Monday, June 01, 2009

Penticton training camp

Wow, what a camp. Headed to Penticton, BC, home of the Iron Man Canada, for 5 days of big rides and bigger hill climbs.

Sunday was a tough intro to local riding: the 180km IMC loop, followed by Apex: 11km of 10-11% grade road. Holy moly. Second day was a gentle 100km to Summerland, a couple of repeats on Giant's Head (2.5km, up to 18%) and a nice ride through the country side. Tuesday we did a monster ride down through the US, back through the most casual border crossing ever (described as a guy sitting in a lawnchair beside a 6 person outhouse)...totalling 220km! Wed my bro Tim and I went back to Summerland to take a bunch of photos of the orchards in full bloom, then we rode through Summerland again, and the Kettle Valley Railroad on the way back.

Giant's Head is the peak on the far left of the horizon:




More orchards:



Thursday was my favourite ride...after a quick stint of work in the morning (while Trev knocked off a 100km ride) Trev and I drove to Oliver, then rode up Mt Baldy, which gained something like 1450 metres in 30 km, oh, and 24km of that was a gravel road! to the ski resort, down the back-side, to the summit of Anarchist, and then down Anarchist, through Osoyoos and back to Oliver. Kewl!

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