Colorado

The voyage down to Kananaskis and back was pretty wicked. The icefields parkway is great for riding as there are slow moving motorhomes all over the place to draft behind and pretty wicked mtns all along the way not to mention the 5 hostals which allows a biker to travel pretty light. The race in k- country went alright but 170 lbs is too much for a mtn biker to climb up hills with when there's flying dutchmen (Tim Heemskerk) on the start line.

In another effort to jump start the season I hopped a plane to Colorado to take on the 6 day Breck Epic SR (http://www.breckepic.com/). Stage 1 was a 5 mile prologue which blew my lungs apart. Stage 2 was a smooth 40 mile loop up to 12 00o ft. Going out hard with the 6 leaders up the first 7 km climb I soon blew up like the fireworks down here on the 4th of july and began pedaling backwards. 20 minutes later I started pedaling forwards again but then my wheels started mimicking the 4th of july and 3 blown flats later I slowly crawled across the finish line in a millionth place. Riding down here is not easy as the whole course is above 9 800 ft and when there's aclimatized racers like Jeremiah Bishop and Travis Brown leading the way the pace is not slow. My lungs are blown, the legs are still warped from planting and the pain threshold is growing through each pedal stroke. I have never raced before in the USA but I must say some of the singletrack is alright although the green money is lame and being forced to carry a rain jacket in a race is a good sign your not up in Canada with the lumberjacks.

Throughout the Breckepic I will be doing reports for sleepmonsters at www.sleepmonsters.com.