Untitled by travis_hauck at Garmin Connect - Details
Sunday afternoon, right out the back door. Good training day.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Ryders to the rescue.
2011 is kind of blowing my mind. It is a year full of surprise opportunities for biking and I am getting married. I guess I manifested some of this to happen but was caught off guard when the stars aligned. I had a great race season in 2010 and I spent this past winter focused on training for the 2011 race season. I made a list of the races that I wanted go to even though it seemed like a lot, I thought I could manage 2 races a month. Tobi was supportive of my season, as she knew that I needed to get this out of my system before we were going to start a family.
The first surprise opportunity, which had nothing to do with biking, was cat skiing up at Baldface. I had been patiently waiting to get up there for years and while I was up there a guy by the name of Will Mucke signed me up to race La Ruta de Los Conquistadores in Costa Rica. That lit the wick. Only 2 months into the year and already 2011 was off to an amazing start. With La Ruta scheduled for November, I knew I had lots of time to do all of my local races and to train.
My first race of each season is a 6 hr enduro, the Salty Dog, in Salmon Arm. The race is held in the middle of May and I usually don't have many days in the saddle leading up to it. With a long ski season and a wet spring, I got out on my bike a bit hard off the start and strained my achilles tendon. I got some acupuncture and physio and somehow managed to pull off a 2nd place finish at the Salty Dog. The next race was an 8hr in Calgary, the Giver 8'er, and I was going back for my second year as defending champ. I felt a bit of pressure. However, everything went smoothly and I won it again.
I thought that since I'm signed up for La Ruta, it would be wise to do a multi-day race to see how it felt. A 3-day race in Fernie came up and it wasn't too expensive, so Gerick Cycle sponsored me and off I went. I found out that my body did all right and my body actually felt better each day.
I didn't think that just one multi-day race was going to be enough to really test myself and prepare for La Ruta, so I applied for a sponsorship through the local bank The Nelson District Credit Union and got an entry fee for the Trans Rockies 3 day race. I was on my way to the race season of my life. I lined up the Trans Rockies before Salty Dog and I was more than content with what I had on my plate. After a good finish at the Salty Dog, Jonathan Firth from Canmore asked me if I wanted to team up with him for the 7days of the Trans Rockies. Not only did he want me to be his partner, he also had full entry covered through his sponsors. I was pumped! 7 days of racing, sign me up.
Three weeks before the race I got a call from Jonathan, as he had to back out of the TR7. His wife’s delivery date was earlier than originally expected and it would fall into the dates of the race. He had to be there for her, understandably.
My 3-day race felt good, so I am hungry for the 7-day race. I had enough money for the first 3-day TR3 entry. All I needed to do was raise the entry fee for the last 4 days and race all 7 days. With short notice, I started asking around. I called a friend Brian Cooke owner of Bicycle Café. He had done several Trans Rockies races and was a bit of legend in the area. I thought he would be an awesome partner and he might have a way of getting us in. He had done a lot of trail work in the Kananaskis area and he thought he might be able to work something out with the TR organizer. He came back with a great deal for us to team up and he was looking forward to the race. That same day Ryders Eyewear came to the rescue! A good pal of mine, Joe Schwartz, recently started working for Ryders marketing and emailed me to see if I wanted to do the race. It’s funny how things work out sometimes. (I think FB played a role in this one.)
Dreams can come true people.
The first surprise opportunity, which had nothing to do with biking, was cat skiing up at Baldface. I had been patiently waiting to get up there for years and while I was up there a guy by the name of Will Mucke signed me up to race La Ruta de Los Conquistadores in Costa Rica. That lit the wick. Only 2 months into the year and already 2011 was off to an amazing start. With La Ruta scheduled for November, I knew I had lots of time to do all of my local races and to train.
My first race of each season is a 6 hr enduro, the Salty Dog, in Salmon Arm. The race is held in the middle of May and I usually don't have many days in the saddle leading up to it. With a long ski season and a wet spring, I got out on my bike a bit hard off the start and strained my achilles tendon. I got some acupuncture and physio and somehow managed to pull off a 2nd place finish at the Salty Dog. The next race was an 8hr in Calgary, the Giver 8'er, and I was going back for my second year as defending champ. I felt a bit of pressure. However, everything went smoothly and I won it again.
I thought that since I'm signed up for La Ruta, it would be wise to do a multi-day race to see how it felt. A 3-day race in Fernie came up and it wasn't too expensive, so Gerick Cycle sponsored me and off I went. I found out that my body did all right and my body actually felt better each day.
I didn't think that just one multi-day race was going to be enough to really test myself and prepare for La Ruta, so I applied for a sponsorship through the local bank The Nelson District Credit Union and got an entry fee for the Trans Rockies 3 day race. I was on my way to the race season of my life. I lined up the Trans Rockies before Salty Dog and I was more than content with what I had on my plate. After a good finish at the Salty Dog, Jonathan Firth from Canmore asked me if I wanted to team up with him for the 7days of the Trans Rockies. Not only did he want me to be his partner, he also had full entry covered through his sponsors. I was pumped! 7 days of racing, sign me up.
Three weeks before the race I got a call from Jonathan, as he had to back out of the TR7. His wife’s delivery date was earlier than originally expected and it would fall into the dates of the race. He had to be there for her, understandably.
My 3-day race felt good, so I am hungry for the 7-day race. I had enough money for the first 3-day TR3 entry. All I needed to do was raise the entry fee for the last 4 days and race all 7 days. With short notice, I started asking around. I called a friend Brian Cooke owner of Bicycle Café. He had done several Trans Rockies races and was a bit of legend in the area. I thought he would be an awesome partner and he might have a way of getting us in. He had done a lot of trail work in the Kananaskis area and he thought he might be able to work something out with the TR organizer. He came back with a great deal for us to team up and he was looking forward to the race. That same day Ryders Eyewear came to the rescue! A good pal of mine, Joe Schwartz, recently started working for Ryders marketing and emailed me to see if I wanted to do the race. It’s funny how things work out sometimes. (I think FB played a role in this one.)
Dreams can come true people.
Larch Hill traverse by travis_hauck at Garmin Connect - Details
Larch Hill traverse by travis_hauck at Garmin Connect - Details
Awesome day on tour with Warren Ellis and Brian Cooke.
Awesome day on tour with Warren Ellis and Brian Cooke.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Back door to Power Slave. by travis_hauck at Garmin Connect - Details
Right out my back door. 1300 meters straight up no give.
Back door to Power Slave. by travis_hauck at Garmin Connect - Details
Back door to Power Slave. by travis_hauck at Garmin Connect - Details
Friday, July 15, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
A bit Furious at the Furious 3
I showed up for the tournament Thursday afternoon and was feeling the excitement the nervousness settled in. I stuck to my superstitious routine, eating lunch in Cranbrook at the Cottage restaurant and visiting the guys at Favorit cycle. This pattern resulted in good finishes at the last 3 races so I had to stick to it.
I bumped into my buddy Colby Large (Giant bicycles sales rep for BC) in the bike shop and made plans to meet in Fernie. He arranged a 2 bed room for the weekend and let me stay there. I was looking forward to the hotel hot tub and relaxing after each day's race.
That night I went to visit my friends at Straight Line bike shop and ask about the course for day one. Tyler took the time to load up the web page and we checked out the map. The map was basically a red line drawn on google earth with no arrows showing what direction we head out or what hills we were to climb or descend. The map had a 2 paragraph write up for each of the courses but my local friend couldn't really understand where the course was taking us. So I gave up on that strategy and just thought following flagging should be fine.
Day one went pretty good. I didn't feel 100% off the start. The10km logging road section didn't go as well as I wanted it to, but I got my legs in the single track. I finished 5th overall and found out later that day some flagging got missed and a sweet piece of single track was left out. So after climbing for 20 min we descended a logging road instead of the trail. OOPS. Day 1 was Canada day and there was no national anthem to start us off. Too bad it would have been nice.
I guess they didn't learn from the day one hiccup because day 2 turned out to be a disaster. I started day two fast and followed a local legend Troy Mesigner down a long walking trail. I lost his wheel once we started climbing single track. Riding with Troy was another local hero Martin Vale. They both knew the trails like the back of their hands and I think that was an advantage for them because they didn't make any wrong turns. I was riding with the winner from day one Shawn Bunnin and 2 other guys from the top 6, Ron Ellis and Rudi Schnider. We kept a strong pace and caught glimpses of Troy and Marty until a long climb up a trail called Dembones. When they were out of sight, Shawn, Ron, Rudi and I came to a red ribbon across the trail. Troy and Marty knew the way to go so they crossed the ribbon and we didn't see which way they went. We thought we weren't supposed to cross ribbons, so we turned left. Bad choice. We were supposed to cross the red ribbon and ride into traffic and potentially cause a collision with other riders. With no course marshal at a very important intersection, and 4 racers that didn't want to slow down, we lost about 60 minutes as we had to climb Dembones again. When we got back up to the trail with the red ribbon across it, to see a volunteer there moving it. What a joke!
I was pretty bummed that afternoon. People started talking about all of the different sections they got lost on and there was talk of the day not counting. That would have satisfied me and made for a more accurate result in the end. But they counted day 2, boo. I lost all desire to recover and get ready for day 3 so I hung out down town had some beers. I even ate McDonalds for dinner! At around 10 o'clock I felt like a sore loser, told myself to suck it up and give it 110% to see what might happen. So I did and it turned out to be a great day, a solid race and a fast pace. I finished 4th that day sprinting to the finish with Shawn ahead of me and Ron right on my tail. Really exciting.
It's all over now and I've told the story many times. I still get a bit annoyed, but I know and a lot of other people know what the overall results should have been. I just wish the organizer gave us some recognition.
That night I went to visit my friends at Straight Line bike shop and ask about the course for day one. Tyler took the time to load up the web page and we checked out the map. The map was basically a red line drawn on google earth with no arrows showing what direction we head out or what hills we were to climb or descend. The map had a 2 paragraph write up for each of the courses but my local friend couldn't really understand where the course was taking us. So I gave up on that strategy and just thought following flagging should be fine.
I guess they didn't learn from the day one hiccup because day 2 turned out to be a disaster. I started day two fast and followed a local legend Troy Mesigner down a long walking trail. I lost his wheel once we started climbing single track. Riding with Troy was another local hero Martin Vale. They both knew the trails like the back of their hands and I think that was an advantage for them because they didn't make any wrong turns. I was riding with the winner from day one Shawn Bunnin and 2 other guys from the top 6, Ron Ellis and Rudi Schnider. We kept a strong pace and caught glimpses of Troy and Marty until a long climb up a trail called Dembones. When they were out of sight, Shawn, Ron, Rudi and I came to a red ribbon across the trail. Troy and Marty knew the way to go so they crossed the ribbon and we didn't see which way they went. We thought we weren't supposed to cross ribbons, so we turned left. Bad choice. We were supposed to cross the red ribbon and ride into traffic and potentially cause a collision with other riders. With no course marshal at a very important intersection, and 4 racers that didn't want to slow down, we lost about 60 minutes as we had to climb Dembones again. When we got back up to the trail with the red ribbon across it, to see a volunteer there moving it. What a joke!
I was pretty bummed that afternoon. People started talking about all of the different sections they got lost on and there was talk of the day not counting. That would have satisfied me and made for a more accurate result in the end. But they counted day 2, boo. I lost all desire to recover and get ready for day 3 so I hung out down town had some beers. I even ate McDonalds for dinner! At around 10 o'clock I felt like a sore loser, told myself to suck it up and give it 110% to see what might happen. So I did and it turned out to be a great day, a solid race and a fast pace. I finished 4th that day sprinting to the finish with Shawn ahead of me and Ron right on my tail. Really exciting.
It's all over now and I've told the story many times. I still get a bit annoyed, but I know and a lot of other people know what the overall results should have been. I just wish the organizer gave us some recognition.
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