Fernie weekend...

...with my bike and Toby seemed like a great idea, mostly decided by the almost one day earlier delivery of sunshine according to the weather network (and I must be dumber than dumb to keep checking).

Had a quick refuel of coffee at my celebrity coffee friends in the Pass before getting in to town just in time for lunch. Got the larger gps (oergon600) loaded with day 1 of Fernie3, but I don't have any maps loaded so probably could have the same result with the 500. I'm impressed how well it works, even in the trees. So yes, I did ride the course backwards and didn't think much of it until the climb just seemed silly to go up, but so much fun to come down. Did a quick read on their write up of the course (would have been smart to do that before riding) and yes, I had to turn and start again. Oh well, when riding there is no such thing as taking a wrong turn, or being lost....  

So back on course and my little purple line paints over the green nicely and timely, a couple if times I had too much fun and not paying attention, so a little lost, but in general I think this would be a great way for organizers to take some of the stress around marking the course and having people get lost. Provide all racers with accurate gps files, don't need to make it mandatory it use, but if lost on course it's really up to the racers them selfs to keep track. I don't really know tha stats, but I'll make the claim anyway, I bet 80% of getting lost is due to racers following blindly! riding head down and really just missing the signs, as someone always seem to not get lost.....just a thought.

So back to the ride...great trails, with this much rain I was pleasantly surprised that the only real mud I hit was bottom Hessian (or is it splitting bears?) which seems to always have some mud. The rest was dusty! 

Today I loaded Day 2 and read the course description before heading out. Worked much better, day two, as yesterday, is on the town side but today it went much further north. Enjoyed another sunny dry day. Some new cut trails again and some classics. Have no worries about Bears, one being my new bear spray on the bike, and second my breaks being so loud I'm sure the town could here me all day. 

Day two is slightly longer than the first, but still quiet short. I think these three days next weekend will be a three day of real cross country race pace more than an endurance event. So guess I need to get my pace up!! One day tomorrow, hopefully that will do it! :)

Happy Riding!

Practicing my "scare away the bear face" before starting the climb of the day.
 Ski hill in the back ground, still with some snow.

Fancy new signage in many places... this classic though, need no telling.

Tomorrow's ride - and next weekend it sounds like opening weekend for the lift.

Kush and next Kusher... fun cross country trail

Start of Kush

Just a nice stream - which if I didn't get off track once in a while, I'd not seen - a quick photo up and back up the hill....
 and back on course :)

My old employer must have had me in mind... after an attempt of going fast this comes in handy...

Been a while since a lunch shot - this was great, gluten free lunch shop, great menu - todays soup and a awesome club wrap (beats the chicken wrap at mcd last night)!