IMC course (reverse direction)

Hey all,
Sorry for the delay on the blog, I had a terrible time figuring out exactly what to say. There is so much to talk about, and I'm not the greatest at expressing myself. The camp started unofficially on friday with a long ride in the heat. Wait a sec that describes every day! We started off riding out of town on "Green Mountain road". Not too much traffic here and it climbed gently at first with a few steeper sections. Nothing too bad although I think Mark was already hurting. Greg and Mark had rode a huge really steep hill the day before, so I guess I had the fresh legs today. I guess this is the same hill that we climb on the IMC course (yellow lake) just a dif. length and grade. Well once at the top we started our daring descent, some of it was winding and it gave me one of my first chances to really test my TT bike handling skills. At one point I swerved into the other lane, the bike isn't quite as solid as a Road bike. The road eventually came out just before the yellow lake hill. We waited for some of our campers and headed on to our first official stop, the big bear fruit stand. It wasn't open but we could get water at least and make more yummy infinit. From here we followed the IMC course backwards into the Richter rollers and eventually up Richter pass. The backside seems a lil easier to climb than the front side. I had a slight mishap on the way down Richter, my aero bar broke or worked itself loose on a couple of the bumps so I had to contend with a loose aero bar for the remainder of the ride. it kinda sucked but it still had a sleeve to sit on so I could ride with it as long as I was careful. I scooted on ahead somwhere past Osoyoos and rode alone for a while till my feet started to swell. Well it was really only my right foot but it hurts like a bi#$%ch. I had to stop at one point, I forget the name(it's a well known ice cream shop) and give my feet a rest. I also needed more nutrition so I bought water for the infinit mix and a ice tea for some instant sugary energy. Here's where Greg came back dropping Mark off and eventually Julie came along too. There were a pile of cyclists at the ice cream stand so Julie, Mark and I joined them for the remainder of their ride back into Penticton. Getting back to our rooms we quickly got on the running shoes and headed out for a quick transition run. We did this nearly every day, ending in the lake to soak our aching legs. Later Mark cooked us some sweet pasta with chicken(he's a chef). Not to take anything away from his cooking, but after 160k on the road almost anything would have tasted so good. OH yeah I nearly forgot, I took my bike to the Bike Barn to see if they could do anything about the aero bars. I eventually got to talk to a mechanic who hummed and hawwed for a bit then decided he would be a nice guy and Warrentee the bars himself. I'm not sure what my expectations really were walking into the shop, I thought I might have to buy some bars. Greg said speed theory would replace them but I had 3 days to ride on the weekend, it would have been a night mare with that bar. Well the Bike Barn decided to warrentee it for me, wow! What good service. I didn't have to spend a dime in the store and they were willing to do that for me.

Greg took some good pictures which he shared with me. The first two are while climbing on green mountain road. The next is somewhere before the Richter rollers(going the reverse direction) and the last is on top of the last roller before we climb up the backside of Richter(first roller if you're doing the race). Sorry, next time I'll try using paragraphs, I'm too lazy to change it now.