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The weekend of the Kootenay Krusher

The Kootenay Krusher is a bike race I’d vaguely considered riding, but decided I didn’t really want to spend the money on. It’s held at Nipika, near Invermere, BC (I’d never been there before, but had heard a lot about the summer and winter trails). Rather luckily, I ended up winning a free entry. And even more helpfully, the weather for the Organgrinder race (that was held the weekend before) was terrible, so I didn’t feel like I’d chosen the wrong race to ride. I had the Rundle’s Revenge coming up the weekend after, so I didn’t want to push too hard, but it seemed like the course didn’t have a lot of climbing, and I chose to do the 50km, and just ride at a comfortable pace and enjoy the scenery.

So we all headed down to Invermere, and on Sunday morning crawled out of the sofa bed (they don’t fit three very well when one is a wiggly toddler) and headed to the race. The Moosling was pretty keen to line up with me at the starting line, but sadly I just rode off on him when the horn blew.

True to what I’d heard, the course was a little rough in spots… but also smooth in spots… rocky in spots… along precipitous drops in spots… loose in spots… newly cut in spots… it’s a 25km lap, you get a little bit of everything. There was even a hike-a-bike over a bridge. It was even flatter than I was expecting though, and after the first 10km I only saw 3 or 4 people for every 10km of riding, so it was a pretty lonely course out there, and a little hard to stay motivated for racing. Particularly with the wonderful views available along some sections.

While I was out, the Moosling entered his own first bike race. Apparently he didn’t go too well – he quite happily lined up with all the other strider bikes, but when the horn blew he dropped his bike and ran to Papa for a hug. Eventually he rode some of the course at least, and scored a prize of sorts.

All-in-all, a nice relaxing kind of race, and a really fun place to hang out. I think I’ll be back to ride and ski the trails, but maybe not to do this race again.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing around Invermere, first at the Lussiere Hot Springs, and then with a short wander up Mount Swansea. There was a rocket (rocket-shaped tower) on top of Swansea that the Moosling was very impressed with, and quite keen to try and open the door so he could go to space, the Moon, or Mars – he wasn’t fussy.

Oh, and the end result from the Kootenay Krusher? I came second in my age group (just 4 minutes behind first!), and third overall woman.