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around home, bikes, Canada, event, friends, MTB, snow

Canmore Winter Meltdown Triathlon

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A few weeks ago at work an opportunity to compete (I use that term loosely now) in the Canmore Winter Meltdown Triathlon at the Nordic Center with a couple of workmates.  As Lafarge was one of the main sponsors, we were to get a complimentary entry (“it was for free”); my teammates pulled out a couple of weeks after that so I organised Megan to do the 10 km (skate) ski & talked Anya into running 5 km – I was to ride 10 km on the snow.  With the spring melt progressing quite well over the last couple of weeks I was worried that the course might be very slushy (judging by last year’s photos there wasn’t much snow off trail).  How wrong we were, a big storm blew in Friday night & when we got up on Saturday morning there was a good 15-20 cm of snow everywhere.  At least it was around 0ºC.  Here’s a quick outline of our day – we didn’t come close to challenging the leaderboard, as this event is a fundraiser for athletes there were many tip-top athletes in the field (i.e. most of the entrants).  Oh, & while we were doing the triathlon as a team Alex somewhat crazily/gamely took on the event by himself.

Me & Anya doing some good Lafarge stretches – Greg standing by bemused.

Finn’s Minions trying to look worried by all the snow.

Megan & Alex before the start – which was delayed (very casual event), I assume for the snow.

Most of the field setting off.

Kristy did a great job of looking after our evil overlord/mascot, Finn

Megan heading out for her second lap – skiing was OK apparently (at least it wasn’t concrete-ice), apart from trying to pass when one had to go wide into the deep snow.

That’s me heading out on the bike – the first lap was the hardest five kilometres I’ve done in a long time (not helped by it being only 5 km I’ve done in anger for over four months).  The snow was deep & rutted out – which meant that any time you hit a strange line you were suddenly going a different direction.

Alex finishing his ski leg before heading out on the bike.

Heading out on my second lap – yes, I look like a midget.  Megan lent me her new 29er & I had the seat low as I knew I would be dabbing (putting my foot down) a lot.  The wheels were great, the Crossmarks (tyres) not excellent for drive.  The second lap was easier as a racing line had developed in some places & in others I’d learnt that the 29er was great for hitting the side of the trail & the fresh snow.

Anya heading out on the run.

Anya heading for the finish line – while the snow continues to fall, it must be warm as she’s ditched the hat.

Alex heading for the finish.

And across the line (said in a good Clarkson voice).

Our star skier receiving the post-race debrief from our coach/mascot/overlord.

I think we are celebrating the fact that we survived the snow.  Worth celebrating too, a fun morning & we scored some Icebreaker spot prizes.

An indication of just how much snow there was to compete with – my car was cleared before the race & this was about four hours later.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty relaxing with a late lunch, a trip to the Hot Springs in Banff to soak & a great big Irish stew that Megan cooked up accompanied by wine, lemon meringue pie & games. (Thanks to Megan & Kristy for some of the photos.)

around home, Canada, friends, snow

Warrior Mountain & Aster Lake

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It was just as well I didn’t ski on Saturday & instead spent much of it sitting in the back of a car – Alex hatched a dastardly plan to get up at 5.30 Sunday & see if we could get up on to Warrior Mountain (which is on the BC/Alberta border south-west of Upper Kananaskis Lake).  We had left the parking lot on the south-east of the lake by 7.45 & spent seventy minutes skinning across the lake.  The day was very still & it didn’t feel all that cold, maybe about -5ºC.  I was quite surprised to find that my light gloves weren’t cutting it, my eyelashes were starting to freeze together & others’ beards freezing up with moist breath – it was almost -20ºC.  The mist over the edges of the lake was interesting.

From the lake we climbed up to the much smaller Hidden Lake, across that one & up through some evil trees (avoiding the easier drainage so as not to be in slide paths).  (Here’s a map of the area, the marker is where we got to before turning around.)  The trees were dense & the terrain steep, it wasn’t long before I was about at my limit of what I could make it up & still turn 135º for the many switchbacks.

Joel & Lincoln doing a good job of not falling off this tree

Eventually, it all opened up a bit & flattened out, however by lunchtime I was pretty much exhausted.  Still the views were fantastic & go a little way to making up for the rest of the day.

Mt Marlborough

After lunch we continued around & up a little to Aster Lake, at the foot of Warrior Mountain – but it was too late to go any further.

Mt Lyautey – or at least a spur off it

Mt Sarrail

Looking back towards Upper Kananaskis Lake

Aster Lake, Warrior Mountain

Start of the drainage from Aster Lake

We turned around at two o’clock & had to skin down & around & up for about an hour before we got to the top of the thick woods.  After a delay for various telemark binding mechanical issues we started skiing down.  As I feared on the way up, there were too many big trees, I was too tired & it was too steep to be any fun at all.  After a few little falls, I was survival skiing – unable to string consecutive turns together & side-slipping a lot.  The trees thinned out a bit & then got really thick just above Hidden Lake.  I was getting slower & slower by the time we were heading back across the (Upper Kananaskis) lake (no skins this time, much less friction skating across).  Eventually we were back at the parking lot close to twelve hours after we first go there – I was spent.  It turns out I have triceps somewhere (who’d have thought?), all that pushing on poles across the lake back really had them quite sore.

Here are a few of Alex’s photos, best to show some of these as the scenery was the only highlight of the day – two hours of skiing downhill (which I mostly hated) out of almost twelve is just miserable.  I can’t wait to be back on the bike, where at least you get a break on the rolling terrain.

Into the trees of misery, from Hidden Lake

Although the trees were the source of many problems, some times they could be advantageous around tight turns

Trying to pretend I’m enjoying myself

Now that I’m the slow one, there sure are a lot more photos of me – I do like this one

I was impressed Alex didn’t fall in the melt for this picture, although Warrior does look smaller

On the way back down

Canada, friends, history, snow

Dinosaurs & Badlands

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Over many homemade pizzas & another hilarious instalment of the name-game Friday night, the plan for five of us to drive a few hours east on Saturday to visit Drumheller & the Royal Tyrrell Museum was finalised.  I was a little sceptical of spending six hours of my weekend sitting in a car while I could be skiing, but with some rave reviews I decided it was worth it – plus this would be the furtherest east in Canada I was likely to go in the foreseeable future.  Past Calgary on Saturday morning & into the prairies, things got very flat – as one would expect.  It was just as white as I have gotten used to over the last five months (it’s been a long winter).

First stop was Drumheller itself, which definitely playing up to all the dinosaur hype – which is fair enough, I couldn’t really ascertain what else was going for it.  We got a few pictures on the feet of the “World’s Largest Dinosaur”, but it is so big that you can’t really see us – so here’s another one.

It’s definitely more intimidating than a large kiwifruit (& the assortment of other large fruit around New Zealand).  There were brightly coloured, albeit smaller, dinosaurs all around town – we wandered around a little for the hell of it.

We spent a good couple of hours wandering the museum (+ lunch).  I’ve never been much into dinosaurs, but it was pretty interesting – the first exhibit detailing the biggest finds palaeontological finds around Alberta was the best presented.  There were numerous stories of how people had just stumbled upon what would be come great discoveries – the best was the two high school kids who were out fishing & found a T-Rex.  By the end there was definite overload of big words, different periods in prehistory & too many dinosaurs with horns – like this guy.

Leaving the museum (worth the trip, if that wasn’t apparent) we went for a little exploration around part of the Canadian Badlands.  It was really quite strange being in a landscape so different to the Rockies – the softer sedimentary rock has been worn away to leave it looking like this.

With the decidedly overcast day & the snow cover it was eerie.   In amongst napping in the car (which was a whole lot quieter on the return trip) we arrived in Calgary to stop at Peter’s Drive-In – a Calgary institution I’ve been hearing about for quite some time now.  The burger was good & the milkshake even better.  I had blackberry-butterscotch, probably one of the more conservative of combinations of thirty flavours.  Apparently, thirty flavours gives over 4500 possible combinations (a maximum of three flavours in one shake) – so geeks that we are (at least some of us) had to go back to high school maths & a basic iPhone calculator & work out if that was true.  4525 – but how many of those combinations you would actually like to try, I am unsure.

bikes, Canada, friends, MTB

Dreaming of bikes & biking

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The final happening on the Main St of snow Monday last week was that it was open to mountain-bikers from four until six o’clock.  Not wanting to pass up what will probably be my only opportunity ever to MTB on a groomed & track-set main street, I dragged my bike out of the garage to go & meet Alex & Megan.  They weren’t home when I got there, but it wasn’t long before they arrived with Megan in possession of a brand new Giant Anthem & a rather large smile.  After quite a few days of (one of) the local bike shops promising to build it up & then failing to, it seemed that finally got around to keeping their word (which rather seems strange business conduct – are they so confident that no-one can be bothered driving to Calgary to drop thousands of dollars on a bike that they can continually disappoint & frustrate potential customers?).

We set off for the snow street, some of us avoiding the large slush puddles (not me) on the way.  Biking on the snow was OK in places, & just hard work in others.  Last year’s shredded tyres were not really helping (especially for propulsion).  Alex must have been working pretty hard, because he got about one block down (out of two) before snapping his chain.  So a quick trip home & Megan was persuaded to christen her new bike (the snow was hardly likely to get the frame very dirty).  Meanwhile, I was enjoying being on the bike in the warmth & being completely in control half of the time.  Around juggling Finn, I had a little go on the new steed.  Being a 29er (that is, before you ask Mum, it has 29″ wheels rather 26″) it soaked up the bumps in the snow & with more rubber in contact was able to get noticeably more traction.  I think that was my first 29er experience & it was pretty neat – but being on a brand new bike is always nice, down to the lack of sloppiness in the SPD cleats.

Alex must have also been impressed as a chunk of the rest of the week was spent discussing the merits of various other 29ers & which one he should get.  It turns out he’s put a deposit on one of these Specialized Cambers – yet another 29er.  All this new bike buying action & too much time on the internets, really had me considering which bike I should be buying soon.  I’d have to ride a 29er a bit more on a variety of singletrack before I could go for one – at this stage I can’t get over the clown wheel factor; I also envisage them being more difficult for plane & car travel (biking & travelling being my two greatest loves), which is enough to put me off for now.  Still, it’s not like there are no normal bikes out there & I found a few I quite liked.  But in the end, my bike is functioning (well will be soon, more of that later) & with more travelling coming up, $3000 could be much better used some other way.  I’ll just have to console myself with some smaller toys so I don’t feel left out.

With a bit of prodding from the snowmelt & Megan, I’ve started working on the winter clean & overhaul of my bike.  For some months now a box has been sitting in the garage with a new drivetrain, tyres & a myriad of other little parts in it waiting for the garage to warm up enough to be tolerable to work in.  So I’ve pulled pretty much everything off my bike & stripped the parts back as much as practical to give everything a really good clean & grease (well, those bits that need greasing).  That’s taken a good few evenings – probably five to six hours in total.  In case anyone is wondering, these are the parts that make up my bike (& the tools required to disassemble & hopefully reassemble it).  Yes, there is one obvious missing part – I could say I left it out on purpose as a test, but really I put it on top of the fridge behind me & forgot about it.  Who can pick it?

I’m still trying to figure out where I picked up the knowledge to do this, not being mechanically inclined.  Still, as I’m often reminded I’ve always had a tendency to pull things apart.  I suppose the test is seeing if I have a bike I can ride when I’ve finished with it all.

The weekend was filled with skiing, yet again.  Saturday was a pretty chilled day at Sunshine with Kristy (who had just got a new touring set-up – skis, boots & bindings).  I was still working on my turns after last week’s lesson & strangely spent all day looking for moguls.  I was impressed at how Kristy’s skiing has come on since I last skied with her – perhaps she shouldn’t have followed me off a jump & twinged her knee, but the small amounts of powder were quite enjoyable.  Following the knee incident, we had an early lunch & I skied by myself for a couple of hours before we left around two.  We had a great games night & much hilarity later on that evening – the boys just took out Pictionary (blast from the past) & the descriptive/one-word/charades game was a winner.

After weeks of talking about it, I finally had a day at Sunshine with my boss/colleague/friend, Viviane & her fiancee, Alex.  The periphery of a big storm coming up from Montana & moving across the prairies had given us some snow in town & on the road all the way up.  Unsurprisingly, there was a big wreck on the highway & about a twenty-five minute delay.  Once we got there, we had a fantastic day.  There was around 5 cm of fresh snow, it was warm, visibility was good & there were very few people around (for a weekend).  Viviane is a much better & more experienced skier than I am & it was great skiing with her & Alex.  I still find I’m bracing my right leg a bit too much coming out of turns (turning right & keeping my left leg bent is no problem), so there is still plenty to work on.  I think this post is plenty long enough so I’ll just say (so I can go & finish my book) that the conditions were the best I’ve had since I dislocated my shoulder at the end of January & combined with that & my improved skiing, it was the best day I’ve had on the snow.