Bucket List: An Epic Race in Africa

28 March 2012 Photo by Greg Beadle/Cape Epic/SPORTZPICS singletrack.competitor.com

www.cape-epic.com

I was on singletrack.competitor.com today and I came across this picture from the ABSA Cape Epic Mountain Bike Stage Race. I had never heard of the event until today, but this picture peaked my curiosity and forced me to google it. It turns out that it takes place in South Africa every year during the end of March and beginning of April. Supposedly, it is the largest full service mountain bike stage race in the world. The 8 days of grueling racing provides riders the opportunity to cover about 500 miles, suffer through 49,000ft of climbing, and ford treacherous river crossings like the one above. The scenery along the way is said to be magnificent. The routes are famous for scaling up some of the most beautiful mountain passes in Africa. Racers compete in teams of 2 and sleep in tent cities between stages. I am thinking about adding this one to the bucket list. Maybe when Ben heals up he'll be willing to jump on board and we could start the training? I just hope the youtube dude who was hit by the antelope on his bike wasn't doing this race when it happened?

The Big Year

Michelle and I were married at the end of 2011 and we love playing in the outdoors. 2012 is the year of new adventures in our home. So far we’ve been lucky enough to explore Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, and Bryce Canyon and we have plans to visit Yosemite, ride Slickrock, and see Old Faithful before the year ends.  

When we were ring shopping for Michelle there was only one ring that I liked enough to get her, and that ring took every last penny from my savings. When Michelle realized that, she surprised me with a Trek Superfly. I love that bike and I love mountain biking. I'm going to participate in my first sprint triathlon and mountain biking race this year. It's not like I plan on winning, but as long as I don't finish last it'll be a success.

In February, Matt (bro-in-law) and I took our bikes to St. George to get the biking season started. We rode Bear Claw Poppy and it was awesome. The first ride of the season is always great. Flying down the hill on your bike is addicting, and when you haven’t had it for a while you forget how great it is. I finished the week with two rides on BCP, then I returned to the snow covered trails in Ogden. But those rides left me anxious for my trip back to St. George in two weeks. 

Two weeks... I needed to tune up the bike, pick up some quick links and upgrade my helmet. Check, check and check. I was ready to go. So I hit the trail at 5:30 and it was beautiful. 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I peddled 4 miles to the top of BCP and was ready for the reward of the down hill. I survived the drop zone and splashed through the wash, now it was just fast rolling hills all the way to trailhead. I was on the final mile of the ride and the fastest mile of the ride. Gearing up to hit the last few jumps before the ride was finished when...

X-rays

Road Rash

Broken

Missed the landing. I broke my wrist, forearm, and elbow. Separated my shoulder. Broke my new helmet and damaged my pride a little bit. Lucky for me it wasn't worse. It's still going to be a "Big Year" , but it's just going to start out a little slower than I planned.

To ski or work?

I was surprised to see a few inches of snow on the ground this morning, as I woke up to get ready for work. The ski report showed that our local mountain, Beaver, had only received 6'' of new. In a normal year this wouldn't be enough to tempt me to skip out on work, but things have been different this season with the lack of snow. I almost made a few phone calls to get out of work, but in the end decided not to.

http://www.snowbird.com/birdsnest/

If I lived down closer to the Cottonwoods, I wouldn't have had any dilemma whatsoever of wether to ski or work. The decision would have been easy, skip work go ski. The snowcam at the Bird showed about 15'' of new, and that was on top of everything that had fallen the past two days. Every spring they always seem to get dumped on. Anyways, the snowy commute to work made me think of JP Auclair's Street Segment in "All I Can" from Sherpas Cinemas. The work or ski dilemma would not be as big of a problem if you could ski to work.

Kick Push and Almost Eat Crap

Justin and I headed up to the top of Smithfield Canyon Road this past November. He road his longboard down and I filmed him as I followed on my bike. I forgot about the footage, but I rediscovered yesterday while I was going through files on my hard drive. I decided to throw together a quick edit. It isn't much, but I do smile every time I see Justin almost going down. 

Kick Push and Almost Eat Crap from Massif Project on Vimeo.

Sliding

Here in Logan I live with some buddies in a house on a steep hill. A blizzard finally decided to visit us the other day and we couldn't help but play. Better us than the cars we figured, right? I shot it on my iPhone, so the quality isn't the best, but enjoy!

Ice Fishing

While Matt and co were down south having fun, I found myself at my parents house with nothing to do. Thankfully, my dad approached me that Friday night and asked me if I'd like to go fishing with him, my uncle Wade, cousin Derek, and Wade's father-in-law Darrel, and brother-in-law Tyson, the next morning. They were headed to Whitney Lake up in the Uintahs, just off the Mirror Lake Highway. The road in to the actual lake was snow packed, so it would be 15 miles in on a snowmobile and 15 out. Normally I would have probably tried to find an excuse to tell him no; not because I didn't want to go, but because we were to leave at 4:30 in the morning and all my winter gear was up in Logan. This time however, I  took the high road and agreed to go. We scrounged up some old snow bibs and a good warm jacket and I was ready to go.

Darrel 

4:30 came super early and instantly I began to question whether or not I had made the right decision the night before. After a quick breakfast we finished loading up the car and were on our way to meet everyone at Darrel's house in Roy. When we got there I was grateful to see that the snowmobiles were already loaded in the trailer and ready to go. Wade, Derek, and Tyson arrived within ten minutes and we piled in two cars and headed towards Evanston.

My first fish

It took around two hours to get through Evanston and to the service parking lot where we unloaded the snowmobiles. Our cars told us the temperature outside was a bone chilling 4 degrees; albeit was still dark. Between the six of us there were four machines and a tow-sled, which held our gear. I hopped on back of Derek's and we set off on an extremely cold ride to the lake.

Wade looking good for the camera

By the time we got to the lake it was light out and we had our pick of spots because no one was there. Once we chose our place we threw down the tarp and unloaded the sled. Me and Derek used the snow shovels to clear six areas for fishing and Wade started the auger. Luckily, we had a gas powered one that breezed through the three-foot thick ice to the water below. We rigged our poles with a small fly and tipped the hook with a mill-worm. Not five minutes in we all had our first fish of the day, and from there didn't ever look back. 

Dad and his "monster"

We fished for four or five hours and had a great time. What our fish lacked for in size, we made up for in numbers. Derek led the pack with a whopping 38 fish, while Darrel and Tyson brought in 24 each. Wade ended up with 16, me 14, and my dad caboosed it with 12. It was well worth the trip out there and I'd do it again soon.