Cesar's Blog

So, if you are married + have kid(s) + you want to stay competitive you have to find time for training. So, for me early morning (and I mean "early") have worked to keep my wife happy and be able to spend quality time with my son. Sunday morning (6:00am) I woke up (sneak out of the bed) and withing 5 minutes I was already in the car with my bike in and ready for a good MTB ride !! Stopped for coffee and breaky in my way out and headed out to Bragg Creek with a mission in mind (to ride from Station Flats to Pneuma-Moose Packers and all four Ridge Backs) and be back home before Maria was up !! (yeah, I am not that fast just yet, but at least that was my plan ::--)))) 7:00 am and I was ready to go at Station Flats. An hour later and lots of climbing got me to the top of Pneuma with a very nice view of the mountains>>> It was an expectacular morning ride I have to say, super quiet and with no one on the trails.. Forgot my Ipod, but that was a good thing I guess, ...

Just another mega awesome weekend racing the Kootney Krusher 50K MTB at Nipika !! This is by far one of the most amazing courses I have had the opportunity to race on. The scenery and views from the cliffs were amazing, (never mind trying to stay in front of Trish !!! holy crap is she fast !). With Maria and Nick all packed and the trailer ready to go we drove to Nipika on Friday morning. Set up the campsite and jumped into the freezing pond by the lodge.... urrrrr... Then, decided to go to Radium for the music fest and the hot springs (way better idea)-->> The night at Nipika was nice, bit cold but pretty quiet.. Woke up at around 8:00 and after breaky rode to sign up. Met Alana, Deane and Andy and few others friends who drove early morning to the race. I choose 32/19 gear and without pre-riding the course was ready for another race @!! Off we go and 5ks into the race I was still behind Andy, crap I am keeping up with him that is a good sign uhoooo!! and then...

No biking for me this weekend as I needed to earn some points with the wife!! instead, we did a nice hike on Saturday (Jumping Pound Ridge) with a couple of friends and Nick in my backpack !! holi!! 25pounds for 1:13 hour going up and 1:00 hour coming down !! that is a hell of a work out :-))) I wish we weren't feeding him that well over the last year and a half ::---)) /// Well, it was totally worthy because the view is one of the most amazing views of the Rockies::>> Maria was very happy to get up there and we spent some time seating and relaxing before we started to hike down.  This has to be an awesome work out (judging it by how my legs and back were feeling the day after //  After that we stopped at Dawson Creek and did cooked hot dogs yummmm !! On Sunday we decided to go out and cut some firewood for the remaining of the camping season./ Went out to Bragg Creek area and after the first log down I couldn't get the chain saw started agai...

I had the idea of riding point to point from Bragg Creek to Canmore mostly on single track and who better than Andy for the challenge?. Also, as Amit had the day off and wanted to do a long ride before the Breg Epic it was easy to convince him for the ride, so the three of us ended up willing to do it and left early with a few changes along the way... I picked them up at around 7:00am and drove to West Bragg Creek. Parked there and started the ride. We took the new West Bragg to Ranger Summit, down Sugar Mama to Station Flat which was a good warm up for the long ride/. From Station Flats we rode Sulphur and Powder Face following the Prairie Link that would eventually take us to Powder Face road to connect with Jumping Pound. Because we weren't carrying a lot of water we had to filter some and refill the bottles before going up Jumping Pound>> so we had a quick break and got ready to continue with the trip. Andy was riding hard all the time and was looking fresh as usua...