Monday, February 21, 2011

Panorama

Oct-Dec

A few days after our wedding I headed to Panorama to design an XC mountain bike race course. It was definitely challenging work, as they didn’t want to build too much new trail, wanted to keep most of the DH park trails open during the race, and I wanted it to be fun challenging singletrack with a double tech/feed zone that was appropriate speed and near the middle of the race course. But, I got it all figured out and am looking forward to racing the Canada Cup there in August.

A feature to be built in the new Canada Cup race course

After Panorama I packed up the last load of our belongings from Kamloops and headed to Vic to see my Wife. Yikes, yes it does sound crazy to say that word! She was already working (as an intern in the exercise physiology lab at the Canadian Sport Centre Pacific), so I decided it was time to get a real job too. My landlord and retired MTB racer Carter Hovey helped me find a job, and 2 weeks later I was a working man.

I think I was a bit disillusioned with what my work was going to be. The last 3 carpentry jobs I had were more skill related – I got to build and fix houses, even do finish carpentry, whereas on this job I mostly just carried wood! I was helping frame a super fancy house with 5 different angled roves, concrete floors upstairs and lots of other crazy details to it. The worst day was when I carried the rafters which were 24foot long 2x10`s that were wet Douglas fir up the hill and into the house. I calculated that each one weighed about 110lbs, and that day I carried about three thousand pounds, yes that is 3 tons.

I stuck the job out until late December, and then quit. I was getting super tired from the physical labour as well as training lots.

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