Pinkbike: And on the Seventh Day...Crankworx 2013
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| Photo: Margus Riga |
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Pinkbike: 2013 Western Open - BC Cup
The Western Open has become a bit of an institution, it’s not the easiest race to get to but it’s one of the most loved tracks on the BC Cup circuit and worth the hours of travel from Vancouver, Calgary, and Florida.
Check out more of my photos and Connor Macloed's video on pinkbike.com
The Bakery: Hangover
It took ten hours to get home on Monday. I spent the time cooped up in the backseat of a friend's overloaded car fighting off the assault of precariously perched helmets and other gear. I was suffering from a severe hangover, the kind where it feels like your punished soul is trying to escape through your eyeballs. Solid food was beyond my ability. I passed the time by mentally inventorying the items within reach that I could throw up in and wondering at what angle my head would fit through the childproofed back window without getting stuck. I watched the world go by outside between naps and moments of pure nausea. The long weekend traffic was stop-and-go at points, usually with the congestion caused by line-ups of RV's waiting to go to places like The Enchanted Forest, which boast 350 jolly folk art figurines. It made me feel lucky to ride bikes, lucky that my long weekend Holy Grail involved mountains and really cool people, not gimmicky Styrofoam and overpriced hot dogs.
The Bakery: Meat Pies and Meatheads… A DH Race Weekend
A DH race weekend is a magical world, the kind of place you find if you stumble through the back of a wardrobe or fall down a rabbit hole. Only the Cheshire cat would be wearing a pajama suit and Alice would be manically adjusting her tire pressure. Men run around in women’s clothing, scale buildings naked and drop their pants on course like baboons in heat. The scene is a bit like a redneck uncle; there is a lot of drinking, swearing, and punch lines that make you cringe. Regular life is game-off and conversation alternates from hot girls, to meat pies, to race lines – women, food and going fast.
The Bakery: Community
Bamfield is not a city. It is more of a small town or village. You can not pass through it to go anywhere and you are lucky to arrive there, over the logging road, with your car intact. This is where I grew up. It is where I learned the value of being a part of a community. Our commonality was our location and, as a result, we also shared the desire to survive the winters of isolation, power outages and harsh west coast storms. Some of us are drawn to Bamfield, some driven to it. Some long for a simpler existence, some are social outcasts, others are retired, or entrepreneurs, and still others have been there for many generations; the reasons that their families originally called it home, long since forgotten.
We form a motley and mismatched extended family. All ages, ethnicities, denominations, opinions (of which there are many), and abilities exist within our community and because of that we function and we have identity. I grew up learning from people I may never otherwise have had the opportunity to meet and I enjoyed a sense of safety that came from many caring eyes, which was great unless you were trying to get into the community hall dance underage.
The Bakery: Hangry
Hypoglycemia goes by a few different names; ‘hitting the wall’ conjures up images of men running marathons in headbands and short shorts circa 1982 and ‘bonking’ makes me think of people in spandex slumped over their handlebars trying to remember where they went wrong with their carb intake from the night before. Neither of these two descriptions are what I experience. I get ‘hangry’.
Hangry is described on the Internet as ‘a state of anger caused by lack of food; hunger causing a negative change in emotional state.’ Well ‘a negative change in emotional state’ may be an understatement. I have shredded my share of purple pants while attempting to throw my bike in a hulk-like rage. At best, when my blood sugar drops, I sever all communication and focus the energy I have left, drawn from the depths of my glycogen stores, to find food. I communicate only in grunts, head nods and spontaneous tears until I am fed. I, all but, foam at the mouth.
The Bakery: Inside Our Travelling Circus
Whenever a racer shakes my hand and compliments our professional event, I have to stop myself from gesturing over my shoulder and asking, "but didn't you see the bearded woman over there?" Yes, we have the ultimate singletrack, which goes without saying, but it's the band of misfits that create our traveling circus who make each year a unique experience. We don't offer our crew any cue cards or give them 'smile' signs while they are making your foot long sandwiches. The BC Bike Race brand is personality and people; it’s about who owns a chicken suit, plays the drums or cooks the best bacon. Even our trails represent the personalities of the people who design them.
The Bakery: Can You Keep a Secret?
Secret trails are something of a currency in the bike world and about the only thing that makes our sport remotely punk rock. We trade them for cool points or hold on to them, dropping subtle hints in conversations to elevate our perceived social status. “If you don’t know about it, you shouldn’t ride it.” Mountain biking is not sexy, so secret trails cascading down our mountains like the phantom octopi tentacles is about all we’ve got. People go hunting for them like treasure. And develop feelings of ownership, much like Gollum and his precious. Joeys shouldn’t ride them, but they always do. So who tells them where they are and why shouldn’t they? Who actually owns a secret trail? With hands raised, there is the trail builder who doesn’t own the land, the landowner who didn’t build the trail, the inner circle of the first riders to know about it (who didn’t build the trail nor do they own the land) and the community as a whole.
The Bakery: Vagabonds, Nomads and Too Many Gonads
Showing up at the basecamp for the first of the Oregon Enduro Series was like walking into a post apocalyptic Mad Max world where only MC Hammer back-up dancers had survived. The goggles, the fanny packs, the spandex, the neon, the helmets that made them look like children clinging to the edge of an ice rink all gave off the impression of a new sport where no style based on utility had yet been proven. We could only hope the fanny packs wouldn’t get winning times. I had set off on this road trip weekend to Hood River to answer the question of what exactly is 'so enduro, bro?’
The Bakery: Next Generation Tippie
This week I had the opportunity to sit down with Jessamy Carmen Tippie, the heiress to the Brett Tippie legacy and 4-year-old mountain biker. She was the Lance to my Oprah, but unlike Mr. Armstrong she wasn’t afraid to answer the hard questions as we tackled everything from wheel size to unicorns.
The Bakery: Be the Change
I recently had the opportunity to sit on a panel about the future of women in mountain biking at the MTB Tourism Symposium in Sooke, British Columbia. The answer to many of the questions posed was simply that we need more women to ride. So how to do get more women involved? Some of us are fortunate to live in areas where women’s riding clubs, groups and lessons are readily available, where it feels like you see just as many women out for a ride as men, but to affect change we need to close the gap on the percentage split between male and female riders. To do this we need to encourage grassroots action, each of us needs to participate. While more women are joining the sport, the number of people mountain biking is also growing in general, and so we are only maintaining our percentages.
The Bakery: Discovering YOLO
Carpe diem, the grandfather of 'you only live once.’ It used to be the excuse used by binge drinking teenagers before they needed a shorter hashtag. The clichés around this topic are as endless as the excuses not to live it are. While 'seize the day' has long been used to justify poor, in-the-moment decisions like face tattoos and unprotected sex, this summer, YOLO will be the war cry exclaimed before many an unfortunate decision in the bike park. You may think that it suggests hucking your meat off some never-before-ventured drop because tomorrow may finally be the zombie apocalypse. Not true (about the meaning, the zombie apocalypse is anyone's guess).
A poem, written by Quintus Horatius Flaccus during his lifetime of 65BC - 8BC, celebrates the uncertainty of our future and warns against fortunetellers; apparently they were forbidden by the gods. The last line is loosely translated as: "Seize the day, putting as little trust as possible in the future."
The Bakery: Chasing the Dragon
When it comes to sports I’m not a natural. My first few months of mountain biking were filled with frustration, crashes and temper tantrums. If my bike hadn’t been so heavy I probably would have thrown it at least 10 times. And I definitely tried to sell it once. I never thought much of the learning process. I was either good at something or I didn’t do it; this is the reason I barely passed math in high school. Leave the ‘jocking’ for the jocks, I’ll be over here writing art history papers, thanks. Not until I tried mountain biking did I realize how addicting it can be to conquer the things that challenge you the most.
The Bakery: Leprechauns, Lumberjacks and Bob Ross
I attended a trail day on Sunday. I was somewhat selfishly motivated as I was convinced that if I didn't go to one sooner or later karma would reap its revenge in the form of a stick in my wheel or rock to the face. A few weeks ago I pulled a douche move and went riding on a trail day; my indiscretion has weighed on me ever since. It was time to alleviate this guilty conscience of mine; forgive me father for I have sinned it has been 237 days since my last trail work.
I arrived early to our meeting spot in the morning; I was the second person there. In contrast to my attendance-out-of-guilt, the other guy was keen. He told me about his trail building course and pursuit of an education in forestry while I tried to hide my hangover. Two teenagers were dropped off across the street by their mom; she made eye contact with me from her vehicle and gave me the 'you're now responsible for them' nod. I actually looked behind me to see if there was an adult around. What person in their right mind would leave their kids in my care? Slowly, the rest of the crew rolled in and we eventually packed into vehicles and headed up the mountain. We parked at the top of the trail and hiked down, loaded up with tools and buckets; hi ho hi ho hi ho.
The Bakery: Are You Going To Crush Your Race Season?
I have always taken a certain amount of pride in the fact that I don't go to the gym, I like having a neck and I don't need to jack certain parts of my body up to the ceiling just to run on a treadmill. I have always thought, "why be inside when you can be outside?"
Apparently, there are some very good reasons to take shelter. Aside from all the general health benefits of resistance training such as getting stronger, increasing metabolism and blood sugar control, and improvement of bone density, it can directly affect your riding season.
Studies show that lifting weights builds muscles with stronger and thicker fibers, as well as muscles that are better able to use oxygen, allowing athletes to perform better in endurance sports. Coordination, balance and flexibility are also improved. Additionally, it strengthens your connective tissue, you know, all those ligaments and tendons people keep tearing and snapping. Long story short, training with weight makes you faster and keeps you on your bike longer.
The Bakery: Why Do You Hate My Vagina?
Dear Mr. Motorist,
Our paths crossed yesterday, almost literally, as I was biking home. You were driving a big old truck with an oversized, tarped load in the back. I was riding my road bike. I shoulder-checked for traffic, signaled, and moved out into the lane to ride about twenty feet and avoid a grate through a narrow section before yielding the road back to motorists. You sped up beside me and passed me. In doing so, with your big truck and overhanging load, you squeezed me to the side, forcing me to hit the grate. In all fairness, it was my choice; I chose to hit it over being hit by you.
I wasn’t prepared to hit the grate and when I did I was pitched forward onto my top tube, causing an unfortunate collision between my vagina and my bike. I can only imagine that causing me to box myself was your sole intention; clearly you could not have been so absent-minded or ignorant while driving that you would accidentally cause bodily harm to a cyclist.
The Bakery: Playing Hooky
Riding bikes on a trail day can easily make you a social pariah. I did it on Sunday. As best as I can tell no one has stopped talking to me, no notes wrapped around bricks have been tossed through my window and karma doesn't seem to have enforced immediate retribution, I do however have a deep sense of guilt. It is the kind of guilt that usually only parents or church can inflict, like the time I was suspended from school and my parents opted not to ground me. Instead they simply said they were 'disappointed'. Ouch. They knew that was the worst kind of disciplinary action. I had the same sense of shame the other day when I asked a friend if she wanted to go for a ride on Sunday, she responded with "I'm going to the trail day, aren't you?"
I had actually forgotten all about it.
I still went riding. I felt like a jerk for doing it but I had a good list of solid excuses why I should: I only had an hour to ride, it was the first time I had ridden all week, Strava needed me, the apocalypse was coming, God told me to, I was chasing the last unicorn, I was running away from a Nickleback song, I thought there would be too many people there already, the last time I used a chainsaw we had to go to the hospital, well, you get the point.
The Bakery: Child’s Play
“We were not the valedictorians of the school; we were the guys that would have been chosen ‘last to succeed.’ And for some reason by doing something everyone said was just a waste of time, we ended up influencing kids all around the world.”
Last winter, when the snow hit the trails, I tried to love winter and accept the void of biking by learning how to snowboard. I went through a lot of Fireball Whisky, some tears, and one boyfriend. This year I looked for a different approach to the snowy months and stumbled upon a new ‘sport’.
And more Fireball.
The Bakery: Soul Sucker
As a kid out at a local race how excited were you when your hero showed up to compete? USA Cycling CEO, Steve Johnson, doesn’t appear to think you should have that experience. In fact USA Cycling, while claiming that their mission “is to achieve sustained success in international cycling competition and grow competitive cycling in America”, is essentially grinding out their cigarette butt on the very grassroots events that actually contribute to growing cycling.
Their strong arm tactics of threatening emails, leveraging fines and suspensions, and cock blocking local races from having pros in attendance is more reminiscent of Carlo Gambino shaking down shops for protection money, than it is of an organization meant to be looking out for our sport.
The Bakery: The Three Universal Truths of Trail Building
Spending some time in the forest with a man named Digger, a radio playing classic rock, and some hand tools taught me more about Buddhism that my Eastern Religion class ever did. Whether he knows it or not, Digger has achieved a spiritual understanding that the rest of the world is throwing money at yoga retreats to try and find.