BCBR Day 5 Sechelt to Langdale

Another night in a comfortable bed. A short taxi ride to the start. An early start. Off the line we started with a climb through a quarry. The legs were tired, but I soldiered on. About 10km of good, but steep roads was easier on the body and afforded us the opportunity to take it relatively easy. 

Then the grind started. Again lots of singletrack and again it seemed we were riding up most of it. Aid Station 1 was 15 km in and after a quick stop I got moving again. The brown ribbon through the green forest kept snaking over rocks and roots, but by now I was used to it and I am actually learning a lot about riding in these conditions. There wont be much at home to intimidate me, so I guess I'll have to start looking for more advanced riding soon. 

Half way between Aid 1 and 2 I lost the front end on an off camber corner and put the bike down hard. I ended up bending my hanger (not a problem as I had a spare) as well as shearing off the limiter screw on the derreulier ( a big problem) I was stuck in either 32x 24 or 22 x 24 for the uphill singletrack grind  for the next 10 km. I was surprisingly content with my fate and took the porting sections as an opportunity to look at the beautiful surroundings.  

Aid station 2 finally came into view and fortunately the shimano tech guys managed to get 4 gears out of my busted SRAM derreulier. I didn't have my lighest 3 or the heaviest 3 gears, but I was still riding. 

Enduro 1 dropped us straight into HWY 102 with some tight, twisty corners and short steep climbs which I was grinding with my limited gears. We swept through over the bridges and skinnies at breakneck speed trying to keep as much momentum as possible for the short climbs. We left the Enduro timing mats and immediately dropped into Sidewinder. 

Enduro 2 almost started immediately after Enduro 1 and it was just simply out of this world Steep sweeping berms, fast flowing sections, wider bridges and fun wall rides and table tops had me forget all about my hurting legs. I was pumping it over the jumps and ripping through the corners all the way down the mountain with some very precarious drop offs on my right. We left the timong mats and I moderated the rest of the descent to the finish line in the Langdale Ferry Terminal

A wet wipe bath, a roll with pork shavings and cole slaw and clean clothes had me feeling semi decent again. We boarded the Horse Shoe Bay ferry at 3:10 and it seems like I may actually get an early night tonight.