TRANS ROCKIES BLOG - Day Two

Follow Isporty founder Chris Ward and team-mate Bill Gilbert's daily blog as they participate in this years 7-day Trans Rockies mountain-bike race. It's Day Two ...

Bill's Blog ..

The 4-hour coach ride through the rockies to the start village featured some quite spectacular scenery. The rockies in British Columbia are quite different to the Alps; the are less jagged and the peaks more rounded. The weather remains bad, I'm sure there was snow at one point.

We put the bikes together and took a short spin. Meeting some of the other riders is a bit of an eye opener. Firstly I should explain that we are a couple of roadies deciding to do some mountain biking, so our experience level is low. Apparently Chris and I are in trouble because we have hard-tail mountain bikes, whereas everyone else has front and rear suspension. Not only that but the fact that we've only done one real mountain bike training ride (but thousands of miles on the road bike) is met with thigh slapping guffaws. What were we thinking? Jeez.

The pinnacle of humour came when I mentioned that I didn't have disc breaks but the old fashioned V-breaks. How could I be so stupid?!

But to some extent the pressure is off as now they expect us to come last or something .. game on!

Today is sign-on and then the race starts.

Chris's Blog ..

We have just signed-on this morning.

Bill thinks others believe we are going to come last - he is being wildly optomistic - they actually don't think we've got a cat in hells chance of actually finishing at all!

This may be because on the coach here Bill asked what the difference between single track and gravel road is - which is a bit like asking a roadie what the difference between assent and desent. Or asking a football fan what the difference between their team and the opposition is!

Bill works in the Cty and at the moment we are expected to crash faster than the market currently is.

At the end of this 7-day race it will be interesting to see what is performing better for Bill - his finances or his body!

This morning we went for a ride up the mountain that is out the back door of the resort that we are staying in, prior to getting in our tent for a week. It was a wake-up call - tough singletrack uphill and dangerous desents. I did the trans-alp race last year and that tended to be mile after mile on tough gravel track assents that just happened to be on mountain bikes - whereas this appears that it is real mountain biking, including parts where both wheels will leave the ground!, where desents will be at 27 percent but with tree roots everywhere. Steep drops each side of a 12-inch wide cut-up path and sudden drops in the track. No wonder mountain biking is classed as an extreme sport for young kids in full face helemts and body armour.

What will us two 40-something roadies clad only in lycra make of it?

As you can probably tell my humour is disappearing fast - which is mad.

We come down from a short training ride with frowns on our faces whereas the kids all around us were having the time of their lives!

We've got to go into this with the right attitude - which means changing the one we're both developing - nervousness mixed with fear (neither of us want to hurt ourselves!) So we need to be safe, work hard and have fun - which is exactly what we do when we successfully compete in the day-long road sportives in Italy and France.

Tomorrow we start - bring on the fun! (Please...)