Rick Ashton

***Hey, this is Rick.  I left Sparwood at 5:00 in the morning.  Spent the night with Paul, Cadet and Bruce.  Left with Bruce in the morning and Paul & Cadet followed.  Got up to Trek Mining on the Corbin Road and Paul had caught up to me.  We got stopped by a train that looked like it wasn't going to move.  We didn't want to make a detour and get disqualified, so, both of use climbed over the train with our bikes.  Cadet caught up with us on Cabin Road.  They both went ahead on Cabin Road.  Once I got onto Wigwam I got caught in a heavy rain storm and got soaking wet.  I caught up to Deanna on the Fixie on Wigam and got into the connector together.  What a bitch of a connector coming out of the river basin!  Man!  Old man, heavy bike, caused my knee to get tweaked.  Deanna was just laughing at me trying to get that bike up that cliff.  Reached Pass at the dark and we both went down the pass in the dark.  Made it to the border about midnight and I got a sandwich and hot chocolate at the bar at the border.  Made it into Eureka at 1am and we camped out on Cadet's motel room floor for the night.  That was a hard 20 hours for that day! Read more »

Hi, this is Rick calling on the TD. I'm now in Sparwood. Started out yesterday, feeling good. Uh, made it to Bolten Creek, and it started raining. So, I didn't want to try to get up over Elk Pass, and get caught up in a big storm up there.  I heard there was a lot of lightening up there that night.  So, I decided to spend the night there in Bolten Creek.  Stayed with Paul, Cadet, Bruce, and Martin and Jeff.  We all stayed at a campground just down from Bolten Creek.  Put our tents up in the rain, so it was raining.  Everything was wet.  Got up this morning early, went over the Pass, and had lunch in Elford, and we're staying in Sparwood.   We should get on the road early tomorrow to try to make it through the wilderness section, that detour, and make it to Eureka tomorrow.  So far, everything is doing pretty good.  The bike's holding up well.  My body's holding up.  I want to thank Craig Thompson from Tallahassee Chinese Medicine that got me to the starting line of this race.  Everything is doing fine right now.  So, we'll try to call in again tomorrow.

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Hi, this is Rick calling in from Banff, the evening before the start of the TD.  I just got back from the prerace BBQ that the ski shop hosted for us.  The burgers were great!  I met a lot of other racers and everybody has just been so cool.  Everything is going just fine with me physically and my bike is running great.  The only problem is, I have tooooooo much gear.  Everybody else is really super light and they're all making fun of me and my pack mule.  I had a couple of short warm up rides on the first section yesterday and today.  These Florida lungs aren't used to this mile high altitude yet but they'll come around.  I'll be slow but steady.  They're forecasting rain for tomorrow but I hope it holds off until later in the day to give us a good start.  Welp, going to bed now and getting a good night sleep.  I'll call in again later.

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