August 10th (Afternoon)

The weather didn’t warm up that much today (22° or so), but it was still rather warm for a long sleeved shirt… The ride was really good, though. I caught up and passed two ladies on mountain bikes (and in matching green shirts ) on the Hugh Allan hill. They caught up with me as I waited at the light at the old Merritt highway, but after that I never saw them again (slow pokes!). Going down into the Peterson’s Creek valley was a blast. The two sandy sections were still a bit wet, meaning they were firm enough to easily make them through without any troubles.

I then made the east bank down into the creek (without putting a foot down) and even made it through and up the other side, only dabbing once (I’ve only actually made this 1st section once to date). Then, I even made the second section up, but had to dab once (normally I just walk the whole thing). It was great! As I was going down this morning, I realized that I always ride the middle, over the tree root, but when I try going up, I take it wide (left) to avoid the tree root. As such, I have to swing around quickly to stay in the middle of the trail and usually end up not cutting it tight enough and trying to climb up the side of the trail. So today, I got enough speed to easily make it over the tree root in the middle and was able to keep the bike in the middle of the trail the whole way up. Now that I’ve managed this, I know I can make this entire little section so that’s pretty sweet.

The rest of the climb up out of the valley was tough as usual, and I took the bypass trail. I didn’t make it nearly as far up as I usually do, unfortunately! However, once at the top, the rest of the single-track was pretty sweet. Fun, fast and somewhat in control!

I decided to take the main trail through to Juniper as I was running a bit late, and I threw it in the big ring and really cranked some good speeds through there. Unfortunately, there were thousands of black flies swarming all over the place, pelting me all over as I rode. They made it rather difficult to breathe, as I had to keep closing me mouth to keep them out! But, after only swallowing about 1/3 of their population, I made it out and home in a great time of 42 minutes!