We started off with a sailing and mountain biking trip with our friends Amber & Cris. It was their wedding gift to us. It was very enjoyable overall, but I don't think Iz is ever going to be a sailor! We headed over the Saturday morning to Deep Bay (click for map, between Nanaimo and Campbell River) where they picked us up in the boat. We ended up sleeping on the boat in Deep Bay that night, though the original plan was to sail to Hornby Island (click for map), because it was stormy outside the bay. The winds died down over night, and that caused issues with the anchor - we ended up bumping into a dock near where we'd anchored twice in the night! No damage thankfully, but it woke Cris & I up, and we went top ship to fix it up.
The Sunday we sailed to the island, and used the zodiac (no motor) to make two trips over with our bikes to the beach. That was a pretty funny process! We rode our bikes, and then had to do the same trip on the zodiac back in the evening. Worked out well, and was super fun.
The Monday we had a LONG day of sailing all the way back to Campbell River - nearly 11 hours! We got to see their new home and puppy, so that was nice. Turned in for the night, and then Cris drove us back to Deep Bay Tuesday. We took advantage of being where we were to ride our bikes on some other fun trails there in Cumberland.
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Next up was our trip to the interior for some riding and racing, it was a blast! Phil (the brother in law) drove us in his truck which was super, and made it so much easier than trying to pack everything in to our car - I don't think we could have fit everything actually!
We first went to Sun Peaks resort Wednesday, Aug. 3 and rode their bike park Thursday. Had an AMAZING camp site not 10 minutes from the resort. It was/is what is called (Iz will correct me if I'm wrong) a Forrest Service Road Recreation Site. Very remote, very small, very beautiful.
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We camped there again after riding Thursday night (washed up in the lake) and then drove to Golden Friday. The race organizer was kind enough to allow us to set up our tent in the yard of this 'palace' that he had been 'given' by the resort for himself, his family, and a bunch of other folks that were working for the race.
Most of those folks were professionals that Phil & I knew from magazines and movies from our younger days! Was very cool to hang out with them inside the house (race organizer offered us access to the home too - we really just slept in the tent) for the time we were there. I would say that we may have even started some friendships with a few of them, pretty cool!
The riding at Kicking Horse resort in Golden was super fun. The race track was good, had it's tough sections, but overall fun. Sadly Iz had a crash on the Saturday in her last practice run, and hurt her thumb. She iced it up though, and still raced Sunday. I'm so happy she did, even with taking her time, as she then was able to 'conquer the fears' of where she crashed, and also is now still eligible for the overall in her category - if she'd not finished, she'd not then be able to complete 5 out of 6 races!
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29937947@N07/sets/72157627274236469/ (not many really of the racing etc. in our stream, but loads here: http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Western-Open-Alberta-BC-Cup-Recap-2011.html) and a little video: http://www.pinkbike.com/video/211446/
SHAW was there too: http://sexley.pinkbike.com/channel/Western-Open-2010-SHAW/
We drove home after the race on Sunday; Phil was a trooper and did the whole 7+ hours himself! I napped early on in the trip expecting him to want to sub out, but I ended up just riding along shotgun keeping him awake for the last part.
Monday was a nice day to relax and get things back in order and do some errands before it was back to work yesterday.
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