KVR cont...

I'd restrained from using it; knowing that at some point on this journey they'd be one, single perfect moment where it could elevate the ride to stratospheric heights, and it was here my subconscious reminded me of where I was and what I had on my playlist: MGV.

Nyman was commissioned to write Musique à Grande Vitesse for the inauguration of the French TGV. Combined with a downhill railtrail descent speeding around mountainsides, I was off, spiraling on a crazy adrenaline high.

...

The trail had been almost totally mine bar one golf-buggy-type 4x4 that had zoomed past me at the start in a cloud of dust and with a wave. Just after I'd summited (a surprisingly challenging 4hours even at 3%!) the buggy returned with the unappreciated news that the trail was closed further up. I was not amused. I'd heard there were closures earlier on this year and so had stopped in at the police station in Castlegar to check its status - I was told it was definitely open.

The 4x4 guy said there were just a few trees down and that I might be able to climb and carry my bike over them, but then there was washed out trail which I'd have to get over. He eyed Perry and myself up and down before reiterating he thought we could make it.

Nuff said... closure? What closure? We decended at speed, ignoring all warning signs. We got to a closed bit which and I breathed a sigh of relief - it had just seen a bit of minor rainfall and it was obvious these namby-pamby Canadians couldn't cope with the safety risk of asking the public to walk a slightly degraded part, and so had closed the route out of an abundance of caution. Onwards!

40km further at the 75km-through-the-trail mark that the sign had stated was closed (yes, I'm an idiot), I realised I may have been a little cocky.

Ok, massively cocky.

The trail was totally, totally washed away. The path ended abruptly in a frozen snapshot of landslide hell - huge redwoods had been uprooted and thrown down the mountain, a massive 50m section of path replaced by 20m of steep, loose-stoned canyon.

I spent some time assessing the situation: unloading Perry and carrying him over some trees; test-carrying the bags to the precipice; trying to judge how stable the ground was; I even attempted to rig some rope to lower the bike down. Retreating now would mean 4 hours of painful climbing back up the mountain and then a further 2 hours of highway. It had already been a long day. I should have been a couple of hours away from the campsite and the thought of all that additional work wasn't welcome, especially in this heat.

...

I "sucked it up", as Yanks might say, and started back the way I'd come, however, within 10 minutes, the trail Gods took pity on me, highlighting a glimpse of old foresty track that wasn't on any of my maps. Admittedly it was 30-40% downhill, full of boulders and debris, and would have been challenging on a MTB, but it did lead pretty directly down the mountain to the highway and shortcutted miles and miles of backtracking.

Hoo-freaking-rah!Read more