Trans Mexicana Finale

The final two stages of the Trans Mexicana were a great challange for all the riders. Stage 5 was highlighted by a huge climb to open the stage, then a 21 km (2200m vertical) downhill and then finally a 5 km hike a bike section down a river canyon. Lupillo and myself went into this section around 10 minutes ahead of 3rd place Travis Macey before quickly being overcome by the Adventure Racer. At the start of the day the race organizers suggested we send a set of running shoes with them to change into at the start of this river section. Lupillo and I figured wed save the effort of chanign shoes and try to travers this section in our carbon fiber cycling shoes which turned out to be funniest home video worthy as we slipped and slid down the canyon while Macey trotted ahead in his hikers. At the highpoint, I was up on the shore tangled up in thorns and jungle vines as I tried to avoid the river and when I looked back i saw Lupillo sliding on his back getting swept downstream with his bike floating ahead of him. Meanwhile Macey was hopping rocks and running like an Indian towards the finish line. Bloodied, cut and completely soaked, Lupillo and I finally crossed the finish line, 7 hrs after we started, with myself coming in 2nd 1:30 behind Macey and Lupillo another 3:30 minutes further behind.

Stage 6

Going into the final stage of the race Lupillo was leading the overall GC by 5:03 over myself and 43:02 over Macey in third. My plan was to use the 1200 m net elvevation loss of the day to my advantage and try and gap Lupillo on the decent and hopefully make up the 5:03 I trailed on him. Quickly gaining a minute advantage just over 2 km into the decent I was ripping until I came around a corner to see a pickup full of Mexicans headed my way. Having not seen a vehicle in the last 30 km of decents in the last couple of days I was a little suprised by this and slammed on my breaks. The truck also slammed on his and drove his front end into the ditch leaving his back end hanging out which I bounced off of and somehow managed to stay upright. Pretty stoked on not becoming a Mexican hood ornament I continued on my decent a little rattled but still determined to make up some more time on Lupillo. Deciding it would be wiser not to cut the switchbacks as sharply I crashed hard on the next corner as I tried to adjust my decending techniques to allow for the possibilty of more trucks. Bloodied and now implanted with gravel I was soon rejoined by Lupillo and Travis at the bottom of the hill with around 23 km to the finish. At 17 km to go I put in a last ditch effort to break away from my two riding partners and quickly managed to gap both of them on a small incline. Riding full tilt with the help of some dog chases I came across the finish line in 2 hrs 47 minutes and then began waiting for the other riders. Lupillo riding with a hole in his knee from a crash on Day 4 was determined to save his overall GC lead and came across the line 4:41 behind myself meening he had saved his race lead by just 22 seconds, enough to claim the $ 2000 first prize and $ 4000 BMW mountain bike. Pretty tired from trashing each other over the last week of riding, Travis and myself tore out of racing clothes and headed for the pacific oceann just 50 m away. Meanwhile Lupillo was being shipped off to the hospital to patch up the hole in his knee and to be told not to touch a bike for at least 3 weeks. With the first version of the Trans Mexicana coming to a close, the 30 riders and 62 support staff celebrated with a Mexican feast and race videos and then we all parted ways to our homes across the globe.

Trans Mexicana Stage 4

Back online...... After spending the last few days in remote Mexican towns, one of them with just one telephone for the whole town, let alone internet, I am now sitting in Mexico City with my feet high up in the air catching some R & R.

The last 3 days of the TransMexican bike race were full of spectacular crashes, epic climbs and lots of stray dogs along the way to cheer us on.

Stage 4 was a 135 km ride across the Mexican dessert and proved to be an epic adventure as 20 of the 30 competitiors finished after nightfall. Lupillo, Travis and myself pulled away early on in the stage and road strongly until our water bottels became dry in which we then road not so strongly and at one point had to stop for a cry before riding on for a little bit longer to eventually a feed station for 8 gallons of water each. Overall the day was pretty much a full on episode of a looney tunes cartoon show as riders would go in an out of hallucination, some getting dizzy and hiking 1 hr up dead end canyons and others crashing hard (Lupillo) into outcropping rocks and loosing a half pound of flesh. After setting the pace for much of the opening 75 km, Travis Macey would eventually lose contact with Lupillo and myself on one of the long sketchy downhills. We knew wed have to keep up the effort to stay away as Macey an internationally experienced adventure racer is something like the enrgizer bunny and after spending the last week racing across Mexico with him its apparent he doesnt get tired. At km 90 Lupillo put in a strong effort on a steep accent and would gap me by 3 minutes before succumbing to the + 37 c temps and slowing down enough allowing me to pass him and put 5 minutes on him until I became sun fried and crashed into a cacti, flatting my front wheel. After a 5 minute repair i was back on my bike, riding togethar with Lupillo as we headed the last 30 km to the finish were I would gap him by 19 seconds for the stage win. Macey would come in 30 minutes behind, and then Alexy Sokolov (Ukraine) another 45 minutes behind him. After that it was an episode of survior as racers would crawl acroos the line for the the next 7 hrs, well into the Mexican night.

Trans Mexicana Stage 3

After a puke filled 6 hr bus ride across the Mexican Jungle we arrived in an Eco camp where we spent the night in an auditorium and the 30 racers and 30 support staff had a Mexican snore off. The racers were clearly winning before I vacated the premises to find a small tree to sleep under out in the forest. Today we arrose early for a typical Mexican breakfast of corn tortillas and beans before heading out on the hilly 72 km stage 3 of the race. Lupillo was anxious to trounce the competition over the 2000 m climbing of the day and Travis Macey took off behind him. I was left alone to sweat like a small eskimo in a wood burning pepporini pizza oven as the 35 celsius temps were not being kind to the Canadian. As the day went on my pace slowly picked up as first a pack of dogs put the chase on me then a hoard of turkeys gobbled ferociously as I passed by. By this time we`d been racing for 2 hrs and getting close to the top of the 2970 m pass where the temperature showed some remorse and started to feel a little Canadian. Givin a second chance at life for the day I started biking like a cool Canadian biker and road past Travis at the pass and started down a singletrack decent and then climbed another pass up to 2700 m. Then came the cow dodging part of the day as the road decended 18 km through a farmers pasture and into a desert north of Oaxaca to the finish line where I came in 2nd, 7 minutes behind Lupillo and 10 minutes ahead of Travis. Next came stage 3 part deux, the 30 minute (turn into 1.5 hr) van ride into our hotel in Oaxaca in which our driver weeved between semis going 140 km/hr then playing chicken with a OCC bus before wisley backing off at the last second. My heart rate was maxxing out at 190 bpm and the ride had just started. Next up was the traffic system in the Oaxaca city which goes from normal right hand side of the road driving before switching off to left side British style driving then back and forth and back and forth and pretty soon our driver was stunned like a small child peeing on an electric fence on the farm and drove us out the other side of town before remembering the reason he was driving the van was to take us to a hotel. Next came the part of the game in which we tested out how many crazy Mexican drivers we could cut off at once with a wheel screeching u turn and then spending the next 30 minues working the streets of Oaxaco like a jigsaw puzzle and finally arriving at our hotel for some much needed R&R. Tommorow we start all over again with 120 km ride through the Cactus stands of the Oaxaca desert to our next Camp in San Cristobal Amatlan.

Mexicana Racing

The last couple weeks through Guatemala was full of swimming through caves, ripping down guatemalan single track, floating through jungle on rubber tubes and finally a 23 hr bus ride to Vera Cruz Mexico. Leaving Guatemala was tough as theres enough adventure there to last a person a lifetime but even tougher to leave behind were the Choco Banonos. Frozen bananas dipped in milk chocolate then rolled in peanuts all for 12 cents. We lived off these, corn tortillas, beans and avocados for the last month. Our spanish was getting pretty good too. Dougs is probably at a 2 yr old level while mine is all the way up to a 3 yr old. Getting to Mexico was quite a drastic change after travelling in the real 3rd world for the last few months. It was alot like getting back to Canada with shopping malls, Costcos, Walmarts and paved streets. We headed straight to the Costco and loaded up on supplies for the real reason we came to Mexico which was to race in the 7 day, 750 km Trans Mexicana mountain bike race from the caribean to the pacific ocean. After biking around with backpacks and panniers for the last 3 500 km it was like having turbo jets on our bikes to not be hauling around all the luggage. On the first stage of the race, 101 km, Doug finished first in the Master category and I came in tied for second in the elites with Travis Macey (Merrel Team racing) behind a homegrown Mexican racer Lupillo Cruz. On stage 2, the longest day of the race (160 km) Doug had some flat dificulties and came in 8th and I was lucky enough to hang onto Travis and the Lupillo (2 time Mexican XC national champion) through the final steep climbs to out sprint them across the soccer field for the win. The small seculded town we finished in probably isnt too use to seeing white boys as Travis, Doug and I had a hoard of kids following us around for the duration of the day. Somehow they coaxed us into a late night soccer game and we got beaten 14 to -2. Not too bad considering they were 12 yr olds. We tried challenging them to a hockey game afterwards but they were scared. As for now we wait for our luggage truck to show up which didnt do so well with gas in its diesel engine. Tommorow was planned to be a 115 km stage through dense jungle but there been some troubles with wild pigs and rutting jaguars so the organizers decided to give us the day off and put us on busses through to the other side.

Guatemalan hippies, lost bikers, and broken bikes

Doug and I decided to take a day off in the small village of San Marcos along the shores of Lago Atitlan. This day off was weird to say the least as everywhere we looked there were hippies walking around like zombies, no one doing anything that involved moving fast. Pretty much the perfect place to lay low and rest for a day.... we thought. Bored out of our minds by the end of the day we decided to retire to our hotel at 8 pm for a good sleep so we could get out of town asap the next morning to a place that had a pulse. Turns out 8 pm is just the start of the action as a propagandah speech came blaring out of some large speakers somewhere up on the mountainside. For the next hr we lay wide eyed in our beds listening to this blaring noise, then a couple spanish songs were played and finally the racket died down. About 5 minutes later the dogs started barking and didnt stop till morning. And this wasnt just a few dogs, we figure every dog in town got into the action, at somepoints it sounded like there were 30-40 dogs going at it. No sleep that night. Nest morning at daylight we biked 80 km over the highest point on the pan-american highway (3670 m) to the large town of Xela. In this town we found sóme chocobananos for 15 cents. Pretty much the best food Id ever eaten. A semi frozen banana double dipped into milk chocolate. So good we decided to hang around Xela for an extra day so we could eat some more. On our day in Xela we awoke to a deep fog covering the entire town and plus 3 temperatures. Felt alot like Canada for the first time in months. Biking out of the fog we headed 5 kn out of town and climbed Volcan Santa Maria (3860 m). Pretty cool climb and there were around 20 Indigenous Mayans praying on top which added to the ambience. The next day Doug and I left Xela towards the highland village of Nebaj which is situated deep in the highlan mountains far from much anything else. At our meeting point 12 km out of town we missed each other at the crowded intersection which was full of people, cars, markets and dogs. Nonetheless we each ended up biking down opposite roads towards Nebaj. Dougs day was going alright till his bike wheel blew out and my day was going well till my back pannier broke off and jammed into my new wheel. Leaving all my food some clothes and other supplies I couldnt carry with me I packed what I could in my small pack and continued on, falling short of Nebaj by 60 km. The next day I climbed up to Nebaj where I now await for the energy stores to recover enough for the next move. Doug is currently trying to extend his vacation time and change his plane ticket or else hes off to Canada on the 7th.