North Shore Ripper #2 - Team Pangor

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North Shore Ripper #2 - Team Pangor

Published Sunday, May 15, 2005 by Jim Meldrum | E-mail this post

Stop having fun - this is a race. Jim Meldrum couldn't conceal his glee. Photo ~ David Ferguson

I tore past the cheering crowd blasting through the ribbon designating the finish line - my fist held high in the air in a show of strength! The strength of a rider who'd given his all and succeeded! I woke with a start.

It was 2am and drizzling outside. Finally around 730 I woke up. Shower, coffeemaker, wait for the caffeine to kick in.

By 810 the caffeine was coursing through me and I realized I'd better kick it into high gear. I grabbed all my stuff and headed out the door. Before turning the key I did a quick mental rundown of all the things I needed.

Hmm, oops my bike, uh err better go grab that. I also grabbed a PowerBar as I'd somehow forgotten to eat breakfast. I arrived with ample time to register and do some "warm-up riding". This gave me some time to make some modifications to my outfit and leave my camelback zipper wide open (it remained as such until the end of the race).

My crowning moment of the whole day was shortly after registration. I was standing beside my car trying to figure out which shorts to put on, looking at my reflection in the window assessing which ones made my butt look better when the guy behind me yelled out "damn-it!!" Being a Good Samaritan I asked him what the problem was.

Turns out that the guy forgot his cycling shoes, it felt good to see someone who was more of a bumbler than me. He got on the phone and soon had his wife driving some shoes to him from Burnaby, lucky bastard! About 45 minutes later - 5 minutes before the start of the race, I saw the same guy cursing again - this time he had a flat tire, I felt warm inside.

I rode around talking to people like Lee and Sharon, both of whom were busy officiating and therefore didn't provide me with much relief to the pre-race jitters. I found myself at the Bean around the World tent. They didn't have chairs but they had coffee. So I drank.

By race start I was almost levitating. The officials had us lay our bikes down and line up behind some tape. When the signal went off, the race began and we ran around the parking lot, we sounded like a bunch of horsies jockeying down the road, "clickity-clickity" went all the bike shoes. After one lap of the parking lot we were allowed to grab our bikes and get all clogged up in the narrow trails, I'm not sure why they tried delaying the clogging with this silly run-around.

Eventually we were on the Empress trial, then on to Old Buck and up to the Power Lines. Within ten minutes I realized that my pre-race meal of coffee, no water and a Powerbar was ill advised as my stomach started to cramp and my body complained for the lack of food or water I'd given it. I was hoping to see someone with a "special needs bag" but I saw nobody.

About 15 minutes in, I was pretty lonely until I got passed by one of the U15 class (under fifteen years old). Eventually I made it to the transition, except I didn't get to hand off the baton - I'd made the mistake of registering for the "SOLO" event. So I got to the top, put my kneepads on, had a drink, let some air out of my tires, lowered my seat and contemplated my decent.

Pingu was slippery and wet, I showed off for the photographers by riding around the little puddles and rolling over the drops. I commented to myself a few times as to how tiring it is to ride both up and down the trail instead of just driving to the top and riding down. It also seemed like a lot less fun on the silly little hardtail bike with 5cms of air-sprung travel on my front shock. When I reached the finish line I couldn't hold up my fist as the terrain was too bumpy but I gave 'em a big squishy-core smile!