CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

It was my first real road riding I’ve ever done. As a mountain biker I usually don’t ride over 60km I wasent used to constantly being in the saddle for hours on end grinding away at the pedals. I was quite nervous about the amount of riding that was planned ahead.

The drive there felt like it took forever, once we got to Penticton I was a little surprised by the hostel since I never knew the difference between a hostel and a hotel, fortunately I was in the same room as most of my close friends Sam, Logan, and Stefan (we were missing Michael tho)

The first day we rode 112Km more then I’ve ever ridden, fortunately it wasent a hard ride so I managed to survive the whole ride, I was a little surprised but it was a lot more enjoyable then I thought, there were a few boring parts where it was quiet and we were just pedalling along but it was nice, and I got to meet a few new people from the track side of Juventus whom I never met.

On the second day we climbed Green Mountain road which was a steady climb for a good hour, but it was well worth the decent, I missed the train with the fast group and I was caught alone on the decent, so I went into the invisible TT position and made my way down alone, and it was the most fun descent of the whole trip, on my Garmin It said my top speed was 116km/hr which was hard to believe but I could confidently say I hit 80+Km/hr which was exhilarating there’s were speed that I would never hit with a mountain bike, back in Edmonton I thought 50km/hr was really fast, but this was a whole new level.

On the third day we rode up to Summerland and did Giants head climb, which was a steep short climb of about 10min long it was a painful 10min but at the same time it was fun, as a bonus there were some trails which were ridable on the descents which me and Shawn rode down on our road bikes, fortunately I didn`t get a flat but Shawn did on the sharp rocks of that area.

By day four my legs were starting to feel sore in the mornings more and more. This day the weather didn`t decide to corporate with us so we were planning to do the Ironman loop, but we decided to cut it short, the wind was pretty chilly but fortunately we didn`t get rained on we ended up going for 120km which was still a really long ride for me.

Since on day four we couldn`t do the long ride we decided to do the long ride on day 5 we ended up going for close to 160km and we rode down to Osoyoos which is super close to the us border, on the way there we did a climb called Richters Pass which I was happy to be able to keep up with Mason, Michael, and Shawn. The descent was another fast one flying down at 70+Km/hr which is always fun.

By day five my legs were cooked, I could barley get up the stairs at the hostel, but on that day we decided to go back to Giants head and do the climb there again, fortunately my legs felt tired but I was motivated to improve on my time and try and get under 10min which I successfully did which I was super happy about, to end up the camp we did this climb just outside of Penticton called Carmi which was a steep steady climb with barley any turns it was dreadful, but once we got to the top It felt great, and it was a great way to end off the camp.

Overall I had a lot of fun, and learnt some new things, I was surprised about the technical aspect of road riding not only the descending and cornering but riding as a group and how efficiently you need you work as a group and how close you are with others. I also an nice chance to meet the Track people.

I hope to try a few road races and enjoy some road riding this season, thanks for reading!