( empowering music)
- Utterly spectacular.
I don't think I've ridden
in better places quite like this before.
- [Simon] We're here at the start line
of the biggest Gran Fondo in North America:
the RBC Gran Fondo Whistler.
- Yeah, Jeremy and I are here to take part
and also to try and finish fast enough
to actually qualify for next year's
Gran Fondo World Championships,
which are going to be taking place at this very event
in September, 2020.
- And as two ex-pros, you would think we'd be prepared
for a Gran Fondo against 5,000 other riders,
but I've never done a Gran Fondo before.
- Nope, we have no idea how hard this is going to be.
(soft music)
The people at the event company behind RBC Gran Fondo
got in touch to invite us out here
and set us the challenge of qualifying.
I'll be honest, I've wanted to come and ride my bike
in Vancouver for over two decades.
So this seems like an amazing opportunity to do it.
- [Jeremy] And having not been here for a really long time,
I was so excited to come back.
The route goes up the stunning Sea to Sky Highway
from downtown Vancouver, over the Lions Gate Bridge,
and all the way up to the iconic town of Whistler,
home to some of the world's best snowboarding and skiing,
as well as in the summer, some of the best mountain biking
in North America.
And a slew of people who just love the outdoors.
It's 122 kilometers long, which is over 75 miles.
It has over 1,900 meters of climbing,
which is over 6,000 feet.
And in order to qualify for the world championship,
we need to finish within the top 20% of our age group's time
which last year was three hours and 30 minutes.
And when I look at the course profile,
it seems pretty fast.
- We had already worked out a plan of attack though.
And being the rock n' roll duo that we are,
it was hatched over afternoon tea the day before
at the Sheraton Wall Centre, the hotel who were kindly
putting up with us for a couple of days.
(soft music)
- I'll be honest Jeremy,
I really want to beat you tomorrow.
- I want to beat you too.
But I think we should work together.
- Yeah, okay.
- How's your training been?
- Awful, you?
- Not good.
- Should we carb load instead?
- Yes.
(energetic melody)
- Well I'm telling you,
never have I ever been so glad
of some Trans-Atlantic jet lag
than in the morning of an event like this.
The gun that goes at 6:50 a.m.
So that means breakfast of some kind,
sort of 4:30ish.
What do you mean how can I eat breakfast
eight hours after a pasta party?
Always room for breakfast.
- Saddle bag, multi tool, tubes, tons of food,
race numbers, shoes, helmet, glasses, mini pump,
heart rate monitor strap so we know how hard we're going
and when to shut it down, shorts, jersey, aqua
cause Simon's been talking a big game,
like he's not stopping at any of the rest stops
but I'm not going past the cookie stop.
I don't care how hard we're going,
I'm stopping.
And a long sleeve jersey
to give to somebody at the start so I don't get cold.
- Whole stash of energy gels,
and I've got bar in there as well
then I was going to take this gilet
just to stash in my back pocket in case it
gets a bit colder altitude or maybe
even to start with.
Likewise, a pair of arm warmers. There should
be enough room in my pocket to stash them
when it does warm a little a bit later.
And then I think the last thing I'll squeeze
in there is Go-Pro.
I'm going to vlog the (beep) out of it.
(empowering music)
- I'd say there's some nerves.
Some pre-race nerves going on.
- Aw yeah, I'm definitely going to.
I got to get down.
I got the butterflies a comin.
- Yes anyways the hotel has very kindly
laid on a breakfast for us all to eat
at stupid o'clock in the morning.
So here we are like 5:00 am and we're eating jam
and peanut butter sandwiches.
And you're having eggs and peanut butter aren't you?
Or eggs and jam?
(motivating music)
- Right, we got 2 minutes to go,
between me and Jeremy,
we've got Alex Stieda who is the first North American
to ever worn the yellow jersey at Tour De France.
We catch with Alex a little bit later.
Jeremy, your first Gran Fondo,
how ya feelin buddy?
- I have the butterflies in my stomach, I'm worried.
I'm glad that I have a man that's worn the
Tour De France yellow jersey next to me
'cause I'm nervous.
- Yeah and by the way you got to check it out.
Alex is going to be riding the very bike that he rode
in the 1986 Tour De France, ot's super cool.
- [Announcer] Three, two, one.
(gunshot)
- [Announcer] They're off.
(upbeat music)
- Do, do, do, do, do, this is Simon's blog
at 27.1 kilometers, so far we have,
well we have to finish this, had the most amazing run
down the Sea to Sky Highway.
It's a nice fast rolling road
but it's got to a lot of kink in it
and so it's deceptively hammer your legs,
I think a little bit.
Jeremy, wonder how far he is.
We've been ducking and diving.
But we've been riding now for 51 minutes, 38 seconds.
As a former cyclists pro, I know that he's only got
about an hour and five minutes in him.
So I'm expecting him to blow in for about 13 minutes time.
So hopefully you gotten him now on camera.
We'll see what happens.
But the views so far have been absolutely mind blowing.
I've chosen a bit that you can't really see no more.
But anyway, hopefully you're going to have
some attractive shots of the scenery
that I haven't filmed because I overlay them on the top.
It's an epic montage with classical music maybe.
(classical music)
(record scratch)
- Yeah, like that.
Things are starting to get a little spicy now.
Jeremy and I got carried away on the KOM
and then we managed to get caught
by basically the race crew.
So we're just going to get involved, see what happens.
There's some team tactics goin on.
These boys Hemlock, pretty well represented.
And they got a guy down the road who is currently solo.
So it's going to be a little bit jumpy till
another move goes.
And we're just going to hang in there for grim death.
(upbeat music)
- Right, casually lined out at
about 48 ks an hour in a minute.
I can see on my on the animation profile
that we're on a little bit of flat and then we go up.
The start of this line basically.
Hopefully Jeremy and I can get as far forward
on this road as possible to match my back sliding space
which is where basically we can go slower
than everyone else but technically still not get dropped.
Fingers crossed.
(bass music)
- So how ya feeling mate?
- I feel the first hour, I was good, how far we in?
- It's about an hour and eight minutes now.
- It's weird, my legs aren't feeling
as good as they were before that.
Going to try and shake them out.
Run a little hard there for a second, didn't feel right.
Not great for nothing.
- Okay mate you just dig in and you'll be all right man.
You'll get your second wind.
Good job buddy.
- Thank you.
(upbeat music)
- A big climb at least 10 miles long.
And it's going pretty fast.
I said barely hangin on to this group.
It's probably got 40 or 50 in it, mSimn's up there.
He's beating on me.
Some good teams here.
Skinny riders.
- This is Simon's vlog, 72.2 kilometers.
I bet if you knew complex maps.
It's pretty much uphill all the way from here to finish.
Meaning that the end is 121 kilometers.
We got 50k climb coming up.
So I thought I'd better talk to you early
before I start breathing at another orifice.
Anyway, you see still hangin in, there's a big group.
Jeremy's in it too somewhere.
Let's see how long he can last.
(inspirational music)
- [Simon] While Jeremy and I have got our heads down
and are basically racing up to Whistler
as fast as we can, it's got to be said that for the vast
of the majority of the nearly 5,000 riders taking part,
actually, savoring the ride is far higher up their agenda.
For many getting a sub four hour time is the goal
or shaving time off their efforts from previous years.
For others, though,
it's simply completing their very first epic ride.
For everyone thought, the stokes levels are high.
It means to hide the pain face behind every sized eyewear.
Simon, just caught up to him.
And he wanted to know if I had been
in the group the whole time.
I told him I had been.
Just getting ready to pounce.
I'm playing mind games for when I (exclaims).
(upbeat music)
- [Jeremy] Here we go,
the finish line.
(bell ringing)
- That was cool, oh yes, that was very very cool.
(bell ringing)
- Woo hoo. - Ta da.
- You did it. - My son's going to be wearing
this around partying with my new necklace.
- Aww mate.
- That was cool.
- How did you find it?
- Hard, I was hurting, I was hurting, yeah.
I haven't done I can't say I've done that much riding
in a while, it's been about 4 months.
I was looking back thinking
about this 3,000 plus kilojoule ride.
I was suffering and I don't think I have to be honest
that I knew what I was getting myself into exactly.
I had not idea.
I didn't bring the right food.
I definitely didn't bring like the bike attires
and all the things that I would have.
I really didn't prepare quite right.
- Well. - I hope that we qualified.
- Well this is it.
We've got to keep our fingers crossed
because the trouble is that we got caught
by the first group because we had a little head start.
So that means technically we finished 10 minutes down
on wherever we finished with those riders.
So we're going to have to keep our fingers firmly crossed.
It's a little demoralizing.
But they had the group and they had the momentum.
You know what it's like when it's racing.
- Yeah - Yeah, we were kind of like,
we were out there.
- Enjoying it.
- Kissing babies, hanging out, doing our thing.
- It's telling actually.
I looked at the view for the first 50, 60 k
and it was the most amazing thing you've ever seen.
And then we got caught by the bunch.
I forgot to look at the view.
So actually the whole load of Sea to Sky Highway,
that I haven't actually seen yet.
(laughs) So I'm looking
forward to seeing that tomorrow
on the way home.
I mean man, that is a classic ride.
- That is a beautiful ride.
Yeah they did an awesome job here
and I just have to say even just being here at the bottom
of the mountain it's like honestly beautiful
but the whole ride up was basically looking
at all the islands coming up
and there were the beautiful rivers off to the side.
And the fact that they got the road closed down,
I was pretty stunned.
And the organization was top.
- [Jeremy] Yeah all right, let's go find a beer.
- Yeah. - And then let's hit the
after party 'cause that's legendary.
- [Simon] Okay.
- As you can tell, we have survived the after party.
And have now made it back down to Vancouver.
But one question, still remains.
Have we qualified for the World Championships next year?
- Yes, man.
- Yeah, we did.
- Yes.
- Yeah we did.
- [Jeremy] Yeah I think we did okay, didn't we?
It was relatively comfortable getting inside
that time limit.
- [Simon] I felt terrible but I think looked better
than I actually felt, I saved face.
- Well yeah and you got a cookie out of it.
- Yeah. - I didn't stop for a cookie.
I'm kind of regretting that. - You didn't.
Yeah, you should feel bad about that.
That's a little disrespectful.
- Yeah and I maybe also got bit carried away
and didn't look at the view enough on the way through.
- It's on you.
- Yeah, maybe next time we can just chill out a bit
and enjoy it like most people as opposed to.
- Yeah, that's what I suggested.
- Yeah, sorry about that mate.
- That's all right. - Yeah,
I kind of can't help myself sometimes, yeah.
Anyway, if you would like to see another event
where we were fortunate enough to attend
and there's a great video you can click through
to just on the screen now.
Of course a huge thank you to the event organizers
for bring us over here.
So please give this video a big thumbs up.