Grizzly Challenge Bike Ride 2007
In an effort to maintain our fitness gains from this year's training, Tracy and I decided to sign up for some longer events. We signed up to do a 30k trail run in November as well as a challenging bike ride, the Grizzly Challenge. We coerced some friends to sign up and join us. Here's a brief report from the ride.
The plan was to camp with friends at Bass Lake, California about 10 miles from the start of the ride in North Fork. Chuck and his wife Laura along with her parents reserved a large spot for us and we were excited to hang out before and after the ride. Our other friends Cheryl, Eric, and Kim stayed in North Fork at a friend's house.
A storm was clearing out as Tracy and I arrived late on Friday night. We heard that snow had fallen at 5,000 feet and thus we might find some the following day on the ride. We decided to sleep in a bit as it would not warm until the sun had risen above the trees. After all, it was in the low 30s when we woke up at 6:30am. The ride starts in North Fork and heads up into the mountains east of Yosemite and south of Mammoth. In fact, at the lunch stop at Mile High Point, over 10 peaks over 10,000 ft of elevation are visible. Very inspiring to say the least.
Originally I had planned on riding the 100 miles with 10,000 ft. of climbing. Tracy was going to shoot for 75 miles. But as the day unfolded, we realized that our main objective of the day was to
hang out with friends and enjoy the beautiful vistas and snow-capped mountains. With our late start it would have been difficult to put in the distance. And to top things off, we only had one water bottle each as we left our nutrition back in camp. I had to going around before the ride begging for a few bottles.
As it would turn out, we rode about 54 miles with about 5,450 ft of climbing....a respectable day by any means. Everyone rode strong and I can't say enough about the traffic-free roads and endless beauty. After the ride we went down to the bbq that was included in the $45 entry fee. The bbq was incredible with your choice of salad, bread, baked potato, corn on the cob, and choice of ribs, chicken, and/or tri-tip. We got our food to go and enjoyed it back at camp with some cold beers.
Sunday we slept in a bit and the temps were much better. After an awesome breakfast of machaca and eggs prepared by Chuck, we packed up the Toyota-Home and headed down the road. In all a great trip with great friends.
The plan was to camp with friends at Bass Lake, California about 10 miles from the start of the ride in North Fork. Chuck and his wife Laura along with her parents reserved a large spot for us and we were excited to hang out before and after the ride. Our other friends Cheryl, Eric, and Kim stayed in North Fork at a friend's house.A storm was clearing out as Tracy and I arrived late on Friday night. We heard that snow had fallen at 5,000 feet and thus we might find some the following day on the ride. We decided to sleep in a bit as it would not warm until the sun had risen above the trees. After all, it was in the low 30s when we woke up at 6:30am. The ride starts in North Fork and heads up into the mountains east of Yosemite and south of Mammoth. In fact, at the lunch stop at Mile High Point, over 10 peaks over 10,000 ft of elevation are visible. Very inspiring to say the least.
Originally I had planned on riding the 100 miles with 10,000 ft. of climbing. Tracy was going to shoot for 75 miles. But as the day unfolded, we realized that our main objective of the day was to
hang out with friends and enjoy the beautiful vistas and snow-capped mountains. With our late start it would have been difficult to put in the distance. And to top things off, we only had one water bottle each as we left our nutrition back in camp. I had to going around before the ride begging for a few bottles.As it would turn out, we rode about 54 miles with about 5,450 ft of climbing....a respectable day by any means. Everyone rode strong and I can't say enough about the traffic-free roads and endless beauty. After the ride we went down to the bbq that was included in the $45 entry fee. The bbq was incredible with your choice of salad, bread, baked potato, corn on the cob, and choice of ribs, chicken, and/or tri-tip. We got our food to go and enjoyed it back at camp with some cold beers.
Sunday we slept in a bit and the temps were much better. After an awesome breakfast of machaca and eggs prepared by Chuck, we packed up the Toyota-Home and headed down the road. In all a great trip with great friends.
We plan on doing the full distance next year. And hopefully we'll have another crew to join us.
Comments