Click on photo to view gallery Photo by Brett Wolfe

Stage 1: Fernie to Fernie Alpine resort. Around 60 Kilometers, just under 2,000 meters of elevation gain, part of new course diverting us around the smoke and fires.

Textures: Fun, hot, mountain bike stage. Texture? Tacky, fast climbing and fun, rooty singletrack. Tightly packed dirt road climb, very steep power-line ascents and descents. Tricky waterbars on the descent from the top compounded with following my partner too closely, who descended like a homesick demon, created an unwanted, unplanned high-speed nose wheelie. We did a quick, double-track ascent, followed by a bobsled ride to the ski resort finish. I was grinning ear to ear.

Characters: People's riding styles and characters were beginning to form, but nothing overwhelming yet. There were the funky Canmore girls chatting about the 1999 24 hour solo championships that I was trying to forget and a nasty mud-slinging fest that consumed me. The Ride Guide/Norco-mixed team was out rolling strongly with a damaged ankle. Tough. Free rider Dan from Seattle made short order of the downhills and worked past the crowds on a tight single track. His partner Kevin was missing Dan's mad skills and fell off a ladder-like bridge into the ditch behind me. He was okay, but I had to give some grief to Dan for not prepping his partner correctly.

Met Gilles from Velomag and we discussed the intricacies of having your foot splayed while pedaling a bicycle. He has been on the broken-pinned-femur program I am all too familiar with. Gilles and his partner Michel from Quebec were up near the lead of the masters category. They would eventually get the sportsmanship award when they waited for their competitors, seconds separating the two teams in the overall, when one of the guys took a wrong turn on day three.

"We could see from top of the ridge a scorched mountainside in the distance and the smell of burnt earth permeated..."

Stage 2: Fernie Alpine resort to Elkford. 130 kilometers, 3000 meters elevation gain. A beautiful, long-day in the saddle. Much gravel road and a few loose, steep climbs and ascents.

Texture: Steep climbs with traction concerns sent me into the threshold for too long. Too stubborn to get off and push. Pushing, hopping along for the one-legged guys is silly slow. Race started out climbing with no real warm up. We crossed back over the mountain we descended yesterday, faced a steep final climb with the awkward wacky waterbars, but the surface was grippy. Then connected with an overgrown powerline road with grass obscuring obstacles that produced a comedy of errors as time was lost and equipment were destroyed. Bad wolf.

Creek crossings, feet gone numb, submerged hubs and bearings. More concerns about equipment. Mud is very abrasive. After the final push to the top of a ridge, we hit a steep, loose, rough descent to the valley floor. My partner started out hot and fast after the steep climb, and I couldn't reel her back in until I processed the lactic acid. Then we had a roller road climb with a tailwind. The road makes you feel superhuman, and kept checking the river parallel to our travel to make sure that we were ascending. Picturesque rivers, blue water and crystal clear - looked surreal. Riding up the valleys, we hit the final push, and missed the cut off as they started pulling riders.

We could see from top of the ridge a scorched mountainside in the distance and the smell of burnt earth permeated. The roller climb was bearable and then the ascent became steep and loose, requiring hiking. I began to have visions of Costa Rica and bit my lower lip. Have to laugh as this was what we wanted.

We then hit the much discussed and infamous scree descent. Fields of scree. Riders beat down a few paths initially, but the majority were very loose and unpredictable. The rocks were sharp, about size of a small human head, loose and tumbling, causing us to bounce in a controlled pinball-like motion. Luckily, it was downhill and gravity did much of the work. Fast doubletrack fun, hit the pavement on the way to Elkford and my partner went on the attack and we put in the work to have a rapid finish pace. I felt worked, muscles were blown from the threshold climbing, but we made it.

Characters: We caught Steve and Keith, part of my adopted family for the week. Keith had been cramping 80 kilometers from the start. 50 kilometers of hiking - he was putting one foot in front of another to make it to the finish line - OW. While enjoying the hiking sections we crossed paths with another mixed team, Sandra and Cullen from Colorado. Their positive attitude was impressive and Cullen began to display his loose rock ascending skills, which I became envious of as we reached the finish in Canmore.