All You Can Eat Buffet of Bacon, Pain and Suffering

Escaping a rainy weekend in Calgary, the Bakke Bus headed North toward Stony Plain for the All You Can Eat Buffet of Bacon, Pain and Suffering mountain bike race. I was at the wheel, BikingBakke rode shotgun and Craig 'Kabush' Stappler and Shawn 'Whole Wheat' Bunnin were in the back.

Conversation spanned from bike parts, to Shawn's leader plate, to bike parts and miscellaneous bike topics, such as bike parts and Shawn's leader plate. I had nothing to contribute to any of these discussions.

We stayed at the Stony Convention Inn, which precipitated a gut busting dialogue - 'dude, this is, like, the best convention ever', etc. Then it was back to the topic of Shawn's leader plate. Our rooms had a lovely view of the train tracks, which were (unfortunately for us) well utilized through the night.

The course was a sequence of twisty singletrack woven through a forested area on a small acreage. I was impressed by how much track had been cleverly fit in to a relatively small area. Kind of like an intestine.

Erik woke up early to drive me to the race start. Pat Not Doyle and Mark were also out representing the deadgoats for the morning start, though a broken chain and fatigue got the better of them before they could finish their races.

It had rained over night, which left the course slick and slow in some areas and significantly reduced the performance of my drive train. I broke off the front near the end of the first lap, which turned out to be a bad move strategically, as I underestimated one of the other girls in my category (who caught, subsequently passed, and ultimately finished 27 seconds ahead of me). Taking bacon at the feed station was another critical (albeit tasty) error in judgement. It is for good reason that bacon-based energy foods have not made it to the mainstream.

My race was finished before the boys had even arrived to register for theirs. The course was a lot drier and I was free to spectate/support. I was proud to be a fan and supporter of some of the fastest riders out there. Erik delivered a solid performance and finished third among the expert men. Craig, Pat Doyle, and Geoff also represented the deadgoats well. Shawn was not able to keep his leader plate, but took a very respectable third. Jon showed his usual spunk (and talent) on the course, popping wheelies at the top of a hill that was a hike-a-bike for many.

It is easy to get caught up in the bubble of my professional world and it is weekends like this one that remind me that there are a lot of other cool things going on in this world. It was a fun way to spend a weekend - for cyclists and for spectators.