and today’s neutral start was a welcome respite. The course today reminded me of that old wooden roller-coaster in Santa Cruz. Not really steep, not really dangerous, but good old-fashioned fun. There were a lot of “skinnies,” long six-inch wide boards over the forest floor with chicken wire for traction, and a lot of rough-hewn wooden bridges that rattled when you went over them. After a while you get a feel for the character of the trail and you can start to trust that certain sections initially looking non-ridable are actually ridable. Today’s section in the forest had fast, swoopy hard-pack mixed with slow granny gear uphill technical sections that were riddled with roots. Some parts of the forest were so thick it seemed like nighttime while others were thinned just enough to let eye-glaring bright light sparkle through. The stage today was 50K and took me 3 hours. I followed Ruedi for the first third of it at a nice steady pace and eventually we brought back a bunch of guys that went with the front group. I won my category and gained more time. Rude won and is now second overall in the open category. Sneddy and Wicks won and are within a minute of the overall lead. Getting ready to leave the Sunshine Coast on yet another ferry ride. We are off to Squamish and then Whistler for some seriously technical mountain biking.

Thanks for all your support and for following along.
Rog