— ROGERS

Me, Seymour River, and the black bear (framed out).

Or maybe that should be attitude training.

I went to Vancouver recently, and found some time to hire a bike and take a very early morning ride up Mt Seymour. Vancouver is full of lovely motorists. They are very polite. There are tons of bike lanes too. I could have had a pleasant time tootling around the city, but instead, I decided to conquer a mountain in some sort of pathetic display of machismo and supposed fitness.

I should have considered the slightly ill-fitting aluminium bike first. But I really should have thought about the distance away from the city. I mean, it wasn’t far, about 35km to the top from the inner city. Not too far, considering my daily commute is 20km one way. Of course, what I didn’t consider was the vertical height. i.e. the shorter the distance to the top, the steeper the incline. What a merciless climb! I read somewhere that it was an average of 7%. Load of bollocks, I say. I don’t think the Garmin went below 10%. I was grinding up that hill on the poor hire bike at an embarrassingly slow speed. I also took full advantage of the triple chainring and if there had been any more granny gears to be had, I would have used them. That bloody bike weighed a tonne.

However, I did have encouragement. There were signs everywhere encouraging me not to feed the bears, and encouraging me not to stop for them. I suspected that the muesli muffin and half-melted chocolate bar I’d stuffed into my jersey probably would have not proved so satisfactory to a hungry bear. Being encouraged not to serve myself as food was also enough to spur me on. So up I went. The scenery was probably beautiful, but all I wanted was to finish.

When I did get to the top, it was considerably colder than the bottom. Which was a good sign, I guess, except that it almost broke me. i mean, you know it’s getting colder when you can see your breath extending out in little white clouds in front of you, and steam rises (unusually) from your sweaty armpits. I scoffed the muffin and chocolate bar. Canadians in warm cars and jackets pulled into the car park near me. I think they would have been concerned about me, had I not been wearing a bright yellow jersey with AUDAX AUSTRALIA on it. I wiped chocolate remnants from my mouth.

– Ah, Australian. You know it is cold up here.

– Yes, it is.

– You got a jacket?

– No, I have not.

– Well, you know there is snow over there, yeah?

– No I did not… (what the fuck is he talking about?)

I turned around, and behind me was a slowly melting drift of snow. Why didn’t I see that before? Suddenly, I felt a bit stupid. Although it was the height of Summer… at 1500m the weather makes it own decisions.

– Well, you be careful now. Every year they lose a few up here.

– A few? A few what?

– A few people.

– Taken by bears!?
(I’m not usually bear obsessed)

– Bears? Well maybe. No! Just the weather, yeah.

Ok, well then I was going to get down off that mountain. Away from the cold, away from the bears – even if they were fictitious.

I fished a newspaper out of a bin, and stuffed it, le grande tour style under my jersey. It smelt faintly of fish, which was unusual for the top of a mountain, but appropriate for having “fished” it out of the bin.

I have never felt so cold coming off that mountain. But I did manage to come down quite fast. The hire bike tyres didn’t blow-out, and I managed to negotiate the switch backs without going off the side. All good.

The transition to warmth was quite sudden. Like jumping back into bed on a cold morning (which is all I wanted to do at that stage). I could even hear some city noises in the background.

With blood returning to my extremities, I paused to look down the Seymour River. About 20m away sat a black bear. Staring directly at me. Obviously the altitude had affected me, and I decided it was a good time to take a self portrait – bear in the background. I snapped two pictures and hurriedly moved along. It was not until much later that I discovered that I had managed to frame out the bear in both.

So now, only the bear and I know we were there. But the weather didn’t take me.

Sponsor me for Fitz’s Epic – 205km hill grinding odyssey for OCF.