Trans Wreck Me’s IV

Firetruck lead out the race starting downtown Fernie, B.C., Canada photo by Rachel Boekel/ www.rachelboekel.com

Andreas Hestler said something during the Transrockies Challenge in 2004 that stuck with me all year long. He said, “Know your group.” Sounds simple. What he didn’t tell me was that it’s just as important to know who is not your group. Knowing your own abilities and the strengths of others is key in this stage race. One overly optimistic moment at the bottom of a long, steep hill can ruin the rest of your campaign. You’ve got to know your group.

The Transrockies Challenge is a seven day mountain bike stage race that starts in Fernie, British Columbia and ends in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. It’s a two-person team event and the rules state you must stay within two minutes of your partner at all times. The race is different things to many different people. Some teams want a top three. Some people would love to get into the top ten. And many of the 350 starters from 16 countries just want to finish. That’s harder than it sounds. It’s seven races in seven consecutive days. The maximum daytime temperatures this year ranged from 37 degrees to 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Stage one was hot, dusty and dry and the dirt in places was like chocolate powder. Later in the week during the hailstorm at the top of Powderface Ridge it was freezing cold, wet, beautiful, terrible and perfect all at the same time.

As expected Hestler and his partner Marty Lazarski came out swinging in the opening stage and local boys Troy Misseghers and Neil Grover (one of two RaceFace Ulimate XC Challenge teams) were left nine minutes behind in second place. Misseghers sliced his sidewall and had to do some trailside maintenance but both boys fought long and hard all week long. It was a great effort for a couple guys with real jobs. For many riders stage one was an introduction to Canadian Rocky Mountain singletrack that was up, down and narrow with lots of steep corners with roots. It was a complete test of braking, quick shifting and riding a mountain bike. During this opening stage Paolo Montoya and Marco Pohlond of Costa Rica were almost 5 minutes behind the locals in third place as the baking temperatures were to their liking and they showed they could ride these trails. There was a tremendous bottleneck at the top of the first gravel road climb going into the first singletrack of the race. It was a clustered dismount and the first hike a bike of the week. There would be more.

On the first gravel hill climb the controversial tow-ropes were already out near the back of the pack which would be the case all race long. It was mostly guys pulling their gal near the back of the mixed category. The top few mixed teams however would rip the legs right off most teams and the ferocity of the top women riders was frightening. It was a rude awakening when Irish Olympians and World Cup regulars Tarja Owens and Robin Seymour put their wheels on the start line. They threw down. Throughout the week Tarja could be seen churning up the climbs. Her bike would be sideways but she could handle the mud and it showed. Local rider Marg Fedyna and her partner Blaire Saunders were duking it out with the Irish along with Louise Kobin and partner Erik Warkentin of San Jose, California. The top three teams in the open mixed category kept the peloton entertained mostly with the display of brute strength from those top three women. Margie was middle ring climbing everything in twice the gear that was necessary. It was girl power and sometimes it hurt.

Open Mixed Team winners: Robin Seymour leads Tarja Owens. photo by Rachel Boekel/ www.rachelboekel.com

When the going got tough on the slippery, muddy trails the Fightin' Irish got going. They had the ability to make all the right moves in the peloton all of the time. They both read the race like true veterans. Tarja and Seymour were clobbering everybody after the top six in their category by at least an hour every stage. There were some tow ropes strung out at the back, but they weren't helping. The Irish both ended up winning the mixed division in total time of 32:45.07. That would have got them sixth place in the open men’s class. After the race the Owen’s said, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was with a road team in Italy for a year and I thought that was hard! ” She raced the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the next year she took on the Giro d’Italia Femminile with the Italian based Michela Fanini team. Describing the riding back at home in Ireland Owen’s said, “It’s always wet and I’ve grown up trying to ride everything. Psychologically it’s better for me to ride up everything.” Her lasting memory of this race? She answers, “Waking up to the sound of rain before dawn and the sound of everybody getting out of their tents and complaining.”

Two and a half hours later in the final general classification Marg Fedyna and Blaire Saunders took second place. They won the final stage and attacked all day trying to make up nineteen minutes to get silver back after going the wrong way in stage six and losing almost an hour and a half to the third place team of Kobin and Warkentin. They got their 19 minutes to wrestle second place back in the mixed overall. There was drama in this category right to the bitter end.

Two time TR veteran Karen Masson of the overall winning women’s team described afterwards her struggle during stage three. “I really melted and the cameraman was right there. It really sucked, but I managed to recover.” Capturing that moment and many others was Glen Crawford-a four year Transrockies veteran. Shooting this race by motorbike is no small undertaking and you could see him all week roosting his bike up the steep, rocky, single and double track trails. Then pinning it alongside the riders on the gravel road and paved roads with his camera pack on his back. During this race in 2004 Crawford had a Steve McQueen style wipeout on some greasy, high speed doubletrack and had riders asking him if he was ok. He hit hard. Crawford describes covering the Transrockies, “I have my own little rally. Everyday I pass the peloton praying I don’t kill anybody.”

This year Crawford’s highlight footage came when he was riding his motorbike at 25 miles an hour on the road, one hand on the throttle and the other hand holding his big camera backwards pointing at the leaders. “We were clipping along and I was filming the group. Then they all went down. It was an incredible shot and I was scared shitless.” At the end of the day the video production crew edit the footage from Glen’s camera and the rest of the film crew and produce an after dinner highlight reel from every stage. They get overhead helicopter shots of the whole mass at the start and a collection of scenic and action pictures that has the big tent packed full of racers on the edge of their folding chairs.

Glen Crawford-4 time Transrockies Cameraman Dan Hudson photo

Vanessa Joosten of Rocky Mountain Rehab was kneading the flesh of damaged mountain bike riders all week long. As a full time massage therapist she gained some of her strength from playing rugby in university and tree planting in the summer. She can really dish out the pain but with these riders she doesn’t have to try too hard. Joosten reflects, “The racers have their 10 minutes to let it all out. There’s crying on my table. Most of these guys are gross because they’re so beat up. It’s pretty entertaining. People ask me how bad they are and I’m thinking ‘it’s all bad…it all feels bad.’ But I tell them they feel good.”

The race course itself is a total of around 370 miles along with forty thousand feet of climbing. Day one was a vast improvement from the previous three years and really had everybody jabbering at the finish line. After stage one the course varied as much as you could imagine. Day two highlights included 42 miles of high-speed gravel roads then a1600-foot super-steep, granny-gear climb and a relentless hike-a-bike followed by a steep, rough descent with jagged rocks the size of grapefruits. Stage three was eighty-three miles long with a combination of mostly gravel and paved roads including the Highwood Pass standing at 7,239 feet. This stage was all about getting there. There’s a five mile gravel road climb at the very end of this Beast of a stage that Andreas Hestler described as, “The hardest part of the whole race.”

Stage four got back to some serious mountain bike riding and had an excellent high speed ten mile singletrack downhill right at the beginning of the day. It was a ripper. After that there was a 3,200 feet hike a bike and lots of redline granny gear climbing. Then the riders were greeted with a punishing descent through the vicious alder trees and a steep, rocky trail. After the relief of the final feed station there was a six-mile section of muddy, cow-punched trail with a few slippery climbs. This was the crux of the race for many riders. It was a Punisher! Riding through herds of good old Alberta Beef the cow patties were thick, green and juicy and the riders who chose to use front mud flaps were spared the inevitable face-shots. Most of the time.

Hailstorm at the top of Jumping Pound Ridge during stage 6. Dan Hudson photo

Stage five is described in the race guidebook as the “Queen Stage” and it’s murder. Almost 6,500 feet of climbing and seventy miles long. The course was pretty even split between single and doubletrack and gravel road. It was the straw that broke or at least bent a lot of teams. This day included the most excellent Powderface Creek Trail and retarded fast Elbow Valley Trail. This stage favored the trailriders that could handle the speed in the wet and the dry.

Stage six rolled out of Bragg Creek and onto the infamous Tom Snow trail. Locals avoid this area when it’s wet but the racers marched straight for it. Predictably it had rained all night. Hard. This trail lived up to it’s name during the inaugural version of this race back in 2002 when it’s snowed up to six inches the night before. After Tom Snow the riders worked their way to the top of Jumping Pound Ridge onto some of the most famous singletrack in Western Canada. It was pure Alberta summertime weather as we got hit hard by a quick, cold hailstorm that had riders reaching for their jackets. Of course the blue sky broke out soon after. After descending off the ridge the riders continued up and down Lusk Pass, and got spat out at the Rafter Six Ranch.

Mechanic Ken Austin dressed for the weather. John Gibson photo

The final and seventh stage the peloton did a fast parade lap around the Ranch then headed straight for Canmore at about a hundred miles an hour. It was a beautiful combination of high speed, rocky mountain singletrack, nasty wooden staircases on the Trans Canada Trail then up to the Canmore Nordic Centre. The race headed straight for the epic Devonian Drop section of the 1998-2000 World Cup mountain bike course. There was one final loose descent past the hydro station in town where the locals gathered in force, across the old railway bridge and straight onto mainstreet. Put your hands in the air!

The organizers shut down a couple of blocks on Main Street and a large crowd had gathered along with two members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police dressed in their traditional red serge and Mountie hats. Finisher’s medal around the neck. Some hugs and high fives and a lifetime of stories and memories. This race went beyond 50 hours for a handful of teams. That’s a lot of mountain bike riding!

Over seven days the organizer’s put the riders through the encyclopedia of mountain bike terrain. Pavement and smooth, fast gravel road. Rough, harsh logging roads riddled with pot holes. Dry, smooth, ripping singletrack that went on forever. High speed double track. There were plenty of trails that were an awful, rooty kind of hell. Challenging, steep trails layered in sharp rocks that cut the women, men and their machines. ATV tracks. Ski trails. No trails. River crossings. It was about following the red ribbon every step of the way. And working with others in a group against the relentless prevailing winds and hopefully tucking in behind somebody bigger than yourself.

Harry Peterson rode in with the flag of Greenland while Glen Crawford gets the shot. Pete Verheyde photo.

Riding near the back of the pack was Inuit rider Harry Peterson who flew in from Narsarsuaq, Greenland. To get to Fernie he first flew to Denmark, then to the UK and finally on to Calgary—a 20-hour journey. His training group back in Greenland bailed at the last minute. But he was determined to make the trip. He found his partner through the Transrockies website forum and hooked up with Jeff Cote of Ottawa, Canada. Before the race Peterson decided he would buy a brand new bike in Calgary. He arrived at the start line with clipless pedals he had never used before. On that bright and warm Sunday morning Peterson fell over in front of the hundreds of people gathered. He hurt his knee even before the starting gun fired. The next day he started in his running shoes which was a pretty good call considering the punishing hike a bike climbs that loomed ahead. He ponders “I can’t remember my category…open men or something. I was looking for a challenge to try and I came to finish. I feel good now.” Peterson said with a smile while giving a thumbs up.

There were moments of heroism and splendor everywhere you looked. Tom Zidek and his partner Samantha Phillips were sitting nicely in second place in the open mixed after stage one. They rode strong the next day until Phillips fell on the rocky descent and cut her knee wide open. Zidek carried her on his back up to the top of the mountain straight for a helicopter rescue. Then he ran back down to their bikes and rode to the finish line with her bike strapped to his back. He started stage 3 on his own with a small camera attached to his helmet for the television crew when he was thrown back into action. There was a fiery crash in the opening minutes and he quickly donated his rear wheel to Marty Lazarski of the leading team who had a big metal taco in his hands. On stage four he donated his wheel again to another stranded team and ran 18 miles to the finish! That’s hardcore. The whole race he looked like he was having the most fun and he probably was.

Tom Zidek carries his partners bike to the finish line after Samantha Phillips fell and had to be evacuated by helicopter after cutting her knee wide open during stage 2. photo by Rachel Boekel/ www.rachelboekel.com

James Shellard won the 80 + Men’s category with his partner David Kvick. What the results sheet doesn’t tell you that Shellard fractured his collarbone during stage five but went on anyways.

Riding relatively unscathed was Eric Crowe, 45, and his son James Crowe, 18. The father and son duo won the hearts of online voters and earned a spot in the race as the second Race Face Ultimate XC Challenge team. The Crowes also quickly earned the respect of the peloton. Both could be seen all week long driving the pace at the front and railing the trails at maximum velocity. Their ages had the greatest disparity but put a new meaning to the word team.

After receiving his second consecutive winner’s jersey out of three starts Hestler had a big smile on his face. The wind-up banquet was starting to get really wound up and he put the event into perspective, “It’s the hardest race in the world. The Transrockies is ungroomed, unmanicured. It’s wild and the Euros can’t handle it. There’s cowtrails. It’s goat trails…you’ve got to hike a bike. People get scared.” Trying to pin down the two-time champ is hard. He holds his cards right to his chest and takes a long pull from a bottle of beer. “Will I do it again? It’s a mystery. With these kinds of races you don’t know if it’s going to be hard or harder.” With racers of his caliber it’s ridiculous to compare them to the majority of the riders that take on this race. Hestler concludes, “After day one I feel like I do after a World Cup. Then you do it again. And again. That’s pretty scary.”

Art by Max Austin, age 14

Images of war. Fleeting thoughts and memories of people forcing themselves and their machines beyond their limits. This determined mass of humanity pushed, pulled and weaved their way through the Canadian Rockies. A limping, hurt and frequently sick group of people that started as strangers but finished with a profound respect for each other. For the top few teams… this is a race. For the rest of the pack it’s survival. And it went on and on and on. Riding in a tight formation of eight riders on a 50-mile stretch of gravel road one rider tells his partner, “Now it’s all mental. It’s all in your head. It’s all in your head!” Soon after the poor guy screams and shoots off his bike like he was hit by lightning. Shrapnel.

The sight of a grown man crying at the side of the trail in his soaking, dirty lycra makes you look away. But sadly it can make you feel stronger even if you are biting through your own bottom lip. There’s much a stake with a task of this magnitude. The punishment is unrelenting and harsh. It’s a chance to look inside yourself just to see what you can see. Sometimes it’s not pretty. But sometimes you will find a surprise. Or two.

Andreas Hestler and Marty Lazarski won Open Men's category and the Overall. Dan Hudson Photo

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