IMBA World Summit: Day 4

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Written by Mike Charron

Saturday, 21 June 2008 18:46

WHAT A RIDE!!!
If you ever have a chance to ride an IMBA Epic Ride... DO SO!!!

Dan, Aaron and I had a fun day today. O.K. we worked the "networking" thing also, but mostly, we had FUN!!

Morning came early as we had to meet the shuttle at 7:30 am. We all met up at the starting point for bagels, bananas and coffee. An incredible site... a couple of hundred mtn bikes laying around while we fueled up. Then the ride began...

We chose to ride the long route and after a couple of wrong turns, we ended up riding about 30 miles. "Big deal" you say?!! Remember - we are riding at about 9600 feet!! And, we were constantly climbing and descending all day long!! Dan was heard to ask "Why is there more trail going up then coming down?!!?"

After about 24 miles, we were treated to a cookout. IMBA catered a gathering in the middle of a field 1/2 way down the mountain. Nothing better than rolling up and being greeted with a tall cold one!!! A couple of burgers, brats and hot dogs later, we were feeling pretty good. Yep, you guessed it, we decided - "Awe Heck, we don't need to ride the shuttle down, we should just ride the rest of the way down." Bad decision!!! We were told the ride was "all downhill." We were told wrong!! At one point, we looked over the mountain and realized we were HIGHER than where we had left about a 1/2 hour before. So much for all downhill!! We eventually made it back down - a little whipped - and ended our day of riding.

We rode for 5+ hours on all singletrack in warm temperature, bright sunshine, great comraderie, hearing different languages, mixing with the locals, and having a BLAST!!!