6. Top 10 things I wish I'd known...

About 4 days after the race, I think back and reflect on a few things that I wish I'd have known…  Hopefully others who are going to do the race in 2016+ can pull a few tips from this.  After all, it's all about the #marginalgains.  Without further ado, the top ten things I wish I knew when I prepared for BCBR:

1.  Bring a Hammock.  Over the course of the 7 days, there is plenty of downtime.  Most of the camp locations have lots of trees.  Often it was a competition to find the best shady flat spot for a nap.  It didn't take me long to regret the fact that I didn't bring a hammock.  My red racer bag was nowhere near fully packed.  I had room...

The packing guide encourages you to bring a "luxury item", can't believe I didn't think of this...

2.  Bring the noise!  Within 10 minutes of stepping aboard the ferry to Cumberland, a group of 4 mexican guys busted out a boombox hooked to their iPhone.  A mix of classic metal and old school hip hop totally set the mood.  It transformed the pre-race jitter vibe into "can you believe we get to do nothing but slay trail  for the next week?"  There is no shortage of access to plug-ins to charge whatever you bring throughout the week.  Do it.

3.  Thicker air mattress.  If you are a pro camper, then you probably don't need this advice.  I had probably only slept in a tent less than 10 times in my life, and none in the past 5 years.  The BCBR sets you up with a skimpy little blue yoga mat pad.  On top of that, I brought a ultralight backpackers Thermarest and an inflatable pillow.  Still not enough.  Neck was VERY sore!  Hips felt like they were digging into the ground all night.  Next time I'd go big or go home.

4.  Meal plan B.  You have to pick a meal plan.  A - Early, B - Middle, C - Late.  We picked C because we didn't want to go to bed hungry.  (some nights the A plan eats as early as 5:30pm…)  In the end, we think the B plan would be best.  With the C plan, you were often still eating breakfast at 7:30am, with race start at 8:30am.  Not so fun going for the hole shot with the last mouthful of breakfast still settling in…  The food was very good.  As a fish eating but mostly vegetarian individual, I found excellent options.

5.  iPad.  As mentioned, there is a lot of good downtime in the schedule.  They set up the Bear's Den tent at each location with free wifi and charging station.  With so much good content coming out from BCBR, it would have been nice to kick back on the beanbag chairs with an iPad and watch the race recap videos.  Check stage results, etc…  Phones are great, but iPads are better.

Bear's Den on the beach at Powell River.  (Photo:  Mike Sarnecki)

6.  Tent location.  The first thing you need to do when you arrive at each new venue is check out the tent area.  You get to pick your home for the night.  Ideally you want:  A) Level B) Shady C) Soft Grass.  Nothing messes up a good nights sleep like a sloped tent site, or rock hard ground.

Beautiful, but watch out for sloped tent sites in Powell River.

7.  Dropper post (for two trails).  In a previous post, I talked a lot about bike setup.  I was really happy with my Santa Cruz Tallboy.  It took me through all 7 stages with ZERO mechanicals.  As I reflect back, I feel that my bike was set up perfectly for the race.  It put me in a great attack position on almost every trail.  It took the abuse.  I was in the zone.  Two notable exceptions:  On stage 5 (North Shore) there is a trail called Severed Dick.  On stage 6 (Squamish) there is another trail called Powerhouse Plunge.  Both of these trails had a few short ~50' sections of trail that put me out of my attack zone, and the seatpost high up jammed into my belly button caused me to pogo offline a few times.  I slowed down quite a bit and did come off the bike once or twice.  Strava confirms that I rode these sections faster on my Santa Cruz Heckler with a dropper post last year.

If I did it all again, I'd ride the same bike, but I'd have this stashed in my bag for Stage 5/6.  Adds ~1lb to the bike, but probably worth it for the most technical trails.

8.  Plyometrics and Weights.  It is great to pound out the hours on the trainer and maximize your power-to-weight ratio.  (Functional Threshold Watts/kg)  My ~3.9ish Watts/kg was more than enough to hang in the upper half of the pack and make the climbs tolerable.  But, this isn't the whole story.  My neck and arms got very sore.  If I had it over again, I'd be balancing out my training routine with more plyo and weights.  (ie. Clap pushups, box jumps, squats/lunges, and the good old hockey grip strength thingy.)  On day 3 (Earls Cove to Sechelt) I think that my strength prevented me from attacking the ~8km descent down VFR right to the finish line.  I didn't feel in control, my neck and arms hurt, and I backed off.  I'd say weights/strength were 5% of my training program leading up to this race, if I could do it all again I'd amp it up to 10%.

9.  Recovery Routine.  When you cross the finish line, you are thinking three things:  1) Shade. 2) Sit. 3) Calories.  Maybe not as dramatic as these guys…  But, you get the idea.

The finish line in Olympic XC Ski skate event.  Sometimes you just gotta lay down.

On most days, the finish area is really well set up.  You can get some food and drink right away within minutes of crossing the line, and find a place to cool down.  There is one issue though…  Not much protein around.  Lots of chips and pretzels and fruit.  But, it is a long time until dinner, and your body needs some protein.  The first few days I filled up on the finish line stuff, but watermelon isn't gonna help you recover over the long haul.  As much as a cringe at the ingredients list, I started slugging back the available Muscle Milk protein supplement after crossing the line.  Whatever you normally do back home, think about bringing some stuff along to stash in your racer bag.  Then it is right there for you when you need it…  Then, do this for an hour or so:

Legs up, jersey flappin'.  Resist the temptation to hang around the finish area too long, standing in the sun.

10.  Queues.  I have to say, getting queued up behind a bunch of riders on trail was WAY LESS of an issue than I was afraid of.  But, it does happen.  So, try to plan for it.  It is very predictable.  Day 7 at Whistler was particularly bad.  Everybody seemed to really struggle climbing Yummy Numby, which was only a few km's from the race start.  My advice is to talk to people who have done the stages before and anticipate where the big backups will come.  You may chose to redline yourself just to get a few places earlier into the queue'd section, knowing that once it backs up, you'll get to recover.  In hindsight, I would have gone max heart rate off the line on Day 7, it would surely pay off in placing at the finish line.

I'm hopeful that these tips help any other people who are thinking about taking on #theultimatesingletrack experience.

5. We did it!!!

We did it!  9th place of 42 teams in Open Men.  24hours and 13 minutes of racing over 7 days in 30C heat.

Crossing the finish line in Whistler.  Bodies and bikes intact.  

I write this post on day 3 "post BCBR".  Legs are recovering well.  Spending great family vacation time in White Rock, BC.

I plan to write a couple of short blog posts about the race.  What we loved.  What challenged us.  Bike setup stuff. (I rode with ZERO mechanicals!!!  how did that happen?)  The trails.  (So sweet...)  But for now, the quick and dirty stats:

Yes.  9072m climbed.  More than climbing Everest.

The folks at BC Bike Race have this thing totally figured out.  I was shocked at how seamlessly the whole thing went off.  Hearding 1000 people through 4 ferry rides, 7 cities, all without any hiccups.  Kudos to them.  They also made a great recap video for each day.  Check them out:

Day 1 - Cumberland:

Day 1: Cumberland presented by BC Ferries from BC Bike Race on Vimeo.

Day 2 - Powell River:

Day 2: Powell River presented by Rocky Mountain Bicycles from BC Bike Race on Vimeo.

Day 3 - Earls Cove to Sechelt:

BCBR 2015 Day 3: Earl's Cove to Sechelt from BC Bike Race on Vimeo.

Day 4 - Sechelt to Langdale:

Day 4: Sechelt to Lansdale Presented by Ryders Eyewear from BC Bike Race on Vimeo.

Day 5 - North Shore:

BCBR 2015 Day 5: North Vancouver from BC Bike Race on Vimeo.

Day 6 - Squamish:

Day 6 Squamish from BC Bike Race on Vimeo.

Day 7 - Whistler:

BCBR 2015 Day 7: Whistler from BC Bike Race on Vimeo.

If you like eating chips and waffles at 6am in a tent, BCBR might be for you.

Stay tuned for more to come...  I'm overdue for my daily nap.

4. Partner Perspective

To change things up, this blog post was written by my brother and BCBR race partner.  His perspective....



I think I heard about the BC Bike Race for the first time about five years ago.  I hadn’t been mountain biking for long, and it sounded pretty hardcore.  When I moved back to Calgary in 2012, the MTB bug definitely bit me, and soon trails that seemed too steep or too hard before were all I wanted to ride.  How could I loop that into a 30km+ epic?  This was my thought when I looked at the trail map.

But, can I even ride that stuff on the coast?  My time at the 2013 Gearjammer race in Squamish had me doubting this.

You’re supposed to ride your bike down this?

After some training and a few races in 2014, including the Canmore and Lethbridge Short XC races and the Fernie 3, the technical skills were starting to get there.  I wasn’t sure if I was  ready to do the BCBR in 2015.  Was I willing to shoulder the cost in family time, training time, and dollars?  With lots of encouragement from my brother and a bit of soak time, I was ready to commit.

At least I already had the right bike.  140mm Pike on the front, dropper seatpost, and Snakeskin Nobby Nic on the front - this is overkill for the local Alberta trails, but if I was building a bike from scratch for BCBR, this is how I would have built it.  I built a bike to bolster my weakness - technical riding.

One week after the end of cyclocross season in November, I started on the training program.  Winter nights (and some 5AM wakeup calls) were for sitting on the trainer in the basement, and cyclocross world cup videos on the home theatre (with TrainerRoad running along the bottom).  I had acquired a Stages power meter a few months earlier, and at first the output looked like this:

BikeSnobNYC Power Meter Prototype

Going from ten hours a month on the bike during the off-season to thirty eventually had an effect.  Riding the fatbike helped too.  In April, during a team ride, I looked around while riding up the Gleneagles climb in Cochrane, and realized it was just me and a couple of Cat 1/2 guys.  I guess I must have been doing something right…

At the end of April I decided that doing my VO2max intervals would be more fun on the velodrome than in the basement, so I turned up at the first Thursday night race and pinned a number on.  I ride a fixed gear bike to work every day, and although it had been awhile, this was not my first time on the track, so I wasn’t intimidated by the bike.  The first two races, a scratch race and a win-and-out went well - 1st place.  The third race was an avalanche; I decided I didn’t need to win every intermediate sprint, so I tucked in behind the second fastest person to bide my time.  Unfortunately for both of us, at the end of the sprint she apparently stopped pedaling, which sent her down hard, and according to my Garmin, sent me flying at 61 km/hr up and over the Glenmore Pool before landing back on the track, head first:

The next thing I remember after the crash was the ambulance pulling onto the infield half an hour later.  A trip to the hospital confirmed that I didn’t break anything, but had a concussion (and was also introduced to the wonders of Tegaderm for road rash).  This was one week before I was supposed to fly to Vancouver to pre-ride 3 of the stages of the race with my brother to help allay my fears of BC gnar.  Not good…

This was not the only setback in April.  A routine stop at the dermatologist back in March turned something up, but I wasn’t to worry.  They did a local biopsy, just to confirm that it wasn’t something more serious, then a letter came in the mail - melanoma on my chest.  Also not good…

Mid-May, and two weeks after the concussion (which was mostly better by then), I was being put under for surgery on the melanoma and a lymph node biopsy.  Two decently-sized scars (so much for my male modelling career) and some more recovery time.  While I was waiting for results, training for a bike race was not at top-of-mind, but I tried to keep at it.

Cancer and a concussion, double whammy.  Training plan took a hit but bounced right back.

The good news finally came on June 3rd - the initial biopsy had removed all of the cancer, and there was no metastasis.  I was downgraded to “low-risk”.  Game on.  I celebrated by signing up for the five hour Organ Grinder race four days later.  

27th out of 51 in Open Men class, with wounds still healing...  (Photo:  Masa Higuchi)

  

So there you have it - my training lead-up was a little more eventful than I would have liked, but I’m going to make the most of it.  I’ve cleaned every square inch, and torqued every bolt on my bike.  June 28th - let’s do this.

(Photo:  Masa Higuchi)

3. The Preparations (Part 2 - Machine)

Mountain bikes are truly impressive pieces of engineering these days.  The capabilities have made leaps and bounds of progress in the past 5 years.  Weight.  Dropper posts.  Bob-less suspension.  Tubeless tire grip.  If your bike is 4-5 years old, you are not taking advantage of technology.

You could argue that old bikes are just as fun...  But, you can't argue that they are as fast and capable.

I wanted a firm pedaling bike, since I enjoy riding hardtails, but I knew that I wouldn’t survive 7 days on one in BC.  I do like to “stand and stomp” up and over small rises on the trail, not a “sit and spin” kind of guy.  

I don't really like overly "plush" suspension movement, I want to feel the trail.

My short list came relatively quickly down to Santa Cruz Tallboy, Cannondale Scalpel, Specialized Epic.  The Calgary Cycle demo day at West Bragg Creek sealed the deal for me.  The feel of the Santa Cruz Tallboy was spot on.  It has 4” of rear travel, but it feels like it barely moves when you stand to hammer up a small rise in the trail.  When you are descending, it is just active enough to allow you to go much faster than on a hardtail.  When you sit and pedal through a rooty section the suspension seems to kick in.  It never feels wallowy, like you are riding a teeter-totter…  Plus it rides best with a 5" travel fork, which would be out of place on an Epic or Scalpel.

Frame in hand, I began the careful selection of parts.  The BCBR is an extreme test of rider and bike.  In the end, it is beefy where it needs to be and still very light:

• Chris King for the bearings, (hubs/headset/etc)
• Fox 32 120mm fork w/ the older FIT RLC damper,
• XTR for the drivetrain (with OneUp 42t modification)
• XTR brakes, 
• 29" Light Bicycle carbon rims (wide and hookless)
• a sprinkling of carbon parts.  
• 23.5 lbs.

The colourway is bound to please Vancouver Canucks / Seattle Seahawks fans, but I assure you it was unintentional… 

My brother will run a very similar setup.  The Ibis Ripley offers slightly more travel, and the Pike fork is the benchmark against all other forks are measured.  He has chosen to run a little bit more travel (140mm fork / 120mm rear) and a dropper post for added confidence through the technical trails.  The weight penalty is minimal over mine.  Around ~1.5 lbs.

Looking fine in Bici blue.

We chose to run single ring setups, with small chainrings.  (26/28 teeth.)  Taking advantage of new 42t granny cog cassettes, we’ll have a good gear for slogging up 7 days of climbs.  There may be the odd fireroad where we are spun out of gears, but this is not a concern given the vast majority of the days are spend climbing.

Pretty similar.  Ready to rumble.  Nobby Nic tires hungry for some BC loam.

We talked to several previous BCBR participants about tires.  We were given a tip that the Sunshine Coast days have a lot of sharp edged rock, and that thin casing tires would be prone to sidewall cuts. I went out in May and pre-rode those stages and confirmed this!  Lot of high speed double track with "V cut" drainage trenches (ie. G-out!).  For this reason we are running Schwable tires with "Snakeskin" protection.  2.25 Nobby Nic on the front.  2.25 Racing Ralph on the back.  We'll bring extra Nobby Nic's to throw onto the back tire if rain/mud comes into the picture, but at this point the forecast says Dry and Hot!!!

That's hawt.  Should have been on the trainer with no fan to get ready for this...

It also took us a while to get our heads around the gear and kit.  Speaking with past racers, there are two approaches:

1. Racer dude:  Team Kit, 2 bottles, minimalist tools/food.
2. Trail rider:  Baggy shorts, hydration backpack, bring what you need to be comfortable out there all day.

It didn't take us long to decide that we wanted to ride hard and finish as fast as possible each day.  Comfort is secondary.  After all, 30 minutes less racing is 30 minutes more to drink a beer afterwards!  So, we're going super lean.  There is a decent list of mandatory gear, so we have more stuff than we'd like...  But, we're prepared.

Space blanket, waterproof matches, where are they sending us? 

One in the jersey, one taped into the front triangle of the bike frame.  Hopefully we won't feel like we are bikepacking.

When starting to pack, we found this video from BCBR extremely helpful.  Without further ado, the quintessential "gear laid out" shot:

Go Pro? Check.  Selfie Stick?  Check.  Large tube of chamois cream?  Check.

 There it is...  This is my life from June 27th to July 4th.  I'm sure some things will happen along the way that we'll have to overcome.  But, we did the training.  We researched.  We prepared.  We're looking good in the Bici kit.  Just one thing left....

Braaaaaaaap...   (Photo:  Ken Anderson)

2. The Preparations (Part 1 - Man)

I found myself asking anyone who had already done the race…  How was it?  Is it really that tough?  I never found a single responder who didn’t say it was the toughest bike event they had ever done.  Some folks that I would rank as top notch riders even admitted that they had deeply suffered through a few of the days.  What was my goal?  Was just finishing enough?  I quickly decided that I didn’t want to set any specific time goals.  My goal became:  “Arrive in the best shape of your life.  Suffer as deeply as possible before the race, so that you can ride each stage with a smile on your face.”

What good is spending 7 days riding through this?      (Photo: Coastal Crew)

If you spend the whole time suffering looking at this?

In the 2014 season, I joined Bicisport and took up racing.  While I’ve always been a rider, and have done the occasional event such as Gearjammer or TransRockies 1day stages, I’ve never been a “racer”.  I rolled my new carbon hardtail with racing stiff short travel fork and bald tires up to the start line in Edmonton for the River Valley Rumble not quite knowing what to expect.  1hr and 14minutes later I had learned a lot.  I had placed 8^th in a massive chaotic field of 60 Sport Men.  I then knew what the term “full gas” meant.  I learned not to follow too closely through unfamiliar singletrack.  I learned the importance of the hole shot.  I raced 8 more times that season, including XC, Enduro, and my new love: Cyclocross.

Baseline fitness tests were done in Feb 2014.  Not bad.  My previous hockey career and last 10 years spent (slowly) running half marathons and doing triathlons had built a foundation.  TCR Lab coach Cory gave us some direction on how to adopt a more polarized training approach.  Not just riding more.  Lung/leg searing intervals and a big dose of classic base.

The dreaded VO2 max test.  Try not to puke into the snorkel.

First big step was getting on Strava.  Having an online community of riding buddies and a place to store all your ride data has a powerful impact.  Especially if you are:
A) competitive and 
B) an engineer.  

Being able to measure your training time week-to-week, month-to month keeps your goals in focus.  Being able to see visible improvements keeps the motivation high.  And we started to notice something…  We were actually getting faster.  2012 PR’s were quickly erased in 2013.  Then, 2014 was another step change.  We used to take 3.5 hours to ride Pneuma/Moosepackers/Ridgeback loop, and by early 2015 we has slashed it to sub 2.5 hours.  Strava helped us see that >13kph average speeds on BCBR type terrain for ~3-4 hours at a time was coming into the realm of possibility.

TSS/day average.  Basically a graph of how hard you are training.

Second big step was buying a power meter.  I mounted up the Stages meter to my cyclocross/road bike and started raking in the sweet sweet data.  Having continuous feedback on how hard I was pedaling brought a next level of awareness.  How hard could I go before blowing up?  When am I in the habit of soft pedaling without realizing it?  Most importantly, what exactly does this magical “threshold” power level feel like?  Over time I’ve developed a much better feel for my threshold, which means I can ride pretty hard without crossing the line too long/too often, which causes rides to end badly.

Third big step was buying a Wahoo Kickr stationary trainer from Trevor at ROAD.  This was a game changer for my training program.  The convenience of being able to pop out into the garage and get a top notch workout in while the kids are sleeping is invaluable to the working father.  This technology is incredible.  You get on the bike.  You pick a workout.  Then you just keep pedaling until it says you are done.  No shifting.  No thinking.  Just endure.  We bought the full set of Sufferfest videos, which brought a new level of entertainment to the game.  #IWBMATTKYT  

Laura in the "pain cave".  Why is she smiling?

 I set a plan to ramp up my TSS/day average (training load) from ~40 up to ~70.  This moved me into ~8-10hrs per week.  Not a small task for a full time job/family kind of guy, but lots of it happens during my commutes and after the kids are asleep.  By putting in this work, I was hoping to see my threshold power move up.  Did it work?

I told you this was going to get geeky.

I managed to crank up my Functional Threshold Power almost 12% in the past 16 months or so.  This should really help at the BCBR.

Fitness is only part of the equation.  The trails of the BC Bike Race are not only strenuous, but very technical.  Tight singletrack, rooty/rocky climbs, and of course the legendary BC skinnies and chunky descents.  

Laura and I followed the video blog of a triathlete from North Carolina through the 2013 race.  It was hilarious.  He definitely did not know what he was getting himself into.  We coined the term #BCBlueRun to describe the quantum gap in trail difficulty in BC versus the rest of the world.   

Minnewanka Trail.  Banff, Alberta.  Bikepirate rating: Blue/Black Diamond.  Adam rating:  A nice pedal along the lake.  Black Diamond due to Grizzly bear hazard?  My 3 year old is just about ready.

Sid Slotegraaf Rides Half Nelson from Andrew Santos on Vimeo.

Half Nelson Trail.   Squamish, BC.     Bikepirate rating:    Blue.    Adam rating:   Might as well be Whistler bike park.  Sid rides it with both wheels on the ground maybe 15% of the time...

We signed up for Trek Dirt Series Whistler.  I will admit that I was mostly excited about riding bikes in Whistler with Laura for a few days, and a bit skeptical about what I might get out of the camp.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  I spent one day on a DH bike, and one day on my carbon hardtail.  The coaches were fantastic.  Fiona rode behind me down “Crank it Up” at the Whistler bike park yelling out orders on positioning my body, leaning the bike, and listening for the sound of my tire grabbing the dirt.  Another coach rode behind me down “Danimal" correcting my line choice.  We stopped several times and sessioned some technical sections.  The benefit of this camp to my riding was immediately apparent.  I set PR’s on every single trail I rode for the next 2 months.  All due to one thing:  Grip.  They had shown me how to position myself and my bike to hook the tires into the ground and use my brakes far less around corners.  (Hint:  Poop off the berms)

Great friends.  Great riding.  Great memory.

A bit of a long story, but it took quite a bit of effort to get our fitness and skills to a point where we can go the BCBR with confidence.  In the third blog post, I will go over the bike and kit preparations.  Far less painful then the fitness part, but a bit more costly...

1. The Decision

The BC Bike Race is THE mountain bike race.  Also known as BCBR.  People flock to it from around the world.  Seven days of riding the best trails in the world...  The ultimate single track experience.  There has been an unchecked box beside this race on my bucket list since the first edition in 2007. 

In the past 2-3 years, I started getting serious about it.  The stoke was building.  To make matters worse, they started covering the race with daily videos on Pinkbike.  So yes, I basically blame Brett Tippie for me needing to do BCBR.  Last year they released a 40 minute video on the experience.  If you have time, check it out.  In January 2014 I finally moved from the “maybe next year” camp over into “let’s do this”!

Picking a partner was not difficult.  If I am going to ride the BC Bike Race, I’m going to do it with my brother.  While he has not spent as much of his life caught in the dirt obsession, the bug has bitten him hard in the past 5 years.

Minus 15C and snow, no worries, we'll hit that...

He also has two key attributes which lend themselves well to BC Bike Race success:

1. he has a propensity for suffering.
2. he is very light. 

It takes a special kind of person to think that doing 5x 5 minute intervals @ 130%FTP is a great way to spend an evening, after the work day is done and the kid is asleep. 

Epic pain face.

We’ve done some crazy rides together before, like 60kms in the desert in 32C conditions for 6 hours.  Or climbing 2300m in a single ride.  Add in the fact that he has considerably less of a battle with gravity than your average dude, and I think I’ve got the best partner.

 In Squamish after 5+ hrs of gnar.

We had some work to do to align life around this major event.  Managing time off from work and family vacation plans is not easy.  We are both very thankful for the support from our wives and family to make this possible!

The tiny members of my cheering squad.

As I finish up writing this, we are only a few days away from heading to BC.  The preparations are nearly complete.  It's finally time.

We can't wait to get rollin'....   Photo: Masa Higuchi

Stay tuned for two more posts about the preparations that we've gone through to get ready.  Warning, it might get pretty nerdy.  I also hope to update Facebook/Twitter throughout the race so you can see how we're doing.