Bow-80: Dark Side of The Moose

I awoke to my 5:15am alarm feeling moderately alert, sparking a glimmer of hope that today would be special. The day in fact was: 17 degrees in Calgary at 6am departure, and even at the Station Flats parking lot it was mild enough to start with nothing but arm warmers. Unheard of for the notoriously volatile weather that the Bow 80 race can experience.

Started at the limit for no warm-up, but was happy with suffering progress because I was still relatively competitive. Unfortunately, the progress slowly diminished but the suffering did not. I wasn't worried at first since starting slow is increasingly common for me, but by the two hour mark I was already cramping to the point of walking steeper pitches up Powderface climb.

Jon Nutbrown passed me like I was stationary on the climb, but I was happy with seeing him have an awesome race. Unfortunately he succumbed to a broken derailuer, and we both suffered up Pnuema together until his mechanical problems held him back for good. I had an impressive ride straight into a high-speed tree trunk on Special K, flying from the bike and simultaneously cramping both quads while the front end washed out and directly collided head-on with the tree trunk. Somehow bike and body exited unscathed.

All in all a great day and you can't go wrong when your day is mountain biking, friends, and spolumbo's sausages. I have raced 28 days since the start of June, which may be part reason for the overall feeling of being just a bit tuckered out. The Bow cycle shop puts on an excellent event - this year's Dark Side of the Moose theme was genius and I still lucked into a 3rd place belt buckle (custom for the race) which will make a sweet addition to the growing collection.

End of the road for Mountain Bike racing. Skinsuits, decorative brakes (vs. Functional), and short attention-span cyclocross racing up next.