For the last couple of months I had been doing a fair bit of training for the 2019 RBC Gran Fondo bike race from Vancouver to Whistler. September 7th was race day, and I was eager to see if the preparation was enough.

The ride was to start at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday September 7th, and of course I made my life more complicated than I needed it to be by flying to France Sunday evening. Which meant we needed to come home Saturday evening. As the race closes the roads for periods of time, driving up on Saturday was not recommended, so Justine decided to go up Friday night, stay the evening, and volunteer at the race so we could then drive home later that night. She’s amazing!

Which left me on Friday night to get myself organized. We actually met up and went downtown together Friday night to the Race Expo to pick up my race package and then to go out for dinner before she drove up to Whistler. After dinner downtown, I walked home while she made the drive up. I got myself all organized - got my bike sorted out, got my clothes organized and sorted out my food and water situation.

Race jersey all sorted out and ready to go on Friday night.

Saturday morning, I was up early to eat, let everything digest and get my final organization done before riding down to Stanley Park for the start. I had a couple of false starts, but was still down at the race corrals with plenty of time to spare.

To recap, for those that haven’t followed some previous posts, the race is 122 km with 2,000 m of elevation gain, starting in Stanley Park and riding up the Sea to Sky highway to finish in the village at Whistler. Justine and I had done it once before (2011), but our training for that event was… lacking… and it took us 6:30 to complete it. My training has been much better this time around, and on one of my big training rides I had done the distance and the elevation gain in 5:30, so I knew I was going to make it - the question was how quick could I be? 5:30 was my reasonable goal - maybe 5:00 if I was doing well.

Looking back from my spot in the start corral

There were about 5,000 riders in total for the event, and the start corrals were busy when I rolled up. I slotted myself into the “less than 5:30” optimistically, and got ready to go. It was a slow start - they sent groups off in waves as the start of the race through Stanley Park has some tight turns in the beginning, and even with the waves there were almost some accidents. It was almost 7:30 a.m. by the time I got to the start line.

The race had a rough start, as some woman ahead of mean inexplicably stopped in the middle of the road, as we were all bunched up, just as we started moving! I barely got out of my clips to avoid a fall.

After that, it was pretty slow going through Stanley Park, but eventually it started to spread out. I got into a good pace and started passing people on the climb up to the Lion’s Gate bridge. This is obviously one of the highlights of the race - going over the bridge with no cars to be seen. And it was the first downhill, so you get to go fast! After that, it was the steepest (but not longest or hardest) climb up Taylor way and onto the highway.

Surprisingly, there were already people with flat tires, and sadly there was an EMT team giving CPR to one rider - I hope he was OK. I was feeling OK after the first hard climb - only got passed by a few people - way less than I passed, and I got into the rhythm of the ride. The first stretch to Squamish is a series of climbs and descents, and is the fun stretch of the race. I was very quick going down, and seemed to hold my own going up.

There were 5 rest stops along the course, and my plan was to only stop at Alice Lake, on the far side of Squamish. I felt no need to stop at the first one, just past Horseshoe bay, and was still doing OK after the big climb at Furry Creek. After the super-fun downhill past Britannia Beach (I think I hit my max speed of 80 km/hr on that stretch), it was another long climb up, before descending back down into Squamish.

I was quite surprised how good I felt as I passed the halfway point. I was only at 2 hours at that point, and so I decided to skip the rest stop and push on. I’m still not sure that was the right decision.

The course is much harder in the second half - it’s pretty much all uphill from Squamish to the finish in Whistler. There are a couple of fun descents, but generally it a long, gradual grind up hill. This part of the race was a mental battle. At one point we came to a smallish downhill, and a woman I was passing muttered “thank god - at least we can go down for a bit”. I wholeheartedly agreed!

I ended up stopping at the last rest stop just past Brandywine Falls. I had run out of water and was dying a bit. Maybe I should have stopped earlier, I’m not sure. It was painful getting going again - momentum is a powerful tool. The last 10 km were the worst - this gradual uphill that just saps your willpower. But eventually, you seen the turn into the village and you get a burst of adrenaline and power to the finish. I had the double bonus of seeing Justine almost immediately, as she was part of the volunteer team helping to direct riders as they finished.

My time? 4:27:31 - a full hour better than I expected! Not great when you look at all the other times, but I’m pretty pleased with what I managed to do.

My official time from the race organizers.

I dropped off my bike and went into the recovery area to get my medal and some food and drinks. I was hurting pretty good - I had pushed myself hard - and so I was moving a little slowly. I went back to the car and very slowly got changed and into some dry cloths. I took some advil and was slowly starting to feel better. Justine still had a couple of hours in her volunteer stint, so I went over to the race “after party” and had some food and a beer, and wandered the exhibit area.

It didn’t take too long for me to get bored with that, so I went over to the brewpub to sit at the bar and wait for Justine. I watched a bit of college football, and then they turned it over to the Bianca Andreescu/Serena Williams U.s. Open tennis match. Justine showed up and e had a couple of drinks and some food and watched the match. I’m not much of a tennis fan, but the Canadian angled pulled in the whole bar, and everyone was really into it! We watched the whole match, and cheered with everyone when she pulled out the victory!

After leaving the bar, we drove over and visited with our friend James and his wife and their son. They have a really nice place on a lake just outside the village. We visited for a while before making the drive home. All in all, a successful race!