Rocky Mountain 1200 Ride Report

The Rocky Mountain 1200 (RM 1200) held July 23-27 was my key objective for the ’08 season. It rose to the top of my list after I heard that my Rando riding buddies John “Kramer” Kramer and Dave “Ready to Ride” Rowe had selected it as their biggest ride for the year. It promised to be a tough ride with plenty of distance and climbing. My objective for the ride was to finish within 90 hours, with more sleep than PBP ’07 (>6 hours).

My training for the Rocky included a Super Randonneur series, a few long weekend back to back solo 100mi plus rides, The Mid Valley Bicycle Club’s Loop Tour with my family and the Death Ride. Carpooling north to the start at Kamloops British Columbia with Dave Rowe I felt ready for the ride. We got aligned on expectations and reviewed the ride plan I’d prepared. We ran into several other Randos when we arrived in Kamloops on Tuesday evening and settled down to wait for the start. Kamloops climbs up a hill side from a river junction, and the climate and fauna seemed a lot like the Columbia Plateau (Spokane). We had a whole day and filled the time with eating, sleeping, packing the drop bags and final prep of the bikes. The long day of waiting finally ended and we were ready for our 10pm Wednesday 7/23 start.

About 80 of the 100 riders elected to start at 10pm with a 90 hour limit, while the balance opted for a 4 am start and an 84 hour limit. We rolled out of town with the 90 hour group just at sunset. It was a warm clear night, and there was minimal conversation as the group strung out on the road. The 4 lane highway out of town eventually narrowed to two lanes, with occasional semi and other traffic. BC is big and the part we were in was pretty empty, so the semis flew down the highway. At one point we went through a narrow twisting canyon with poor shoulders. We came upon a rock slide that spilled onto the shoulder and smelled fresh burning rubber from a semi that had locked its’ brakes. We saw a bicyclist at the side of the road, but he looked OK, just regaining his composure, so we pushed hard to get out of the chokepoint before the next semi came along.

We kept a fast pace to the first control, and arrived at Clearwater at 2:43am, along with many other riders. After a quick stop we were on our way again. We were way ahead of my projected pace, partly due to the terrain being a gentle uphill river grade, with not many hills. It was a beautiful clear evening that was quite cold when we saw a shooting star just ahead of us. At dawn we hooked up with a line of riders and kept a very fast pace to the next control, Blue River at 229 km, 7:12 am. Dave, John and I were using Hammer’s Perpetuum liquid food, so we quickly refilled our bottles and left almost all the 90 hour riders behind us while they waited for breakfast service from one waitress and one cook at the truck stop. After that control, we were at the front of the pack. That meant for the rest of the ride the people at the controls were very glad to see us and we got first dibs on food, showers and sleeping spots.

We continued uphill river grade for most of the rest of the day. We were cruising, but not suffering and all three of us set personal best times for 200km, 300km, and 400km. Short stops at the controls was part of the reason for our rapid progress, along with a moderate tailwind and a steady uphill river grade without many hills.

Before Valemount, we saw our first bear of the trip. A large black bear crossed the highway about 75 yards ahead of us. He was sleek and ran with a fluid motion across the road and directly into the woods. From Valemount we started into the Rockies and the incredible views. We rode directly towards Mt Robson (see picture) and then turned right (south). We departed from the river and climbed the Tete Jaune pass. At the top of the pass we crossed the Northern Continental divide into territory where water flows to Hudson Bay and eventually the Arctic Ocean. We caught up with our first drop bags at Jasper and decided to shower, sleep and eat a couple of meals of real food. It was before 5 and we’d covered more than a third of the distance already and were way ahead of our plan. We planned 5 hours total off the bike and I got a solid three hours of sleep. John wasn’t so lucky and wasn’t able to sleep in the stuffy church basement. He rolled out slightly ahead of us in the twilight, and we figured we’d catch him on the climb to Beauty Creek. We rode along and talked to a couple of Canadians, Dan and Mike from Alberta. They’d taken more time at the controls and consequently hadn’t slept yet, while Dave and I were refreshed from our break. We pulled John back into sight and then let him go again when Dave and I stopped to put on all our warm clothes. We pulled in to Beauty Creek at 2:37 am just as Sophie Matter was leaving. We’d ridden with her off and on for the first day, but she had continued to Beauty Creek while we slept at Jasper. Now she was just leaving that control as we arrived. She was traveling lighter and was definitely stronger. She did the Icefields at 3 am (it was 37c) with a windbreaker. Her persistence paid off and she set a new women’s course record of 64:44. We had pancakes with Nutella and a half hour power nap in individual bunks. It was the best sleep of the trip and we were back on the road an hour after we rolled in. We were comfortable with every piece of wool clothing we had plus all our raingear on. The sky was brightening as we climbed away from Beauty Creek, past the Columbia Icefields and up to Sunwapta Pass. It was the perfect time of day for the climb. It was plenty cool for the ascent, but we still had to remove clothes as we overheated. The sky brightened with the mountains gradually being revealed, first as black shapes with the glaciers visible in the starlight, then the size of the mountains became more obvious in the gray light of dawn, and finally the sun gilded the tops of the mountains across the valley. We encountered a mountain goat on the way up the pass, but very little traffic because we crested the pass about 6 am. All our clothes came back on for the long cold descent to the Crossing Restaurant. A quick bite (the first busload of tourists showed up just as we were leaving, so there wasn’t a queue) and we were on our way to the next pass. Bow Pass was a long and not very steep climb, followed by a long gradual descent through Banff Park to Lake Louise. This whole section we had spectacular mountains on both sides of us. By the time we reached the Lake Louise control it was noon and quite warm so we had some watermelon and a break before doing the quick out and back to Castle Rock. Coming back into Lake Louise John was out of sight off the front, and we weren’t sure whether he’d stopped again at the control; after a short wait we decided he was still ahead and Dave and I proceeded west on the TransCanada highway. It's a two to four lane highway with lots of traffic because it’s the main road from BC to the rest of Canada.

Kicking Horse Pass was on the route sheet after Castle Junction with an altitude of 1700m. We expected to climb to the pass, but didn't realize we were already at 1600m. We only climbed a little and came to the top unexpectedly. It was 5 on a Friday afternoon and there was plenty of traffic. Coming over the top the shoulder, which was already narrow got much worse and we were faced with an unexpected 7% 10 km descent with the semis winding up to pass us. The road was carved into the side of the gorge of the Kicking Horse River. On our right was a foot of broken pavement for the shoulder, a guardrail with occasional gaps and a thousand foot drop down the cliff. Basically we had to fight the semis for the lane on the downhill while pushing our speed up. I saw my maximum heart rate for the trip on the descent, and not because of exertion.

At the bottom of the descent we stopped at a rest area to get our nerves back and ran into a guy who said that the descent into Golden was worse. Another big descent, but we'd be on the inside against the cliff wall, the road was two lanes, double yellow most of the way with no shoulder, it was twistier and there was an uphill halfway through the descent. He recommended taking the lane ahead of a semi. It sounded like a good idea so we thought about how to do it and survive on the next 50km of marginal riding along the shoulder. At the truck brake check area before the descent into Golden, we approached a semi driver and Dave talked him into giving us a hand. He came up behind us on the descent and blocked traffic. When it opened up temporarily to two lanes he left us on our own and then blocked again for us on the narrow part of the uphill. Since he was blocking traffic we went all out to minimize the disruption. It was another peak heart rate section, but the semi helped make it a little safer and less terrifying.

At Golden at 19:20 we caught our second drop bags and also caught back up to John. We were way ahead of schedule, and decided to eat (dinner and breakfast), shower and sleep again. Dave’s knee was bothering him, so he needed a rest and we hoped that riding the TransCanada would be more pleasant in the dark. After another three hours of sleep we were back on the road at 12:30 am. The trucks were still on the road but they could see us for a long way with our flashing red lights, and there wasn’t much oncoming traffic so they could use the opposite lane and give us plenty of room. We missed some scenery, but our timing worked out so that it was dawn as we came through Canada’s Glacier National Park. It was another beautiful dawn in the high mountains. We climbed up Roger’s pass in the very early morning, just after dawn. It was the last significant pass of the Rockies so I plugged in my iPod and cranked up the hill. There were 5 tunnels (snow sheds) on the climb, so the challenge was to time my transits through the tunnels so I wasn’t in one at the same time as a semi or an RV. We regrouped at the top and had a power nap in the foyer of the resort.

After the top of Rogers Pass it was a very long gradual descent to Revelstoke. John was sleepy so we stopped at a camping resort and had a nap on some picnic tables until a light rain woke us up. We only had rain gear on for a half hour, just enough to be able to say that we used every piece of gear we brought along on the ride. It was Saturday morning and the traffic on the TransCanada kept building. With lots of RVs, trucks with boats and plenty of semis on a (mostly) two lane highway it wasn’t very pleasant. We were coming out of the mountains, and the spectacular scenery was behind us. This was the least fun part of the ride, and we just needed to keep pedaling through it. After a long day in the saddle, we finally arrived at Enderby at 14:35. The temperature was quite high (my bike computer said 103 in the sun). Dave needed to ice his knees, so John and I had power naps. When Dave was ready to go, we had a discussion about slowing down the pace to finish together, or just leaving Dave to finish on his own. We were well ahead of our original plan, and even at a slower pace we’d have still have personal best times, so we decided to slow down and drag Dave in. The whole rando dichotomy of race vs ride was really clear. Kramer has a foot in the "race" camp, is focused on getting medals and hardware and is really more comfortable riding solo. Dave has a triathlete's vision of competing with himself, which is a modified "race" focus. For me, it's a break from racing, but I'm willing work hard as a domestique to support the other guy's objectives and to ride with them. I probably could've gone faster solo than riding with my buddies, but why? I did the SIR 400K about half solo, and it wasn't as much fun.

It was a pretty short leg to the Salmon Arm control, which we arrived at just before 5 pm. We could smell the barn after 1100 out of 1200 km and the people at the control said we only had 5 hills left to the finish. We’d slowed down, but were still way ahead of my original plan. It looked like we’d be into Kamloops a day early, so John called the hotel to advance our hotel reservation and found that we needed to pick up the key before 11 pm when the front desk closed. We had a meal and than rolled out, a screaming downhill through Salmon Arm to the river that lead to Kamloops. The highway improved, with wider shoulders. Traffic also decreased as the evening wore on. We rolled through the evening with occasional stops for Dave’s knee to recover. I did math in my head to stay awake and revised our ETA as we rolled along. First I was shooting for a 70 hour total (a RAAM qualifying time), then 72 hours (a nice round number). Eventually it became clear that at our current pace we’d miss the 11pm target at the hotel, so John volunteered to push in and get the room key and I volunteered to stay with Dave. John disappeared into the dusk with 70km to go. My new tentative target was to get in before midnight (74 hours). The highway was rolling along next to a set of busy railroad tracks and Dave and I rolled through the dusk and into darkness. I kept Dave in sight in my mirror, and he had my tail light to focus on. It was a surreal segment of the ride, with noise from the freight trains roaring by on one side and the semis passing us on the other. I cranked up the iPod and just enjoyed the ride. We could see the glow in the sky from Kamloops for the final 40km, and rolled through an industrial landscape as we came into town. Eventually, it became clear that we were actually in town and then the control came into sight. We rolled in at 11:52, with a total time of 73:52. It was the fastest 1200k we’d ever done and we celebrated with a beer before heading to the hotel.

We slept in the next morning, then had a large breakfast, a big lunch, spent the afternoon at the Kamloops aquatic center and went to the banquet. After another night of sleep we headed back to the states.
On the way back, Dave and I talked about goals for ’09. There are lots of possibilities but I haven't settled on any. I'm leaning toward doing Race Across Oregon solo (it really is a race) plus a Super Randonneur series and a 1200K. Possibilities are London-Edinburgh-London (1500K, but might be very expensive); the Gold Rush 1200K (near Susanville, cheapest and least vacation time, the downside is that it'll probably be very hot) or the new Granite Anvil 1200K in Ontario, Canada (new route, good roads).