Friday morning I was off down the road atypically early at 7:15. A coffee stop and a pastry in Peachland charged me up to take advantage of my first tailwind of the trip and I really let it fly for the final 40 kms of my trailer-towing tour into Penticton. I found myself running a full bore 25 mph along the shore of lake Okanagan at around 10 am. What a change from the pattern of the last 6 days usually being pleased any time my speed peaked above 25 kph! I locked up the bike and trailer, explored the Ironman expo and had my body fat percentage tested at the Tanita booth. I weighed in at an entire percentage point below where I was only 7 days prior when departing Edmonton 1200 kms ago. Maybe I should write a weight loss book, cut your body fat, eat as much as you can, and ride your bike all day every day. People probably won’t go for it but it works even for the already lean!

After a meeting up with Stefan and Glenn I ditched the trailer into the trunk of the Subaru, content to have towed it to Penticton and not feeling the least bit of desire to ‘finish the ride’ so to say with the extra weight, what’s the point? With what suddenly seemed like a very springy bike I rolled out of Penticton and set off down the beginning of the IM bike course. I rode the first 25 kms of it and scoped out the entire marathon run course as well before calling it a day, dismounting the bike and sitting on my butt in OK Falls for the rest of the afternoon. Our accommodation is a stone throw from the run-turnaround and pretty good, most importantly there’s plenty of TV channels and internet access to keep the athletes entertained and off their feet. Both of them are looking like they’re ready to go on Sunday although Glenn’s road rash isn’t as healed as he’d like it to be by this point. Likely he’ll loose the scab on his arm during the swim on Sunday when it gets soaked, so hopefully it’s not too uncomfortable on the aerobar-pad. It’s not going to slow him down, just make it less pleasant.

I’m riding the Ironman course tomorrow to log a mental image of the entire bike route for a long winter of motivation. I’ll set off early on Saturday to get the ride done under similar ‘morning’ conditions to a potential race day. Hopefully it goes well… then we’ll likely try for an early night because race morning comes super early!

I have to start the story of Thursday on Wednesday night as I was setting up my tent. I started to hear a shrieking coming from up the road. The sound wasn’t entirely pleasant and at first I thought it was a bird. Then the source came a bit closer and it started to get loud, so loud that I couldn’t imagine any bird making the sound, and I then started to get my feathers a bit rustled, is that a cougar I could be hearing? Maybe? I then got myself all rather scared and went and found myself a big stick and leaned it up ready to grab at a moments notice. I heard a story once of a guy who fought off a cougar attack with a big stick, I didn’t really want to be a hero, but given the opportunity I’d rather club a cougar than bleed to death which is how they usually kill their prey, they’re not strong enough to break necks of big mammals like lions or bears…

So I’m in the middle of a debate with myself of whether or not I should crawl into my tent or wait until the screaming which was becoming more and more frequent got close enough to see it’s source. It was starting to get dark by this point, dark enough not to ride with sunglasses on if I’d still been on the road, and therefore dark enough for bed-time. I then heard another rather unfamilar sound coming from behind me, not a terribly aggressive one, but startling enough for me to grab the big stick and whirl around. It was a giant owl (had to be a great horned owl after consulting geobirds.com) perched up in the tree directly behind me, a really giant one, and only 10 meters away. I then dashed into the tent to grab a camera and by the time I got it on I had made too much of a commotion and scared it off into the forest.

Turning around again to another shriek from the other side of the road I could now hear with some ‘direction’ that the sound wasn’t coming from the ground, either this cougar was perched up a tree ready to pounce down and eat me or it was another, much smaller, owl. I Identified the owl pretty quickly in the tree, probably one of those screech owls, and after walking over to it I could tell that it was in the midst of harassing the bigger one which was back on another nearby tree. I was caught in the middle of an owl turf war. Following a few lousy attempts at getting a picture, and then a few unsuccessful attempts at scaring the owl out of the tree and filming it fly around, I put some earplugs in to drown out the screeching and went to bed.

Thursday morning I was on the road by quarter to eight and started out immediately a rather difficult climb up towards the summit of Monashee Pass. The road is only a two lane and there are no shoulders but it was of no issue at all as the traffic was very very minimal. Basically no-one was going my direction and only the occasional truck from DCT, whatever that is, was going the other way. The grade wasn’t terrible but it was a rather relentless climb for the first 20 kilometers of my day, and then all of a sudden I saw a pull-out area for a brake check going the other direction signaling that this was the end of the climb. Another 20 kilometers of relative flat through a valley up top and then I was greeted by the much appreciated sight of a brake check area, this one going in my direction. I checked my brakes, mostly for the fun of it, and then dove off the side of the mountain or so it seemed. The next 20 kilometers blew by in an absolute flash and I was on the outskirts of Cherryville ready to get myself a piece of pie, which I did. The winding and tree lined descent ontinued after my mid-morning break only a while further before the valley floor spread out enough for there to be pastures and hay fields along the way. That also opened things up to the wind and I slowed down from my blistering pace to a much more reasonable one for the roll into Vernon.

Vernon is not a city for cyclists. Neither is the road leading south from it. Seemingly none of the roads I was on catered to the world’s best mode of transportation. I couldn’t help but laugh as I was run off the road by one dumptruck into the sandy shoulder, only to have a fist shaking out of the passenger side window of the following car accompanied by a ‘Get out of my way, roads are for cars’ shouted from it. He couldn’t be serious could he? I was already off of his road. I was lucky though to meet a nice guy on a motorbike, whom I asked how far it was to the Glenmore Road turnoff, and his response was ‘oh about four miles’. When the next traffic light turned out to be Glenmore Road, not 300 yards further up the street, my motorcyclist friend had pulled off to make sure I got the turn correct instead of blowing right through aiming my attention a further 3.5 miles down the street. This world is truly full of all types, thanks for the good ones.

Last time I left off I was aboard the 10am sailing of the Galena Bay Ferry, 40 kilometers into my day. I had hoped to take the day as a relatively easy one and had shopped accordingly, less than normal quantities of simple sugar, the night previous. I was quick to learn upon my disembarking from the ferry that ‘easy day’ can be the plan in your head but the terrain can dictate another story. An 800 meter climb at 10% grade left the ferry dock and similarly crazy rolling hills filled the duration of the next 50 kilometers ride into Nakusp, where I corrected my shopping error by buying a big bag of jelly beans, a coke and milkshake to charge up for the rest of the ride. I was in rough shape upon arrival but after chowing down and sitting under an acorn tree things came around and I felt ready to hop back aboard the bike.

Today was a tough one, and certainly not the break I was hoping for, but I did ride the sugar high south from Nakusp all the way to Fauquier with more determination than the previous 50 kms. Another ferry crossing and I was faced with another killer hill, this hill was anticipated and the worst heat of the afternoon was already fading and so I charged up it without much trouble. I’m camped tonight along the side of a Forestry Service Road about 12 miles up from the ferry. Tomorrow’s ride into Westbank will be longer than I had ‘designed’ that it had to be, mostly because the darkness cut yesterday short after the big climb up Mt. Revelstoke. I figured I’d be a ways further up toward Monashee Pass, the bonus of camping earlier is that at lower altitude it’ll probably be a bit warmer earlier in the morning and I can get going when I wake up instead of hanging out in the tent and waiting for the temperature to rise. It’s not really a big deal to be behind schedule, I’ve got lots of sugar in my supplies now so going a bit faster or with shorter breaks will be alright. I’ll most certainly be skipping the optional detour I had thought of, which was a bike ride up to the summit of Silver-Star ski resort near Vernon. I go to bed tonight with a 5 day mileage record (yesterday was also a 4 day record and the previous day a 3 day record) at 949 kilometers.

I’m currently riding the Shelter Bay to Galena Bay Ferry on Arrow Lake. I made the 10 o’clock sailing which I was gunning for although I didn’t really push the pace this morning during the first 40 kms to do so, I’m still pretty tired from yesterday. My thighs are sore to the touch which is a good sign, it means yesterday was a success!

I rolled out of Golden to partly cloudy skies and calm winds and made my way north before starting the ascent to Rogers Pass. The climb comes in two parts, the first being up to Kinbasket Lake and then there’s a great downhill before entering Glacier National Park at which point the climbing really only gets going with about 12 kms to the summit and it is steep. The sun was out in full force by this point and I was sweating buckets. The arrival at the top is rather misleading from this side, the last tunnel end and there’s an entire mile of flat riding before the actual summit and visitor center. I met up with two students riding coast to coast and they’re into their last couple weeks, they’ve been at it since mid-May!

The descent starts out nice and steep and the pavement is good, I was really aching to have my TT bike here with the good wheels. With a couple similarly equipped guys, huge chainrings and lots of motivation I don’t think it would be completely unreasonable to imagine riding the whole 69 kilometers down to Revelstoke in only an hour. It took me almost two into the wind which was blowing up the valley, slightly disheartening, although I did clock a new top speed with the trailer of 69.4 kph.

Before rolling into the town of Revelstoke I decided I’d have a shot at riding up to the top of the mountain. The Meadows in the Sky Parkway runs 26 kilometers at I’d guess somewhere between 6-10% grade to the peak of Mt Revelstoke. I left the trailer at the warden’s gate and set off up the hill starting my climb with 6 hours and 153 km under my belt. There’s a bike race up this road in September with the record rumoured to be around an hour. I figured one and a half would be a pretty good goal but that eluded me on the day. It was a great climb with lots of switchbacks and the trees growing right up to the side of the road, keeping the breeze calm and giving a bit of shade. The last kilometer is not open to the public to drive and with good reason, it’s crazy steep and the switchbacks are so tight that if you wanted you could get your vehicle onto three wheels. Myself, I kept it on two and reached the summit to no shouts or cheers, just silence. I stumbled off the bike and sat myself down propped up against a retaining wall and just sat. I could feel my pulse basically everywhere in my whole body, arms, legs, feet, hands, head and chest; a marking of success?

The cruise down was downright bone chilling even with the temperature of probably 10-15 degrees. I had a touque and armwarmers and even stuffed the extra bits of stuff from my handlebar bag down the front of my shirt for insulation. Ride time down was only 36 minutes and I felt like I took it at a very cautious pace. After re-hooking the trailer, a grocery stop in Revelstoke, and some Greek food for dinner I set out to the south looking for a campsite. I did a rather large climb and then just as I was beginning the descent I decided it was probably getting too dark to ride with sunglasses which is a good indication that it’s probably too dark to be riding without my lights on, and plenty dark enough to call it a day. I pulled off at a rest area only 500m after I arrived at this decision and was luckily greeted with a sign that said the provincial rec area was open for use up to 14 consecutive nights as long as I didn’t build any permanent structures. Next bike trip to BC I will be leaving home with a list of all such designated areas, this one was great.

I awoke to some really chilly temperatures so rolled over and stayed in my tent until 8am. I’m trading off both some pros and cons of the SeatoSea tour, I can sleep in as late as I’d like but I can’t escape camping next to train tracks. That’s what I’ll be dealing with tonight in the Golden municipal campground. I am not very pleased with the place at the moment, absolutely full of mosquitoes and a rather unpleasant lady running the show here. I’ll be off early tomorrow and spotted a bakery in town I’m going to try so don’t need to spend any more time next to the tracks than is necessary.

Today’s ride started out into a headwind for the first 10 kilometers that was surprisingly strong for 8:30 am. It came from the side as I made my way towards Bow Pass and even with my double chainring and all the weight of the trailer I had no trouble getting up the hill, the steep section actually seemed shorter than when I rode it back in July, Probably because that day it came after 180 kilometers of riding already in the bag. I rode up to the Peyto Lake lookout, which definitely has some steep sections, and the view was pretty darn good. It made me kinda sick to see some high rollers in their rental BMWs and Lexis (how in the world do you pluralize lexus?) driving up to the handicap parking lot to save 800 meters of walking in their golf sweaters and black leather shoes to the lookout while I chugged up with pedal power.

The cruise down from the summit towards Lake Louise was exhilarating although the wind was picking up and I didn’t make terribly good time. That would continue to be the story of the day on the roll down to field and onward to Golden. I hit a top speed of 40 kph on the kickingh Horse pass which runs 8% grade, the wind was amazingly strong. The guys going the other way up the hill probably couldn’t believe their luck, it would be one nasty hill otherwise. I got to ride through the construction zone between Field and Golden on the shoulder while alternating traffic was going the other way meaning that when I got to the other side I had three lanes all to myself. Unfortunately the big traffic backlog caught me just before i got to go cruising down the 10 mile hill over the HUGE new bridge. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. The wind was less in the canyon and I think I set a new top speed with a trailer at about 57 kph. I’m using a 13 dollar speedometer on this bike which doesn’t record top speeds but that’s just fine for 13 bucks, so far I’m really happy with it, it doesn’t ever screw up which is more maddening than missing some bells and whistles.

Today’s ride was a bit over 170 by the time I was done, I elected to skip the detour up to Emerald lake like I mentioned because I didn’t want to get stuck behind the construction which was scheduled to close for an hour to do some blasting and if I made the detour it would be a real rush to make it or I’d have to wait. If I’m feeling good tomorrow I’ll detour up to Mt Revelstoke which’ll be a serious climb, if I have to do the headwind game for the fourth day in a row I’ll be happy to skip that as well.

On another note I counted clouds today and the grand total was one, it was a cloud of smoke from a prescribed burn. Totally blue skies! and I’m a bit red as a result even though I had the lotion on. I sunburnt my bottom lip which is unfortunate but I can probably deal with it, my mouth hangs open most of the day every day anyways.

Saturday’s ride started out very slowly, I loaded up my bike and proceeded out of town via my ‘quick route’. It turns out that this is only a quick route because the timing of the lights works out perfectly at about 35-40 kph if I’m riding a racing bike, not when you’re doing 25 and making very slow accelerations with a hefty trailer. Yes, the trailer is rather hefty or at least it was when I set out. I had a bunch of fruits and vegetables that needed to be eaten before I returned so I loaded them aboard at the last second, at least another 4 lbs. Most of it is already eaten though so I’m only carrying relatively ‘light’ calories from here on out; avocados, cucumbers and apples no more. Every pound makes a difference, and I could definitely tell towards the end of the day that my trailer was getting lighter.

Today’s route was pancake flat for the first 90 kms at which point the rolling hills grew and grew to the point that there were sustained climbs in some of my easiest gears for 20 minutes before I reached Rocky. The wind didn’t co-operate with me, but it wasn’t an unbearable affliction either, a three-quarter headwind seemed to be the prescription regardless of the way I turned. My last 2 kilometer roll down the hill to the riverbank of the North Saskatchewan (where I am camped this evening) had a fantastic tailwind and I debated briefly the merits of continuing along for another hour to take advantage of it. Not knowing of any water sources I could count on, liking the idea of free camping instead of paying, and being rather tuckered out already I called it quits at 219 kilometers, 9 hours of riding into my day.

I can certainly tell that I am in need of a vacation, my mind was racing like a runaway locomotive all morning. The brain started to slow down in the afternoon when I got nice and tired climbing hill after hill after hill, maybe I was getting tired or maybe it is a sign that I am eventually going to get some peace of mind this week. Part of me insists that I keep the brain cruising this week while I ride and sort out all sorts of thoughts and ideas and plans. The other part of me wants to just look around, turn the pedals and take a break from all-day every-day busyness. I think I’ll try to go for option two and if I’m lucky maybe that will be the key to reigning in all the other stressful bits and dealing with them too.

It’s a good thing the afternoon improved. I woke up to the sound of wind rustling the leaves of the trees around me and was on the road a hair before 8am. Climbing out of the river valley it became immediately apparent that the wind was from the west, and would be head on for most of the day. I did my best to keep trucking along but had a tough time feeling like I had any energy, it was chilly and I didn’t really want to eat so I was trying to force-feed myself bits of everything that I was carrying, nothing seemed appetizing. After a long three hours of climbing towards the summit (not a pass, just a high point with a few radio towers on it) I decided I needed to hop off the bike. A nice sit down on the warm pavement did wonders for getting rid of the chills and I was able to eat quite a bit. The next hour cruising generally downhill to Nordegg seemed to fly by and I stopped in at a cafe for a snack and to refill my water.

Setting out from Nordegg the rolling hills continued to the edge of Abraham Lake and I felt pretty good, cruising up above 50 kph a few times with the trailer, 70 kph doesn’t even seem fast on my other bikes anymore but 55 with a trailer loaded down with gear is a big rush. The valley narrows where the lake begins and the wind-speed consequently picked it up a few notches. I found myself in my easiest gear pedalling downhill at windy-point. I have no chance to make it up Bow Pass tomorrow if I have to deal with something like that. The rest of the cruise along the lake went a bit better and I pulled in to the two o’clock creek campground to cook up some supper where I had access to a picnic table. Following dinner of cous-cous and herring I plugged away into the headwind for another hour, once again finding myself in my easiest gear going down a hill at whirlpool point. There has been prescribed burning happening in this valley, probably to combat the pine beetle, so I continued on until I could find some non-charred soil on which I could pitch my tent. I think I’m between 10 and 15 kms of Saskatchewan river crossing, so hopefully less that three hours from the top of Bow Pass. I’ve got a relatively longer day tomorrow, especially if I detour to Emerald Lake, but the tough part is at the start, hopefully all is well and I get my legs feeling alright a bit sooner than today.

Saturday’s ride started out very slowly, I loaded up my bike and proceeded out of town via my ‘quick route’. It turns out that this is only a quick route because the timing of the lights works out perfectly at about 35-40 kph if I’m riding a racing bike, not when you’re doing 25 and making very slow accelerations with a hefty trailer. Yes, the trailer is rather hefty or at least it was when I set out. I had a bunch of fruits and vegetables that needed to be eaten before I returned so I loaded them aboard at the last second, at least another 4 lbs. Most of it is already eaten though so I’m only carrying relatively ‘light’ calories from here on out; avocados, cucumbers and apples no more. Every pound makes a difference, and I could definitely tell towards the end of the day that my trailer was getting lighter.

Today’s route was pancake flat for the first 90 kms at which point the rolling hills grew and grew to the point that there were sustained climbs in some of my easiest gears for 20 minutes before I reached Rocky. The wind didn’t co-operate with me, but it wasn’t an unbearable affliction either, a three-quarter headwind seemed to be the prescription regardless of the way I turned. My last 2 kilometer roll down the hill to the riverbank of the North Saskatchewan (where I am camped this evening) had a fantastic tailwind and I debated briefly the merits of continuing along for another hour to take advantage of it. Not knowing of any water sources I could count on, liking the idea of free camping instead of paying, and being rather tuckered out already I called it quits at 219 kilometers, 9 hours of riding into my day.

I can certainly tell that I am in need of a vacation, my mind was racing like a runaway locomotive all morning. The brain started to slow down in the afternoon when I got nice and tired climbing hill after hill after hill, maybe I was getting tired or maybe it is a sign that I am eventually going to get some peace of mind this week. Part of me insists that I keep the brain cruising this week while I ride and sort out all sorts of thoughts and ideas and plans. The other part of me wants to just look around, turn the pedals and take a break from all-day every-day busyness. I think I’ll try to go for option two and if I’m lucky maybe that will be the key to reigning in all the other stressful bits and dealing with them too.

Today kicks off Epic-Adventure-2009 part three. [Part 1 link] [Part 2 link]. My third and (likely) final bike ride through the Rockies for 2009 is going to be the longest and potentially most exciting yet. It’s also likely to be the slowest, but that is with reason, I’m towing a trailer with camping gear. The planned route will cover more than 1100 kilometers in the span of 7 days and take me from Edmonton to Penticton. Penticton is the destination not because the beaches will be swarming with beautiful women or because the local wine is the best in the country, but because it’s the home of Ironman Canada. I have three friends racing there this year and want to go and cheer them on, but I also intend on signing up to compete in the Superbowl of Canadian Triathlon in 2010. Making the trek out to Penticton is a requisite step in preparation for that, signing up can only be done on site.

Saturday’s route takes me south out of Edmonton along familiar roads for the first 50 kilometers to Calmar. I’ll be sure to stop in at the Bakery for some walnut donuts and then I’ll continue on towards Drayton Valley before turning south on Highway 22 towards Rocky Mtn House. The ride will cover in excess of 220 kilometers and I have plans to potentially camp at Twin Lakes near Rocky Mountain House. The second half of the route includes some serious hills, nothing long but rolling terrain with a trailer can be an emotional rollercoaster in addition to the physical one. Day two will take me through the foothills and into the Rockies, I’ll hopefully update my webpage periodically this week with stories from the road. I also plan to actually take more than two photos, I’ve carried my camera many days this summer but used it on surprisingly few of them.

I set off on Saturday evening in the Hardcore van for Canmore with Peter Knight, Andre Sutton and Steve Martins from the club. Good conversation and fun times all the way to the mountains which had fresh snow on the peaks. The stay in Canmore was planned to allow for a significantly later wake-up at a rather reasonable 7 am instead of the 5am alternative for those commuting from Edmonton.

Arrival at the race start was greeted with spitting rain which quit for the most part in time for the race and people went about their pre-race commotion. The mess that a team of guys can make getting things sorted before the start is a wonder to behold, but by quarter to ten we set off down the road to check out the approach to the finish and get in a few accelerations to ready the legs for some racing. The conditions warranted knee-warmers arm-warmers and full fingered gloves but no jackets, the guys with jackets ended up complaining later on, always be chilly at the start!

The Cat2 race was an open event for anyone interested in trying to contest the provincial championship and Steve and Andre were convinced to give that a shot with Jon from Hardcore who is normally the only Hardcore rider who should be competing in that category. That put Peter Knight in Cat 3 with Mark Rumsey, myself alone in the Cat 4 race and Albert alone in Cat 5.

My race went well enough for the start, we rolled out for a 5 km neutral start because the temperatures were cool and the organizer probably preferred us not rounding the very first corner at the bottom of a hill with any speed. After the neutral start we got on the main road for racing on which we would complete two laps of uphill with headwind and downhill with tailwind. No-one was interested in doing much work at the start and no-one was about to attack to form a break into the headwind up the hill. The pack would just have too much advantage in such a situation. We had a few surges up some hills and ripped across a few sections with sidewind where inevitably one of the riders would decide it was necessary to make everyone do some work. At the north end of the road we dove down a giant hill before doing a U-turn, climbing back up the hill and heading south generally downhill with the wind at our backs. I ensured I started the climb at the front of the pack and slowly drifted back to the back of the pack by the time I reached the top, still breathing rather hard. I was convinced that the average guy must be hurting quite a bit even though we hadn’t splintered on the climb and went to the front to push the pace. Out of the saddle I put in a gap of 20 yards and got down to hammer. I was soon joined by one other guy from Speed-Theory and after looking back it was evident that no-one else was trying to come across. A quick discussion and we agreed to pulls of ~45 seconds. After my first the gap had been stretched to 100 meters and after my second, my fellow escapee pulled around sitting up on his hoods and said ‘we’re caught’. A quick shoulder check confirmed that the catch was inevitable and I drifted back to riding in the first third of the group.

We were cruising along quite quickly with the wind at our backs and around one of the corners I felt a bit of a wobble in my rear tyre only to look down and confirm that it was indeed flat. Off to the side of the road, I had the wheel off before the wheel car pulled up. I only have one wheel with a 9 speed cassette and thus with no spare in the car he couldn’t give me one. A quick change was in order, and with four hands and a floor pump I was back and rolling with less than a three minute gap to the group ahead. I told the driver I wanted to get back on and he did his best to help, from a push start to providing an excellent draft at 65 kph I made up quite a bit of time and had the group within sight (~1 km) with 5 kms to the next turnaround, then I lost the car. I was working extremely hard, and knew I needed to catch them soon or I’d be toast. Heartrates at 185 can’t last more than about 20 minutes but I had to try. I rolled by a few others who had been spit out the back but they couldn’t stick with me, let alone co-operate. By the turnaround the gap was 400 yards and I was almost convinced I had made it back.

I learned later that there had been a sprint out of the corner and co-operation at the front of the group to temporarily keep the pace high back into the headwind up the hill. My little gap to the peloton exploded back to more than a kilometer by the time I was 5 kms up the road although I could see that two others had been dropped by the pack. There certainly wasn’t the easy paced roll up the hill that we’d had on the first lap when no-one wanted to work. Having caught those two I did get a bit of co-operation but rather quickly had to decide that the chase was over. I had expended all of my hard effort for the day already and had to just watch as our peloton cruised by again at the next turnaround about 600m ahead of us. Getting back on wasn’t in the cards.

My rear tyre went flat again, probably due to not cleaning out the debris properly the first time. One of the guys who had also been dropped offered a spare tube if I’d ride with him to the finish, he didn’t want to quit and I agreed. There was less rush in this spare tyre change and afterwards our pace was rather casual as we set off to finish off the final 20 kms and watch the final stages of other category races play out around us. Thanks to Joel from Speed Theory for the tube and company for the ride in to the finish.

Peter Knight was able to win the Cat 3 race for Hardcore and Jon Benskin finished the Cat 2 race relatively high up the standings, especially considering that there was no peloton left at the end of it. That giant hill at the north end had splintered groups on every lap.

Thanks to Nicole Burnham for the photos included here.

I have nothing to add, just watch the video