The Taper

The Taper…

2days before a 7 day race it is always the hardest part for any athlete to taper off his efforts and try relax the muscle he has trained for months to regain their full strength and hopefully go into the race with fresh legs. Personally and many alike are not good at the taper and to be in Whistler with so many epic trails to be ridden who can blame me. As the riding is so demanding and challenging is not the best place to base yourself a week before a physically demanding 7 day stage race. But the way I look at it, I only have 2 weeks in Canada and am going to make the most of it and lap up as much as I can do within reason. So have been riding with Carrie as lightly as possible watching my HR on the Magellan Cyclo to make sure I don’t go above 145+-, well I do get a little excited when I hit a trail that shouts “speed”. This happened yesterday around the Lost Lake trails when I cruising through “Gazoom” trail and 10 m in front of me appeared a big Brown Bear on the single track, was an amazing moment as he slowly cruised off, unfortunately Carrie who was behind me didn’t get to see him (which has been her aim all trip to see a bear). However as we rode further along the track my amazing wild life spotting appeared again in directly in front of us both. I wanted to get closer to capture the moment, but Carrie after her initial moment, thought it wasn’t a good idea to chase down the bear on your bikes. But we can now confirm bears are big and really cool!

The rain keeps on lightly drizzling down on for most of the day here which isn’t too much of a deterrent for the masses. We can confirm now that we are the only XC/Trail riders in Whilster, as have been riding all the trails and still have not seen a rider with less than six inches of travel on any of the trails we have ridden over the 3 days. Carrie has made her mind she is going to be really good at Downhill MTB, although never been on a bike with more than 5inches of travel. So we have committed ourselves after the race, which ends in Whilster to hit the chair lifts and do some downhill runs, as it would be wrong to leave the downhill capital of the world without downhilling! So after 7 days of racing on 8 day I will have to drag my tried ass up the ski lift dressed in full armor and hurdle down on a 7 inch travel bike for the day. As we fly out the next day this will be the only chance, so if either of us kill ourselves we will not lose out on any travelling experiences.

So my bike is all sorted and serviced by a mate Luke Garside from Arbutus cycles in Upper Village, a resident Aussie who lives to race 4X and bases himself in Whilster as a mechanic for the summer and in Oz for winter working for Rocky Mountain as a brand ambassador. Either way Luke is the man and made my steed 100%- fork service, wheel truing, gears, headset and even new grips.

Next stop – do some washing and then head to race registration in Vancouver.