Tom Skinner: Best riding in the world!

Oh man some good times have definitely been had the past few days! On Wednesday night I drove up to Squamish after a quick stop in Vancouver to look for a place to live for September. Then after being super excited to see everyone at BCBR and them being way too tired not to care that I was there, I guest-rode the stage with Tanya Berg and her Belgian challenger (who had a nice solid crash which led to some good wimpering mixed with hard breathing).

I was planning on showing Tanya some good lines down the descents but I flatted down the first main descent and couldn't catch back up to her. So Craig and I rode together and had fun. And then we CRUSHED the buffet post stage. We slept in a tent that the event organizer gave us (also named Tom Skinner) and then followed the race up to Whister the next morning. Instead of riding the stage, Craig and I rode 'Comfortably Numb' which is a pretty fun epic trail. After that I took down a DQ Blizzard and then it was off to Salmon Arm.

Staying in Salmon Arm for a couple nights was pretty good. I did some fun riding up in the South Canoe trails, but when I climbed to the very top I found that a massive section of forest had been logged and one sweet trail was gone. I cried a little.

Now I've been in Canmore for two days after seeing two bears on the drive up; one black bear and one grizzly. Yesterday I camped just North of town, did a few loops of the Nationals course, and went for a swim in Quarry Lake. From now on it's just the bad part of bike racing; being a selfish lazy turd and lying around with my feet up, trying to save my heartbeats.