IMC Bike

I was planning to just go out to Yellow Lake and watch everyone but now that I had an athlete to follow I joined Mike and Jen chase down Greg in the car to get photos of his day. We first caught him 10km out from Osoyoos and he had a grin from ear to ear when Jen and I leaned out the car window hooting and hollering at him. We got ahead of him and pulled over to wait for him to go by then pile back into the car. We got over the top of Richter Pass and waited on the down side. Just as he came into view a RV pulled over and parked as we watched. Jen flipped out at them hard. So off we go and pass him again I got a very good photo of Greg along side of us in the aero position.

We stopped for lunch near the entrance to the out and back section. Then we made our way to yellow lake where all the rabid fans were. I have been to the World Cycling Championships in Hamilton, On the side of the road at a Class 4 Col in a stage of the Tour de France, And in Paris for the final stage of Lance Armstrong’s 7^th yellow jersey. And by far there was more positive energy and care projected at these athletes climbing this freeking mountain pass. Remember the year they put an ITT on Alpe du Hez?? Ya it was that kind of energy you could feel through the TV, but this was live and I loved it!!!

I was able to see Amber Dawn I saw the bike before I realized it was her. By the time I called her name she was 100 feet up the hill so when she turned back she didn’t see me. I watched one guy hit the ground; he got caught in the loose gravel. We finally were able to move down the back side, they had restricted the car traffic so that they could give two lanes going down to the bikes. They were using it when overtaking a slower person. This one guy bombed down we clocked him doing 75kph. There was a bit of a pile up on the rollers, two guys were in the ditch and 3 more were down on the shoulder of the road. I think one guy messed up his shoulder pretty bad. As we went into town EMS was blasting out towards the scene. And no it was not the guy doing 75.