Lucky Lockie

Snowshoeing the 'Dacks

2012-01-20T21:05:00.000-05:00

Paul, Craig and I headed down to the Adirondacks in NY state last weekend to go camping. It was forecast to get a bit nippy. An early rise on Saturday in Ottawa but a slightly slow departure had us crossing the border around 9am, with an exclamation of "In this weather?!" by the border agent, and departing the car park at 1:30, with another warning of "I would *definitely* not advise taking that route at this hour!" by a ranger...while the other said we'd have a blast. :)

And have a blast we did: after making the very chilly summit by sunset, we descended the other side and made camp shortly after dusk. After wolfing down Paul's pasta and a little port, we found that the leftovers had started freezing, so we squeezed into Nigel's 3-man (we decided it was actually a 3-dwarf) tent for a cozy sleep. Up at the crack of 9am for an excellent brekky, and by 10am the next day it had "warmed" up to -25 degrees. Lovely sunny day for the hike out, and except for Paul breaking through the ice at Avalanche Lake and getting a wet foot, it was a "walk in the Park", as they say.

Active in Aus

2011-12-25T09:56:00.000-05:00

I'm getting some good shirtless time here in Australia over Christmas. It's been a few weeks since I last did a hard ride, but I really wanted to stretch the legs on Melbourne's renowned Beach Road. I headed out with a local racer and got my suffer on as we racked up 170 scenic bay-side kilometres.

The next day my decathlete brother took me to one of his track meets, where I had a really fun time with the welcoming Collingwood Harriers athletics club. First, Tim defied physics in a huge triple jump. Then I tried my hand at shotput, before the real reason for attending, the 5km. I started running a bit at the end of the cycling race season, but pulled my calf and spent time rehabbing under the knowledgeable guidance of Amanda at the Wellness Connection. Point being, I thought trying to get inside 20 minutes was a reasonable goal. So I was pretty stoked to run 18:08!

Newbie Rider

2011-11-27T21:46:00.001-05:00

My first road bike:

I decided to get a road bike after I got my butt kicked in the cycling portion of a sprint triathlon and someone stole my mountain bike. However, not knowing how to ride with fancy pedals and clips, the bike sat lonely in the basement for about a month until I had the chance meeting of a pro-cyclist who took pity upon me and agreed to teach me how to ride.

So it has been about 3 weeks and I can say with some confidence that I can ride reasonably well. Some things I have learned from my esteemed biking team (Nigel and Lockie) include:

- Never plan your route, as it will change when you get to a dead end, find an unassumed road or a interesting looking trail that just may lead to exactly where you want to go
- If you haven't had to carry your bike across a stream, the beach or a farmer's field it probably isn't that good of a ride
- When you fall down, veer off the road or smash into a pile of burrs, laugh, get up and continue riding
- From a fashion perspective never wear a visor on your helmet, always wear your sunnies on the outside of you helmet straps and try and look as professional as possible.
- Bike in a straight line, don't look at your gears, and don't stray your glance at all the "shiny things"

I can't wait till spring to ride again. Thanks guys!

Fun, fit, female frisbee-players

2011-11-22T15:29:00.001-05:00

My friend Katy shared her team's Kaimana 2012 video bid. Very nice!

Not bad for a first timer

2011-11-20T16:05:00.001-05:00

Good time of year to ride. So why is it that I know the water is about 10 degrees in Lake Ontario?

My friend, Amanda, recently bought a road bike and wanted basic instruction on going from the trainer to the road. Enter: me (god help her).

I tried to get a few people out, but it ended up just being Amanda, Nigel and I. Her first day riding outdoors was a little on the breezy side (40km/h) but gave us a chance to do some easy spinning with the wind and cover a lot of ground. At this point you might think we ended up going too far, but nope. However we did take a different, unplanned, route back. This resulted in riding a few kilometres down a road that ended up being a dead end. Or was it??? There was a little trail off one side, which Nigel jokingly suggested we take. Amanda immediately said sure! Let's do it! At that point, can you imagine two intrepid males saying no, looks kinda sketchy? Hell no!

Two hours later:

It was actually great fun (route here) and I'm sure Amanda picked up some wicked bike handling skills. :) We made it back to the cars for dusk; in my books, that's not too bad!

A few days later, Amanda excitedly told her roadie friends about her first road ride. They were shocked and appalled. Gravel? Hiking paths? The horror! haha

Still, Amanda was happy to come riding again the following weekend. Nigel and I plotted a slightly more "run of the mill" ride. And it was. At least until half way. Since we were only an hour behind schedule, we figured on the return we would take the road less traveled.... Again, Amanda was partly at fault. But again, so fun! The result: we hiked about half a kilometre on the beach, crossed a small stream feeding into Lake Ontario (water was cold but not unbearable), more beach, rode through a bird sanctuary, out-voted Nigel on taking the actual road (sheesh!) and instead went back to hiking on the beach in order to meet up with the waterfront bike path.

I should point out that although Nigel sounds like the voice of prudence, in actual fact he was a large part of numerous diversions throughout both rides ("hey, google maps on my Blackberry shows a faint trail through this [impenetrable looking] forest!" and the like).

Amanda found out on this ride that an apple and 8 raisins doesn't quite replace 2,000 calories on a ride. She bonked so hard. Lesson learned, I reckon, and we got to make fun of her while she lacked any come-back power.

Another toke of the big smoke

2011-11-10T17:32:00.001-05:00

Start of October (yes, I'm a little behind) I moved back to Toronto. I'm staying with my buddy, Christian, who, in a funny things-coming-full-circle kind of way, was who I lived with when I first moved to Canada, ten or so years ago. Back then I spent 4 months on his couch in a one bedroom basement apartment, and since he tolerated me there, one can be optimistic that we can get along while I live in his several-bedroom house a little out of town.

Now that I've moved from the outdoor paradise that is Calgary, epics are nearly a thing of the past. I can't remember the last time I was unintentionally stuck outside, after dark. Miles from salvation. Potentially half-way up a cliff. Or other similiarly fun times.

Never the less, I try. Jesse and co were going to ride in the Don Valley, so I rode the 30km in to town on the mountain bike, rode with them for an hour or two, then, since no one was waiting for me any more, took the path less traveled to return... Where the road & bike path diverged from the Lake Ontario shoreline, I found a park which abutted the lake (Greyabbey Park, in case anyone is interested), lowered my bike down the cliff (I so wanted to ghost-ride it off, but decided I didn't want to risk walking 20km home, carrying a busted bike) and rode along the beach for a few kilometres.

I had no idea Toronto had such nice, secluded beaches

Wilson?

Eventually the bike path returns to the water's edge, and after giving the bike a quick dunk in the water (living by fresh water is occasionally a good thing!) to wash the sand out of the brakes, I was quite happy to get back on pavement - even with 3.5" tires and riding just out of the lapping waves where the sand was most packed, it had been pretty tough going!

Fall hiking, in pictures

2011-10-24T17:18:00.001-04:00

A little jaunt with Erica around Mt Olympia ski hill in the neighbouring town of Piedmont. Fun enough that I went for a blast there on the MTB the next day.

End of season "Going back to my desk job" sale

2011-10-03T20:23:00.004-04:00

*SOLD* Cosmic Carbone SL PowerTap wheelset

PowerTap SL 2.4+ M10 (Shimano/SRAM) hub.

Train on 'em in the winter, race on 'em in the summer.

Purchased in April, like new, less than 200km on them.

Included tubes, tires (Panaracer Race A) and skewers.

RRSP $2799, selling for $1699

I'll add the rest of my pro bling as I figure out what isn't going on my old bikes (2007 aluminium Wilier with Fulcrum 7s and SRAM Red? Yeah baby! haha).

Nightrider

2011-09-29T18:30:00.000-04:00

There's some pretty solid mountain biking to be found where I live right now, Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts in the Laurentians. It makes sense, considering there are half a dozen ski resorts within 10km of here, but after you move away from the Rockies, it's easy to assume otherwise.

Given my tendency to crash when I ride the trails, I typically try to stay off my mountain bike for the summer road season. But now that road is finished, it's game on! And what better way to throw caution to the wind than go after dark? I hooked up with a few folks from my local bike shop, Espresso Sports, on the weekly evening ride, got to borrow a light, and off we went.

It turns out this was not a novel concept - we ran into three other groups over the course of the evening. And two dogs, both which could quite effortlessly overtake me on the uphills. Didn't anyone tell them about my fragile ego??

We started off at dusk, and so hadn't yet switched our lights on. But once we regrouped after the first section, it was time. I had almost declined the offered light, since I had my headlamp in my car, but luckily for me, I hadn't. I guess it has been a while since I last checked out the latest lighting options on the market...holy cow! This thing was akin to having car headlights attached to my handlebars. In fact, I wouldn't mind attaching to to my car hood, it's probably better! haha Ok, that might be an exaggeration, but I was blown away by how well it lit the trail, and blinded anyone who strayed across my path. The only time I had any issue was when the trail opened up and we bombed down some berms...since the light was pointing the wrong direction by being attached to my handlebars, trying to look through the turn was simply staring into inky darkness.

For fear of sounding like a shill, I considered not mentioning the actual maker. But I figured you're more interested in what I was using than wary of being peddled gadgetry. So I headed to the manufacturer's website, Light & Motion, and it turns out I was the lucky user of their highest-end offering, the Seca 1400. Oh, and look, the website includes the retail price....Wowzers! Until I got into racing, all my BIKES were cheaper than that bad boy. Or, to put it another way, I could pay someone minimum wage for two years to come on a weekly MTB ride and run alongside carrying a flashlight. But hopefully it'll be less than two years before I can MTB faster than someone on foot carrying a Dolphin! Or a golden retriever, for that matter.

Ride of the Damned

2011-09-26T14:31:00.000-04:00

End of summer often seems to correspond with injuries for me. I was wondering whether it is because my base and weight training is at it's most distant point for the year, or that I'm doing the equivalent of "one last run at the ski resort" as summer takes leave for another year.

Nothing serious this time, just a weird twinge in my ankle, but it hurts to ride. However when Craiger called to suggest a ride, I knew it wasn't one to pass up. 140km riding north from Ottawa, 60km of gravel, fall colours at their peak... I decided to tape up my ankle and give 'er!

It didn't disappoint. For starters, a spectacular day...I have to find out what temp it was and request that for all future rides. For the first half we were treated to amazing vistas of fall foliage, a neat hydro damn (clued us in to the reason for the name, Ride of the Damned) and great terrain. The second half added in some solid suffering, the historic mills and other buildings in Wakefield and Chelsea, Dave stomping on it with some monster pulls, and Craig keeping us on course for all but 10km. ;)

Generally, there's just something very satisfying about crushing it on back roads with some solid chaps.

Circus is in town

2011-09-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was an awesome, bike-themed extravaganza. I was at the Norco booth at the BTAC ExpoCycle trade show to represent Team H&R BLOCK, and happy to do so after their great support this season. I joined by two amazing Norco-sponsored riders, Andrew Watson, fresh back from the MTB world championships, and bad-ass BMXer Ben Kaufmann. It's normally a dealer-oriented show (shop owners come to look at what they can sell in the following year) but this year, for the first time, Saturday was for consumers. It seems someone forgot to TELL the consumers, but being quiet gave me a chance to wander around and geek out on 2012 bike bling.

OH, and I also did my first autograph signing session! Right after Ryder Hejedal. Does it count if I didn't actually sign anything? haha

Caught up with my buddy Jeff, who was the mechanic for H&R earlier this season and is now living the dream, travelling with the pros as a Spidertech wrench. Partied it up a bit...

Sunday was the World Tour race in Montreal. Tonnes of dudes from this year's Tour on a killer course - 17 laps of a course with a brutal 2km hill, totaling over 200km.

Almost more impressive was the way these dudes get down after a tough day in the saddle: Jeff was in the know, and we headed over to Club Musique to rock out amongst various national champs and such. Take Di Luca, he was in the break for 140km, and then 6 hours later, tearing it up!Sweet.

This week it's back to regular life...a couple of job interviews, training for cyclocross, watching in wonder and horror as the leaves change and start falling...

Vizualize my resume

2011-08-31T12:13:00.000-04:00

There's a rather neat web site called vizualize.me, that allows one to create a visual representation of their resume. I found it particularly helpful because my work chronology is not straight-forward. It also has a cool feature that allows one to upload their work history, etc. from their LinkedIn account, avoiding needing to type in all that information *yet again*.

The screen shots below are hyperlinks to my actual resume. Feel free to pass them out to friends, family and pets that may be looking to hire a software developer!

Plus temps avec mes amis

2011-08-30T23:36:00.000-04:00

I'll have to figure out how to provide an easy auto-translate, but until then, you can copy-and-paste into translate.google.com for a fairly intelligible translation.

J'ai allé à Toronto dernière semaine, pour le centieme fois ce été. :) En mercredi mon ami, Pete, dit que nous ne pouvons pas encore naviguer, parce que il y a avertissments de tornade! Mais nous avons aller à jeudi, et il faut trés bon: le soleil brillé et nous avons une magnifique brise de "mer" (dans la Lac Ontario :) ).

J'ai revenir en Saint-Sauveur maintenant. Je suis penser peut-etre je vais aller le Montagne Vert étape course, òu je vais avoir écrasé. Donc j'ai essayer garde la form. Aujourd'hui j'ai aller courir avec mon ami Seb avec notre velo des montagne. Il pleut mais c'est tres bon. Seb gagner lui dernier course et il a formidable compétences de manipulation de vélo. Cherchez-toi au dessous:

Decisions, decisions

2011-08-28T23:52:00.000-04:00

I had these to choose from when heading out for a ride last week. Part of a very good week!

More tanning, more crashing

2011-08-16T14:43:00.000-04:00

This weekend I was back in Toronto. It's entirely possible I would have done less driving this season if I lived in Toronto! But there's only so many times I can ride Keele St to Holland Marsh... Stopped a couple of days in Ottawa to catch up with Paul and Bets, and see Nige's team have a great run in the Canadian Ultimate Championships, until their worlds bid came off the rails in the semis. Great showing, boys.

On Sunday, Nick, Matt, Jordan and I converged on Niagara for the Niagara Classic. Probably 300 racers in various categories, and get this: after subtracting the entrance fee, the winner of my Elite 1-2 race got to take home $20. Good thing we don't count on prize winnings to eat (one could also point out that I would still starve if the winner got $1000 for every race I do... ;) ).

Nick got in a two-man break from kilometre 3, and had a tough 120km of suffering out there. He won the KOM competition, by cresting the Effingham hill first, 6 out of the 10 laps, but unfortunately hadn't heard them say before the race they'd cancelled it. Aw.

Jordan got in a 4-man break that caught Nick and co, but they failed to work as a unit and were separated in the last couple of laps, and ended up 4th and 8th. I need to figure out how to choose the right break to go in - I ended up chilling on the front of the peleton for the last 25km, chatting up a storm with my fellow riders and working on my tan-lines.

Afterwards, we figured Nick needed to check out The Falls, being just a hop, skip, and twenty vineyards away.

Fortunately he resisted straddling the barrier, unlike the unlucky girl half an hour later!

I was pretty stoked to get hooked up with a factory tour on Monday with our bike sponsor, Norco, and a 2012 model CRR to ride for the remainder of the season. Following that, we headed over to Joyride 150, an indoor bike park for BMX and MTB, partly sponsored by Norco, and got some more VIP treatment. The facility was super cool, with ladder-bridges, BMX pumptrack, an 800 metre XC trail, and plenty o' jumps...oh, and a foam pit!

Of course my 'push it till it hurts' attitude was once again my undoing, and I got to bond with

an ice pack for a while. While I was sitting/lying around, trying not to pass out or bleed on my t-shirt, a little dude comes over - he can't have been more than 10 - and said "did you do that trying to do a back-flip?". haha Unfortunately honesty got the better of me and I pointed out the jump (smallest in the whole place) that I ate it on.

After a trip to the Markham Stouffville Hospital and another scar to add to the collection, Nick and I mixed it up with the big rigs on their late night run to Montreal.

Catch up on BC Superweek and the aftermath

2011-08-11T12:16:00.000-04:00

High time I hammer out a post to get caught up.

BC Superweek went poorly. Abysmal. DNFed every race (other than the 2 minute hill climb! haha), broke my bike and had no spare in the correct size, less than ideal team dynamics. Ugh.

Hurting a lot, but not quite making time cut for final circuits
Photo: Donna Marie

Afterwards I took a week off to hang with my buddy Sean in Van, then went to Calgary for another few days and met up with lots of my awesome peeps. Raced the Gran Fondo in town, with much better results: got a bro in the break, then worked a lead-out so that we ended with 3rd, 6th, 9th and a nice payout.

Back to St Sauveur for the last couple of days of July. Rocked some BMX pump-track with Seb, then back to Toronto to race a little event there. Results weren't ideal, but things were coming back together. More time with Toronto homies, and finally my head is back on straight. Chilling with everyone in Van, Calgary and Toronto all helped, but this last little email I got was the icing on the cake:

"Seriously good to see you - hope you had fun. Now go train & kick some french ass."
Don't know why, but that was what made it all click. I love my friends!

Back in Quebec, it was time for more Lachine crit madness. Nice and warm for the start, but spitting rain. By 10 laps in, we were in a full-on downpour. Riding behind someone (basically essential, because we get up to 50kmh every straight, before slowing for each corner) was like having a firehose blasting dirty water in my face. Actually kinda fun, in a sick and twisted way, since it was still pretty warm. Unfortunately I took a spill and now have road rash on my right knee, hip and forearm that match my Superweek grazes on the left, but this time it was a low speed corner crash, so not too bad. Good thing I bought four feet of Second Skin in Van! hehe

Our team is winding down now - money is done - so just a couple more little races for the end of the season. I'm giving myself August to learn French, and September to find a job.

Calgary calling

2011-07-20T09:05:00.000-04:00

Do seagulls ever sleep? I'm still in Vancouver, post-BC Superweek, and from the lounge room of Sean's downtown condo (with the windows open), I can hear the cawing of millions* of seagulls. At 11am when I went to bed, it was pretty cool to hear them, since it reminds me how close I am to the ocean, but now that it's shortly after 5am, and I am (or at least was) trying to sleep, I'm not so sure.

Anyway, I'm going to be in Calgary in a day or two, for a short while until I migrate back East. If anyone I haven't yet emailed is about, and has time to catch up, let me know!!

* More than ten.

Crack goes the carbon

2011-07-11T18:16:00.000-04:00

Brenco criterium was going well until I did a lay-out for a non-existent frisbee on the back straight. I'll save you pics of gore, but here's one of my poor bike. Still, I won't complain too much because I didn't break any bones, nor was I taken out by an errant French media car and put into a barbed wire fence...

Beautiful British Columbia

2011-07-09T21:33:00.000-04:00

For tweleve guys de-stressing at the local, after a typically stressful Nationals campaign, I thought we were relatively restrained: our rendition of Umbrella at karaoke was somewhat coherent, the po-po presence when we were kicked out was purely a cautionary measure, I learned of the folly in wrestling sprinters after ending up on the receiving end of a rear naked choke, and very few cars were relocated in the nearby parking lot.

From there, it was a quick drive back to Quebec, and an even quicker flight back to Toronto...some missed connections and lost bags later, we arrived in Vancouver. Fortunately our homeless situation was rectified when Brad's cousin, Warren, came through for us, big time...we crashed at The Chief's place, then drove out to Pemberton the next day.

Pemberton is an awesome little town just north of Whistler. It's like what I imagine Canmore was 20 years ago - it's cool little town situated in a narrow valley, so of course has an abundance of outdoor activities. Nick and I stayed at Warren's buddy's place (how many degrees of separation are we at now?), who literally has bouldering in his back yard, tons of mountain bike trails (which I avoided given my propensity to get seriously injured any time I go) that start a couple of hundred metres away, and some amazing road rides. One particular ride was one of the best I've ever done...half an hour of flat riding from Pembo, then 8km of up to 15% and 5km of up to 11%, then 70km through an amazing valley, to Lillooet. The lakes are mostly very cold, with the exception of two, Mosquito and One Mile lakes, which even a rake like me can get in for a bit...although I seem to have lost all ability to float!

Me being skinny, Brad being Brad

We`ve also had a chance to relax a little, and partake in Canada Day celebrations at the Pemberton Hotel (affectionately called the Pem Ho), and hit up a mid-bush rave, complete with 8-foot speaker stacks, with Brad`s family friends, one of whom I believe won gold last year - hats off to her.

We're now all in Vancouver, tackling BC Superweek: 8 races in 10 days, mostly crits.

Nationals and beyond

2011-07-03T17:30:00.000-04:00

Canada's biggest one-day race of the year, the National Road Cycling Championship, was held this past weekend just outside Toronto. My team placed particular emphasis on it, shipping the whole team from west and east coasts (and Montreal), and setting us up for the week in beautiful Oakville (actually, just north of there, in sketchy Oakville...but beautiful Oakville was but a short ride away).

Winning break, which stayed away for 160km: Rob Britton vs Team Spidertech
Photo: Nigel Wallis

I was brimming with confidence after my surprise 38th-place finish last year, confidence that was only tempered by my role as team water-boy/sacraficial lamb. I knew the course would be selective...a gradual climb, leading to 600 meters of torturous 13% climbing, capped by another 1-2 kilometers of more false-flat climbing, gave the strong men of Spidertech (Canada's only pro team) et al, every tool they needed to separate the wheat (them) from the chaff (me and 170 others like me).

Painface by teammate Aaron, photo by Nigel Wallis

I survived the opening kilometers, and I mean this both figuratively and literally: someone crashed on the 100+km/h descent and was taken away in a ambulance in rough shape. I found myself on the wrong side of a separation after the first time up the hill, and the following 5km of drilling it in a 4 man paceline to catch back on was the first nail in my coffin (my coffin only needs two nails). A couple of laps later, I exploded at the top of the hill like a watermelon having a drug overdose. Nige and Dave showed up (thanks, guys!!) unfortunately just in time to see me quite obviously out of contention and being showered in pity-cheering. Teammate Seb had a great race and finished 7th - way to go, Sebber!

Teammate Seb and various other superstars in the front chase group, one hill repeat closer to finishing
Photo: Nigel Wallis

Hill riding strategies for road races

2011-06-23T18:04:00.000-04:00

While racing over 600km in 5 days in the beautiful, and really, really hilly Beauce region of Quebec, I had plenty of time to think about how to ride hills. The area is so hilly, that pretty soon we weren't even calling anything shorter than a kilometre, or less than 10% grade, a hill! But now back in the normal world, they were hills. Pretty serious hills.

The second KOM of the second stage was paricularly brutal, 2.8km of 5.2% with
sections over 20%, even though it was a "sprinter's stage".
Photo: Rob Jones, Cycling News

I had a number of strategies for handling the hills, depending on whether I knew it was coming and whether I had a choice in the matter, and I thought I would share my thoughts on how to ride hills in road races with everyone.

Don't pull to the bottom of a hill

The first one is easy: avoid doing all the work in the lead-up to a hill! It seems obvious, but when I'm hurting in a race, sometimes I lose focus and mess up tactically. Even if it feels like you're not going hard, the guys behind you still have far more energy to hit it (or attack) when the hill arrives, and might leave you in the dust. I certainly didn't need to worry about this one at Beauce! but I did go off the front of the pelton on stage 1 primarily because the pace-makers on the front of the peleton behind me just didn't want to step it up a notch on a hill.

Sag Climbing

The principle is easy...start closer to the front, ride slower and put out fewer watts than most, and end near the back. Use lower-effort times in the race, like lulls between attacks and the start of hills, as I mention below, to move back to a better position closer to the front of the pack.

Climbing like this requires that you know how long the climb is, so that you can lose ground to the leaders at the correct rate, leaving you near the back as you crest. It also helps to have a good idea of what will happen as the leaders crest. Will they attack? If so, trying to stay with an accelerating peleton by sprinting the last part of the hill, while the leaders are on the flats, certainly wont save any energy. If there is a selection, and you find yourself in the second (or third, or fourth) group at the top, you may also use more energy working hard to catch back. But if you're fairly sure the pace wont change too much, it can definitely be worthwhile.

I plan to use sag climbing when it's either early in the race, when I don't expect people to burn matches hitting it on or after the hill, or when there is a break off the front, again decreasing the chance people will attack at the top. Also, if I'm running out of gas later in a race, I will drift back on the climb (assuming I can get to the front before the hill starts) just to avoid blowing up.

Sling-shotting

Have you noticed that when you're in the middle or back of the pack, you have to brake just before you start the hill? This is because the front of the pack has already arrived at the hill, while you're still on the flat or downhill. Sling-shotting allows you to use the momentum from the downhill or flats preceding the hill to save energy and/or move up in the pack. Generally, you need to be on the edge of the peleton, so that you can choose when to pull out from behind the riders slowing in front of you and pass them. I find this best if you can see the hill coming, and there is enough space on the road to pass people.

Allow me to give an example. Picture a 90-rider peleton riding three-abreast, going slightly downhill at 45km/h, and approaching a fairly long hill of 10% grade. The people behind the leaders might be pedaling very lightly, or not at all. As soon as the leaders hit the hill and slow down, riders behind them will often brake to match the speed of the leaders ahead and maintain their position in the pack. However, if you are at back of the pack (unlikely where you want to be), you are roughly 60 meters behind the front riders. In 60 meters, they have slowed to their hill-climbing speed (perhaps around 20km/h), while you are just hitting the hill and still doing 45km/h. At this point sometimes the peleton will fan out across the road as riders, consciously or unconsciously, sling-shot up beside the racers at the front, to avoid braking and save energy.

Ideally, I start just far back enough that by the time I run out of momentum, I'm very close to the front. This of course depends on how much faster you expect to be going than the front of the pack. For example, if the road slowly gets steeper, you may not have any extra speed to sling-shot past other riders. However if you are on rolling terrain, for example the back leg of the Stampede Road Race course in Madden, there is a good opportunity to gain a few places as the peleton's speed ebbs and flows over each roller. The Stampede course isn't the ideal situation, because the road is narrow enough that the peleton may already fill the entire lane, leaving no space to move past people. Regardless of the road you are on, you should always use caution when swinging out around the riders ahead, both to respect the center-line rule if it is in effect, and to watch out for other riders who are doing the same or not expecting you to come along-side/past them.

Spin it to win it

Not as much of a climbing tactic as a strategy for saving your guns: try to get into a smaller gear than necessary, but one which still allows you to still apply pressure at a reasonable cadence, so that you don't need to down-shift once the pressure is on. Mountain-bikers will be familiar with this. You don't want to have to change from your big to your small ring after you get bogged down and need to keep applying pressure. If possible, switch to your small ring before the hill and cross-chain a bit (maybe 39-13), so that you can shift up on the cassette as your speed drops off and don't have to big-ring the whole hill. The same applies when accelerating out of a corner - I often see people not down-shift as they enter the corner, and end up having to push a giant gear, like a 53-12, as they accelerate from low speed. This leads to poor acceleration and trashing your fast-twitch muscles for later in the race.

Rolling off the top

This strategy is almost the opposite of sag-climbing. It actually makes those try to sag-climb, or those dangling near the back, work harder or get dropped. If you are able to finish the hill at the front of the pack, you will likely be tired and want to slow down to recover. However, try to keep the same effort, or even surge a little, to get back up to speed - around 40km/h is a common race speed on a flat road. You are forcing those at the back to match your speed when they are still on the hill, perhaps doing 20km/h, or they will lose contact with the wheel ahead. And because you are now going fast enough for drafting to be more effective, they lose out on that all-important draft at the higher speed.

I remember this being done very effectively at Banff Bikefest in 2010. The Lenovo team was working hard on the front, keeping the break's lead in check to protect their team leader's GC lead. This meant that they were tired in the latter part of the race, falling to the back of the peleton on the hill. Other teams on the front ramped the pace as they crested the first main hill on Tunnel Mountain Drive, and each lap it seemed one of the Lenovo team would get dropped. In the end, the Lenovo team's efforts kept their team leader fresh for the end of the race, and he was able to keep the pace high and finish in the pack, to win the overall GC for the race, but them being dropped certainly made the outcome much less certain!

Tour de Beauce update #3

2011-06-18T19:31:00.000-04:00

Today's stage was in the old/bar/touristy area of Quebec City, 9 laps of a circuit that included maybe 200 meters of 15%, followed by 1km of less-steep climbing. I could feel the big guys turn the screws when we hit this section, and I got popped first lap. Can't give up prematurely though...I did a solo TT for nearly 100km before getting pulled with one lap to go...so close!

Not a super day for the team, I think we lost 4 guys today. Although we didnt have anyone in the winning break, Seb finished strong in the pack, so at least there's that.

Great crowd turn-out, especially on the climb. There can be no dogging it when hundreds of people are watching and cheering! On my third time up, as I was going through leg- and lung-burning hell, I could see in my periphery a guy running beside me dressed in black lingerie...I saw him after the race, and he was also sporting a blow-up doll. haha

So that's the end of my Beauce racing. I'll be cheering for my H&R boys from the sidelines tomorrow, the final day, and still making the most of the *amazing* breakfast and dinner buffets the race provides all the racers :) Pretty sure I'll still be in calorie deficit for the week though!

Huge thanks to all the support from everyone! Great to see Nick and Jocelyn after the race, even in my sorry state.

Of course, there's no rest for the wicked: Nationals in Burlington next weekend! I'll be riding support for our key dudes...pretty sure I can handle bottle duty now ;)

Tour de Beauce update #2

2011-06-17T23:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was one of the highlights of my cycling "career", fetching bottles and closely a (tiny) gap in the crosswind for my teammate, Sebastian, who finished 3rd on the stage!!

It was another long race, 150+km, capped off by a climb to the observatory at the top of Mont Megantic. Alternatively, I could say it was 480km of racing in three days, finishing with half of Apex, or three of the You Yangs climb, or...Toronto would be....30 times from Queens Way into High Park?? haha Anyway, intimidating.

The day started out calmly enough, a few surges until a break stayed off, and nothing more than hard tempo on hills for the first 50km that I can remember (could be selective memory...). After 50km, we're allowed to go back to the caravan to feed, so it was time for me to get bottles. The rolling terrain meant going back for bottles was challenging. I'd usually get 6 or 7, so a few were stuffed down the front/back of my jersey, and I tried to time it so that I wasn't carrying, handing out, or taking bottles on the uphill, and I wasn't riding beside the team car at too high a speed. Didn't always succeed. :)

There was one particularly memorable feed: I'd just gotten my last bottle - usually the driver gives me a bit of a whip to help me sprint back to the back of the pack, and I had accelerated in front of the car. As I did so, I saw something happening in the pack ahead - I saw everyone was bunny-hopping train-tracks diagonally crossing the road. Crap! I had a bottle in one hand, which I momentarily considered/tried squeezing down the back of my jersey with the other, but I was approaching too fast, around 50 or 60kmh - I opted to turf it. I then rather ungainly jumped the tracks - the bottles weigh almost as much as my bike! Both bottles in my frame bounced out, but I made it through and rejoined the pack. However now I only had four bottles left, and had to go back pretty soon thereafter. haha

The next chunk of the race was pretty straight forward. I got a random half a Pepsi from one of Jamie Sparling's Raleigh team mates, rolled through some hills, and chatted with Jamie a little. Always stoked to race with him, both because he's always genial character and because it often means I'm breaking into a new level of racing...last time was the Invited Men's race at Banff 2009 when I was a lowly cat 3.

Next up was the final KOM. I maxed out quickly and began falling off the back. It was one of those times, when you're sooo close to the pack, but they're slowly slipping away...funnily enough, I ended up rolling with another dude I'd had a bit of an altercation with earlier in the race. :) We lit it up at the top and gunned it for a few km, weaving through caravan cars to catch back. We'd just caught them at the base of a hill, when I realized they were making a hard right turn to go up a hill. I was still in my 50-11 by the time I'd slowed to almost stopped, and now I had to start up a 10%er. Damn.

We ended up forming a gruppetto of about 10 guys, and knocked off the last 20-odd km to the base of the final climb: 5km of 10%. Then it was *suffer time* as our group exploded and we all slogged up to the finish. I heard my name and Sebastian's name announced as I rolled across the line, totally gassed. Team manager Mark was there to give me a push to the car and tell me 'good job' and that Seb came third....woooo!! Great moment.

Today was the TT, a mostly-downhill out, uphill back 20km TT, which I had to finish within 20% of the winner's time to not get time-cut. Given that Svein Tuft, who came 2nd at the TT world championships, was there, I couldn't really "save myself"....managed a 30:07, so I live to fight another day.

Tomorrow we head to Quebec City for a 120km circuit race. Same as Nationals a few years back? Really looking forward to it...beautiful city, and crowds are great for helping me dig deep. Wish me luck!

Tour du beauce update

2011-06-15T19:24:00.000-04:00

> Soloed the last 30km of yesterday's Tour de Beauce opening stage for an inconsequential 23rd. Still pretty friggen fun. Of course, they could have pulled me back in a second, but sometimes being a nobody is a good thing! Anyway, found out later it was 'disrespectful to the peleton'...cycling etiquette thing. Check.
>
> Was already regretting that move 30km into today, when I got dropped the first time...was a long, hard hard day in the saddle. I think I ended up getting dropped 4 times total, but also got back to the team car for bottles a few times while we were rolling at 50kmh, because I was on bottle duty again. I told Zack afterwards that he got the award for handing me bottles at the highest speed, 86kmh! haha
>
> After a seriously brutal climb, I saw on my bike computer we still had 5km to the KOM...oh god. It wasn't for a few km later that I realized my bike computer had stopped working, and we only had the last, flat 20km run in to the finish. haha Thank christ. Race ended in a field sprint (and a thank god! from me), so there won't be any gc changes, other than time bonuses.
>
> Tomorrow is the mountain stage, which will shake up the gc. And really, really hurt!
>
> Thanks a ton for the support, guys!! Really. Can't understate how much it helps when I'm bleeding out the eyeballs :)

Call up to the big leagues

2011-06-09T18:09:00.000-04:00

Just got a call...well, technically I got a text, prompting me to call back...I'm making this far more difficult than it needs to be...what I mean to say is:

I'm going to Beauce, baby!

Time to shift gears. Like from 1st to 5th!

For those that have never heard of it, this is probably the best description of the level.

Tough times

2011-06-06T16:23:00.000-04:00

Another lovely sunny rest day in Saint-Sauveur. It would be nice if it were accompanied with the glow of success... These past couple of weekends have been challenging both physically and in the aftermath, mentally.

Killington Stage Race takes place in central Vermont, which at this time of year is lush and humid. All four of us Quebec-based H&R boys were there to contest the race.

Friday was a relatively flat circuit race, each of the 4 laps having a gradual ascent over the first half, and decent to the finish, so we planned to lead out our big boy, Brad, for the fast downhill finish. The technical guide for the race suggested a 55-11 for sprinters!

The race was fast and furious until a break was established, including Nick to represent the black and green. However with a lap to go, it all came together, so we started preparing for the sprint finish. Unfortunately unnamed eager beavers on the team started our leadout way (way way) too early, and we were gassed by 3km to go. The leadout was swarmed and Brad was stuck in the melee. Despite Matt pulling out a surprising 10th and my 14th, the result were worthless for GC (at least 80% of the 115+ riders were still in the peleton, and with a mass finish like that everyone gets the same finish time), stage winnings (money only going 3 deep), and general team happiness at having failed to execute our plan.

The next day's time trial was mostly a false flat, so we were again betting on Brad to crush. That didn't happen, and we didn't really have any other personal victories to rally behind either.

The last day was the road race, featuring two worthy KOMs. We were hopeful that the final huge 4km climb would negate the team tactics of the bigger squads, and with Nick, highest placed in GC, also being a good climber, we wanted to protect him for the finale.

Unfortunately, right after Nick bridged to a break (...er??) I had a blow-out and as I rolled from 50km/h to a stop on $4000 wheels with no air in the back tire, I had a little meltdown.

What can I say? I panicked.

It was very much a Redlands deja vu moment...despite this time being well positioned about 10-15th wheel... Once I stopped swearing, I got off to take my wheel off, realized it was not down the cassette, got back on, started trying to change gears but being SRAM and me freaking out, I changed up instead, as the neutral wheel guy runs up, pulls off the wheel, I finally change down, he throws a wheel on, I hit it, not sure if he will pace me, he pulls his car in front just as we hit a short climb, I kill myself trying to get close to him on the uphill and then get closer on the downhill. He stayed about 3-4 meters away, and we were doing about 45kmh...so eventually he left to catch the peleton.

From there I went as hard as I could and was sooo close to the back of the caravan (i.e. support/officials' cars following the race) just as they hit a decent hill...I was about 100 meters back when the peleton crested, taking the cars with them. Didn't see them again.

I talked to the wheel guy afterwards...they're pro SRAM/Zipp neutral support, so I figured he would be able to tell me what to do. He said that I should be just inches from his back bumper to get a real draft, BUT I had to give him the thumbs down to slow down, because he can't be unexpectedly slowing down in front of riders and freaking them out. Seems reasonable.

Anyway, I TTed for the remaining 2/3 of the race, 65km or so, determined to make time-cut. I experienced absolute hell as I rode through a friggen paradise...old towns, cheering locals, a river running by the road, and hills thick with brilliant green spring foliage, all to make time cut. Ended up passing a few dudes of the final climb, and finished within the timecut, 27 min down...although they don't seem to have cut anyone. I heard Nick fell out of the break, but the break was caught just before the final climb, and he managed to get 8th for the stage.

After a four days to recover, train, taper and generally get my head back in the game, we headed north east to the Charlevoix region of Quebec, know for hills, hills, more hills, and good cheese.

The first race was a 17km TT. I was feeling motivated and quite rested, and dare I say, prepared! Nick helped me tape on a tubular for my rear Zipp 808 the night before, so I was running the triathlete special: 404 front and 808 rear. Light, but deep enough to be wicked-aero. Tuned my gears during a good warmup, and got psyched while avoiding thinking about the brute I would be following down the start ramp (he went on to win the stage).

I headed out at a good clip, conserving a little since it was slightly downhill and a tailwind. Road was a little bumpy, and then crack! Oh god, not the 808... Still seemed to be rolling fine. A short while later, another crack...and I felt my position was now a little off: seat post had slipped down. Crap. I still rode hard, but gradually my seat got to the point where I was riding a clown bike. My quads were on fire, but I hadn't been passed...was I keeping my Garneau 30-second man at bay? No, it turns out my 30-second and minute men hadn't started the race, so I had kept my one-and-a-half (or maybe even 2 minute) man at bay, just, so I ended up 2:20 behind the winner for 41st. Boo.

Back to motel, eat, sleep, eat, warmup for crit, snafu at the lineup so we started at the back. I worked my way up to not-quite-at-the-back for 43rd. Boo x 2.

Last stage on Sunday, 3rd race in 24 hours. Beautiful course, quite a bit of climb up to the two-thirds mark, then ridiculous amounts of climbing. I sucked, finished in the 3rd group for around 40th. Definitely the hardest result to deal with...no excuses for this one... Perhaps it's time to try my hand at golf? haha Nick finished 7th, so he is in great form for Beauce next week.

A little sightseeing and dinner in Quebec City was a nice way to lift the spirits before the long drive home.
Shrine of Sainte Anne de Beaupré

Racing and pacing

2011-05-24T23:23:00.000-04:00

Long race to end a long week. It was supposed to be the flat race of the weekend, but the hill was a far more selective than anything else on the prior day's race. I suffered through, but Nick was our man of the day, getting in a key move and finishing in the break, sprinting for 6th.

Ever since we moved to Saint-Sauveur, I think at least one of us has been into our LBS, Espresso Sports. Bunch of solid dudes working there - Seb's a wizard on the drive-train, and today, Ben lent his scooter to us for some motor-pacing. It's great motivation to try to stay on the wheel while hitting it on the highway, but more importantly, there's great training effect from being in a big gear at speed just like in a race.

Go Canucks!

Ottawa and Gatineau

2011-05-21T22:45:00.001-04:00

Ottawa turned on the charm for our trip this weekend - flowers blooming, trees emerald green, and the Ottawa River full of cool rapids. Paul and Betsy were amazing hosts, even putting is up at Paul's brother's for our unexpected extended stay. Thanks Andrew!

A little over 2 hours to drive out on Thursday night, and we arrived for the TT with about, oh, 30 seconds to spare...I call that excellent time management! The course is amazing, flat, and FAST! It may be just a midweek race, but the locals lay down killer times (the winner nearly averaged 50kmh!), and didn't even leave room for me on the podium.

Today was the GP Outaouais road race in Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa. Crazy hot and humid, so I was even more salt-encrusted than usual! No major hills to make a selection. The team missed the early break, and since we were only three-strong today we decided getting on the front to reel them in wasn't in our best interest, so we kept attacking to try to bridge, but the peleton would always chase us down. Eventually the break was brought back, although another got away with a couple of laps to go. In the field sprint our leadout broke down in the mayhem - Nick used his pack ninja skills to stay well positioned and get 10th overall, I came 18th and Matt 35th.

The fun continues tomorrow with GP Hudson.

Pain face

2011-05-18T12:44:00.001-04:00

Pain face: because I like to give people a window to my suffering :)

Antoine Bécotte's Facebook photo album of GP St Raymond, stage 1

Antoine Bécotte's Facebook photo album of GP St Raymond, stage 2

Bikes! and Saint Raymond race report

2011-05-16T22:44:00.000-04:00

Our bikes arrived! Put them together and went for a sweet ride on my sweet new ride. This is Lac-Des-Seize-Iles, one of maybe six lakes we passed on quiet rolling road.

The next day the team rolled out for our first Quebec race together. Two road races in St Raymond, up toward Quebec City (Jessica and Simon, very close to Pont Rouge! Did a light ride there on Friday).

First race was relatively short, several laps around a lake, with little rollers and a couple of punchy climbs. While the centre line was in effect, the race was rolling like there wasn't one. Made it quite easy to move in the peleton and not be boxed in when covering attacks. I was a bit concerned someone was going to get smoked by an oncoming car, but it wasn't much more dangerous than the cars parked on the right. Anyway, a break was a short way up the road, about half way through the race, when suddenly the race was brought to a halt. They wanted to tell us that we had to observe the yellow line! They stopped the break, and the peleton when they got there, and we stayed for 10-15 minutes so every last straggler caught back on. With 30km to go! It was pretty weird.

So of course when we started again, it was full gas to the end. We hadn't scoped out the finish, which was a little ways off the lake circuit, so when we made the turn off the circuit, I hoped it was close. Unfortunately, not close enough, and I exploded like a stick of dynamite in a beaver dam. 3 of us in the top 30, out of 84...not real threats, but hopefully if we can dial in the team leadout, we can get someone into the top 5 in similar circumstances in the future.

Brad and Nick powering up a hill
Photo courtesy Antoine Bécotte

Day two was a longer race, 130km. This was raced more like the road racing I'm used to: a little slower, with hard attacks. Only, the attacking was relentless. Garneau had 14! guys in the race, and mostly used their strength for evil, getting on the wheel of every single attack. Eventually Team H&R BLOCK started running out of bullets and missing more attacks. By half-way through the race, a break of 6 or 8 was off the front. Teammate Brad got on the front, and once the other three of us joined him, we set a solid pace, with the help of Rocky Mountain, started reeling them in.

Eventually we got pretty gassed and pulled off for a bit - in hindsight, this was our downfall...we had the gap down to 20 seconds, but by the time we got back to the front, the gap had blown out to nearly two minutes. I bridged up to a chase group just up the road, and rolled with them for a while, but was on the rivet most of the time and was popped on a hill when we were joined by fresh legs. Lesson for the future: don't be so close to my limit in a paceline...sit out a rotation and weather the verbal storm from my break-away-mates.

Once I was caught, Nick was able to get in a break that stuck, coming in in the third group. What was left of the peleton, with the rest of H&R, rolled in without any energy to contest the field sprint, but still top 30. Really good to have this valuable experience as a team - I'm sure it will be utilized very soon!

Did a little photo-snapping on the drive home, in this here hotbed of Catholocism.

Getting settled

2011-05-14T18:10:00.000-04:00

This year has seemed somewhat like a regression from a productive and financially independent member of society to a starving bum. A generally happy bum though, as opposed to one sitting on the street corner yelling obscenities at his genitals. The first week of Montreal followed this trend, as I slept on Patrick and Cricri's couch, then moved to McGill University residences.

I find it more enjoyable to treat tough weeks as mental training: two hour roller/trainer ride in the dorm? No problem. Pouring rain while circumnavigating Iles des Montreal, soaked to the bone? Get 'er done. Finishing said ride via downtown in rush-hour as the down-pour continues? Crit-like acceptance of fear.

Nick and I headed up north of Montreal to check out some hillier terrain, and found a cool four-bedroom house in the ski town of Saint-Sauveur-des-Mont. The area is a cycling paradise. Matt and Brad joined us there last Friday before I did a solo run east of Montreal to GP Granby, a 19km TT.

Ugh, the TT...not a shining moment in my cycling year. I found it hard to get into the world-of-pain headspace and chugged out a mediocre time for 21st out of 38. Garneau-Club Chaussures look to be the dominant force in the area, taking 1st and 2nd and 7 of the top 12. I'm told the flat course is a good example of most of the road race routes.

Right after the TT, I headed to Toronto. Unfortuantely Sunday's crit there was cancelled, but that gave me ample time to be befuddled by a mechanic speaking English, find some good riding north of Toronto, pre-ride the Nationals course (12km of dead flat, 600m of straight up)and, saving the best for last, hang out with the Kelster after her genius convention.

Now back in Quebec, and had a day to get in some more amazing riding around my new home, before getting back on the road with the boys to head to GP St Raymond, up near Quebec City.

North and east

2011-05-02T22:35:00.000-04:00

Been a little slack on the post-Redlands blogging. I usually only write something when something interesting happens. Or I race. I think the time has come...

I got back to Calgary early in April, with an option of immediately jumping in the car and getting out east in time for Tour of the Battenkill. Once I got back though, I knew that trying to pack my life in a few boxes and get sorted within 24 hours, to give me a fighting chance of making it out to the race in time, was unrealistic. Instead I stayed at Trev's, donned the winter riding gear and tried to train, while waiting for team bikes that were always arriving "in a couple of days". Eventually, enough was enough and we hit the road.

It turns out that Nick and I are not very good at road-tripping.

We should have realized after we took until 8pm to drive 6 hours to Redlands, when we had all day. Of course it would also just be a reasonable assumption based on my past history. After being led astray by Kelly the night before I left (although it did include my first trip to the Banff hotsprings and a wild deer sniffing my hand, outstretched more for self-defense than a gesture of inter-species friendliness) and one last ride in Calgary, I met Nick only an hour late at 2pm, and after putting a few things in the car, we set off promptly at 7pm.

Stop one was Regina, Saskatchewan, at Brad's parents'. His Dad came out, at 3am, to give us a guided tour of the house and generally being an excessively amazing host.

Although having two kayaks and a bike on the roof didn't help, we were only doing 100kmh on the highway, which would normally mean getting about 700km per tank of fuel. With the wind howling out of the east for the first time I can remember in 6 years of living in the prairies, we instead got as little at 370km! Yikes.

Pre-coffeePost-coffee
Winnipeg was our next stop, a meagre 6 hours drive later. Justin opened up his home, and even gave us a tour of downtown Winnipeg, including the largest skate part in western Canada? The next day we drove in the States for a shortcut to Toronto. We left at the crack of dawn...ok, 10am...stopped 2 hours later for a hour ride (which somehow took 3 hours), THEN we got some serious miles in...ok, we stopped for dinner a couple of hours later...then the rain and snow started, and I got tired, so we pulled in short of our planned destination in random tiny town, USA. Ok, the next day was going to be HUGE! Jumped out of bed at 9am, drove 5 minutes and stopped at a diner for breakfast....and so on and so on. Brutal. Nigel even lined up a place in Sarnia, seeing that we wouldn't make it to Toronto, but we didn't even get that far and opted for a $29 hotel in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Finally the next day we made it Toronto. God, it felt great to be back. Awesome friends, familiar surroundings. Missed catching up with everybody, but I'll be back this weekend by the looks of things.

Got to Montreal a couple of days ago, have amazing hosts here, and today found a place in a wicked village north of Montreal. Nick and I went riding there today and trashed ourselves, compensation for house-hunting rather than racing yesterday.

Arriveé en Montreal

2011-04-30T23:46:00.000-04:00

We`ve finally arrived in Montreal! Yes, this photo could have been taken anywhere, but obviously not in Calgary - there`s no snow! ;) After a great cruise along the water on the island of Laval (NW Montreal) we went house hunting and had dinner with our wonderful hosts, Patrick and Cricri. Might be doing our first race tomorrow...or securing a roof over our heads.

Driving to Montreal

2011-04-26T23:11:00.000-04:00

Nick and I are escaping the cold, driving east to Montreal finally...only Mother Nature has other ideas and is throwing us a curve ball during our Minnesota traverse...so we've holed up in a tiny town and having pizza , and what luck, wireless internet!

Stretching video

2011-04-13T22:56:00.000-04:00

Recently came across this video on the science behind stretching:

http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.woa?videoid?24639991001

It's quite long (45 minutes) and doesn't provide a lot of black-and-white answers, but it does have some great points to consider and is well presented, hence being a Best Lecturer finalist in 2009.

My take-aways from the lecture are:
- for cycling performance, stretch muscles that help to get into a good position on the bike (e.g. hamstrings, lumbar spine)
- for everyday health, I expect I would need to stretch my hip flexors...but until I stop racing, I'll skip that and just concentrate on holding good posture when I need to stand :)

Redlands race report

2011-04-07T11:15:00.000-04:00

Redlands Classic, big time US pro cycling race, handed me my arse and sent me packing.

And now for the unabridged version of events... Racing kicked off on Thursday with a 5km prologue. With a kicker in the middle, and a brutal climb for the last kilometre, the field was pretty evenly split between road and time-trial bikes. Given that my beater road bike is a tank, my TT bike is both more aerodynamic AND lighter, so it was an easy choice.

I was first up from our team, near the start of the field. I arrived a couple of hours early, so after some sitting around in the team tent, and oggling the women's teams and massive team buses, I knocked off a warmup and then headed to the start ramp. The commentator who was announcing each starter, "Joe Smith, national TT champion", or "John Citizen, stage winner at the Tour of the Gila", didn't have much to work with for me; I think he went with "Lachlan Holmes is up next, he's had a number of top 10 finishes...". ha Then I was off, suffered through 11 minutes on the course, and then possibly the even more torturous wait for results. I ended up 113th out of 205 or so, not bad. Our team hill-climber extraordinaire, Sebastian, placed an impressive 30th, making him our top GC man for the weekend.

Get yer suffer on!
(Photo: Claremont Cyclist)

Day 2 was the first mass-start race, a 200km road race. It was another "welcome to the next level" deal for me, with all 28 teams having cars in the caravan following the race, a three-lane highway closed to traffic, oh, and the first 10km of the race being done at 55kmh (we averaged 45kmh for the first lap, which included a KOM climb)! Attacks were actually going off the front - I latched onto one guy's wheel as he launched, and we were doing at least 60...I thought 'I'm in trouble if he wants me to take a pull!' but we were caught when we hit a hill, and I spent the next 20km trying to recover.

Inevitably, there were crashes. A very good reason to fight to stay near the front of the peleton. You're inviting trouble when you sit mid-pack or further back, but it's hard to tell yourself to go FASTER when you're thinking about the hundreds of kilometres left in the race. Sure enough, I was sitting mid-pack as we passed through the start/finish line to begin our second lap, and a crash occurred right in front of me. I jumped on the brakes to avoiding plowing into them, but in doing so, locked up my back wheel and BAM, it blew. Trying to remain calm, I jumped off my bike and started taking out the wheel, and a minute later my team car arrived and Jeff, who was wrenching for the weekend's races, ran up with a spare. He changed it, gave me a push, got back to the car, and they got in front of me to pace me up. I was going full-gas - in the draft, so it was pretty fast, about 60-65km/h? Unfortunately, having no experience with any of this, I wasn't exactly sure how it all worked, and in hindsight, I should have been a lot closer to the team car. After a couple of minutes, the team manager, who was driving, yelled out that we weren't making ground fast enough, and he had to leave.

From there, I was left to TT by myself. I could see the caravan half a kilometre away, but barring a miracle, wasn't going to catch them. The rules for most big races are that if you finish more than 10% after the winner, you are given a time but can not continue racing the following day, akin to a DNF. Pretty soon I was doing the math in my head: approximately 4.5 hour race would mean a half hour time-cut. That gave me 4 hours to solo the remaining 150km. However, there was also the possibility that if I went hard enough, I might catch a groupetto (a bunch of dropped riders), and between us we could make the time-cut. Eventually I saw a rider in the distance...it was a teammate - bummer! We worked together a short while, but I knew we weren't going faster enough and left him behind. Same with another guy: "They don't have hills like this back in Tennessee!" haha The announcer had me at 17 minutes down after 3 laps, but by that time I was in a world of hurt, cramping and running out of steam, and after a 90km solo effort, I packed it in.

So that was the race done for me. The DNF meant I couldn't race in the next two races, which was really tough to acknowledge. The next day was my birthday...not so happy birthday! ha

We had a couple of DNFs each day/stage, and by the last day H&R was down to 2 riders. Seb was racing really well, and in his element - a hilly road race. After being in the lead pack for almost the entire race, he had a flat, and with the support vehicle being behind a chase group a few minutes back, it basically put him out of contention.

Overall, though, it was an amazing experience. I was happy to have learnt a ton about racing at the pro level, wasn't beating myself up (too much) since there was quite a bit of bad luck involved in my DNF, and had a great time bonding with fellow Block bros.

To end on a lighter note...I was flying back to Calgary on Monday, and I had arrived at the airport early. Security wanted to confiscate my peanut butter from my carry-on. I couldn't talk my way into taking it through, but a guy like me is on a pretty tight budget, and can't being throwing things away needlessly. So I ended up asking to go back through security, where I ate the last half a jar. Straight, with a fork. I figured it was roughly 3 billion calories, mostly fat...and this was on top of the can of sardines I had just before going through security in the first place...yum! Living the dream! :)

Block Bros on our way up Big Bear

Redlands this weekend

2011-03-30T01:40:00.000-04:00

Nick and I made the big drive to Redlands, California, yesterday, but understandably received no sympathy from the guys that raced in Vancouver Saturday and Sunday, then got in the team van and drove non-stop for 24 hours to meet us there!

It's been great to hang out with the lads and get to know everyone. We've received more new gear, including a replacement for my old and fugly blue helmet. Lots of eating, joking around, and stretching the legs on the bike in this beautiful location...I can see why so many millions live here.

DS Mark and mechanic Jeff have also joined us here. Everyone that knows of my amazing mechanical skills understand what an asset having Jeff around will be to not having my bike fall out from under me!

Godsend: Jeff

Training races

2011-03-28T00:49:00.000-04:00

I always have a hard time really believing that a race is actually purely a training race. But this year, with some REALLY big races on the calendar, the little local races really can't at all detract from training for the focus events. Last weekend's TBC was supposed to be a tune-up for Redlands (next weekend!! Woop!!), but was big enough to have results listed on Canadian Cyclist & Pedal (can I please put after my race result "was just treating this as a training race"? ;) ). Of course, I say that, but really, how much difference would a full taper and no taper make, you know?

Road-trippin', Lockie-style: beans and canned fish

So this past weekend, I drove up to Phoenix for a pair of crits. Real "local race" situations, where they were impressed I drove *all the way* from Tucson (under 2 hours). Even still, 25 or so guys lined up for the San Tan Pro/1/2 race. I was flying solo this weekend, so I had my hands full covering attacks. There were 3 or 4 teams there with a number of guys on them, and they certainly worked like teams - it was non-stop attacking. This was my first crit experience in the US...not including the Race Day DVD I've watched a bunch of times. :) I thought to myself, I can't keep this up...maybe I should just try to go with every second attack.

Of course, the very next attack stuck. Crap! I could tell almost straight away the peleton was going to let it go...we weren't hitting it to chase them down, and the break had the right mix of big teams represented. Another racer attacked to bridge, and I knew that was a big chance to catch the break. But by the time I maneuvered out of the pack to give chase, he was too far away. I gave it everything, solo in no-man's-land for 2 or 3 laps, before I started losing ground to the break, before sitting up to wait for the peleton.

The rest of the race was pretty frustrating. I could tell I was seriously out-gunned for a sprint finish by all the big butts on the guys I was following in the peleton, and the only bigger team not represented in the break didn't appear very motivated to pull them back. I attacked a few times, but was always pulled back. Finally with 3 laps to go, I got away with 3 other guys. One of the guys got dropped, leaving two guys to crush me like a bug in the final 200m and out of the cash.

LESSON 1 of the weekend: You SHOULD cover every break. Suck it up, princess. If you're hurting, other people probably are, too.

That night I stayed in a one-and-a-half star hotel - not a terrible thing by itself, except that there was a problem with the online booking, and the last room they had was a smoking room. Mmmm...stale ash smell. To top it off, I forgot to clean out my car before bed, and was welcomed to a sardine-and-banana-smelling car in the morning!

For, Sunday's Honeywell Hungry Dog crit, I was determined to not let a single break go without H&R BLOCK representation (that'd be me). Unfortunately the wide streets and open corners made it effectively a donut-shaped course, so very high speed and hard for breaks to succeed. It was good experience for positioning, but tactics-wise, not so exciting. I was second wheel when the '5 laps to go' announcement was made, and the guy in front of me attacked. Being another solo rider, I figured a) 'hey, why not support the underdog and let him roll away' and b) that the big teams would roll him up anyway. 4 laps later, he was still off and clearly going to take the win! I launched with everyone before the last corner, but couldn't match the guns of, oh, about 20 guys.

LESSON 2 of the weekend: if you're not a sprinter, don't wait for the last 200m. Attack! If you blow up or get caught, at least you gave yourself a chance.

Threw down another sardine-and-banana post-race recovery snack, did a cool down spin, then drove back to Tucson.

Disclaimer: I built the Race Day link using Amazon Affiliates. I figure if everyone who reads this blog buys 7 copies of the DVD, I'll make what I used to get paid for an hour's work! ;)

Canadian Classics Season 2011

2011-03-24T00:42:00.000-04:00

The Classics season is here, and along with the Paris-Roubaix comes Canadian Roubaix Madness in Canada!! I need to figure out what I do after a successful/woeful Redlands and subsequent return to Canada. Gravel is so fun (first word that popped into your head when you saw the photo above? "fun", right?), although it's possible too much sun down here has fried my brain. Anyway, I'd like a reset before another ramp to the next big race. Given that I don't know what part of the country I'll be in for each week of April, I might as well prepare for any eventuality. Here are the options I've found...any others you know of??

Here they are, west to east:
Local Ride Barry's Roubaix, 10 April, Pitt Meadows BC
Speed Theory Pre-Roubaix TT & Prairie Roubaix RR, 16 & 17 April, Calgary AB
Ottawa Bicycle Club Paris Roubaix, 16 April, Ottawa ON
Tour of the Battenkill, 10 April, Cambridge NY

Tucson Bicycle Classic

2011-03-22T00:55:00.000-04:00

Just finished a weekend of intense racing at the 2011 edition of the Tucson Bicycle Classic.

Things got rolling Friday with the prologue, a 3.2 mile (5km) TT, on a neat little narrow, winding road called McCain Loop. It's a really challenging course to pace, starting out with gentle downhill for the first half, then rolling up over two hills, and finally a short down and up. I found out in training that working hard for the first half was wasted effort, as precious watts were burned pushing wind at high speed, but how easy is too easy/easy enough when it's the first 2km of racing for the year?? I also wanted to small-ring the hills, but changing into the big ring mid-race on the TT bike is a gamble, so I planned to use the small ring just for the second, big hill and leave it there for the finish.

When it came to the race, I blew through the first hill so easily, I couldn't believe I was hoping to small ring it, and left it in the big ring for the second hill too. Unfortunately, I didn't have that searing lungs, heart and legs, visions-of-god level of suffering, so I could tell I didn't have as good a time as I was capable. Would that place me last? Mid-pack was as much as I could hope for.

Online, results were "expected by 7". At 7:30, that changed to "expected by 7ish" haha. Finally, the waiting was over...I placed 43rd out of 55. Not awful, but close...

On Saturday morning came the road race. 80 miles/130km. Felt super-jittery as I went shoulder-to-shoulder with pro's and cat 1's, the 60 of us squeezed along the narrow road. Moving through the pack was really hard - everyone had the same plan of moving into good position in the pack (10th is safe, top 4 was best to be really serious about going with attacks). Nick, coming off two years in racing in Europe, did a great job of being up near the front, so I felt the pressure to get up there to cover my half of the attacks. The Mexican team, Specialized, had a good-sized squad, and seemed to sent a guy hammering off the front every five minutes, but current GC leader, Phil Zajicek (Fly V Australia) and a number of other guys did a good job of chasing them down to keep the peleton together. Stephen was invaluable as our team feeder...this dry desert air had me polish off my first bottle in 30km, and another shortly thereafter. Lots of suring in the final kilometres. I had a bit of gas left with 200m to go, but was poorly positioned behind way too many dudes and followed them across the line for 21st.

Nick and I on the front, coz that's how we roll

The peleton was down to 30 or so riders by the end of that race, but lots of guys who'd beaten me the day before had fallen off the back, so I moved up to 29th overall, affirming my suspicions I should have done better the day before, but I was pretty stoked to be finishing in the right half of the field.

To round out the weekend was Sunday's circuit race, held on a 10km loop in town. "Only" 90km and all the bickies on the line (an Australianism?) meant an insanely fast race - a crit, really. By half way through the race, guys were going crazy hitting it in the last couple of hundred metres of the lap's climbing - trying to hold onto a strung out line of riders, then match the downhill speed, had me wishing for an 11 at the back, and perhaps an extra set of legs. Still, I was maintaining better position, and Nick and I were working together well, and coming into the last corner Nick was on my wheel, as was the plan. Unfortunately I was squeezed to the side at the final corner, and Nick moved past me as I lost position in the pack. The final km was non-stopping crazy attacking, but I was going backwards by the final 200m, finishing 24th. Nick cracked the top 10, congrats dude! And thanks to Bill, our impromptu feeder!

In GC, Zajicek narrowly kept his lead over the sprinters, who'd picked up time bonuses for podium finishes. Pedal Magazine had been highlighting Nick and I as the Canadians in the results (1, 2), but I guess seeing Nick and I side-by-side in 20th and 21st respectively made them realize by the last day I was actually an Aussie! haha

First race!

2011-03-16T11:11:00.000-04:00

Very exciting weekend coming up...I'm racing in the Tucson Bicycle Classic. It's not a focus race for me or the team, but mentally it's a huge race for me for a host of other reasons:
- First race of the year
- First race with Team H&R BLOCK
- First race as a cat 1...I'm racing in the Pro/1 category!

No pressure, though! haha It's my second race in the States, and after a really fun, eye-opening experience (which could also be called "a beating marked by massive disorganization" ;) ) last time, I'm expecting some very fast competition.

I don't expect to have enough time to give a daily blog summary of how it goes, but I'll try tweeting (@lachlanholmes) the results each evening.

Cycling Northern Tucson, part deux

2011-03-11T00:52:00.000-05:00

I've been finding that some good use of Google Maps can scope out interesting, mountain-side communities, complete with winding, baby-bottom smooth, road surfaces. This occasionally means negotiating gated community security, but fortunately their methods appear to only be intent on barring entry to car-based trespassing.

Based on this, I mapped out a route that took me up Dove Mountain (Tortolita).

View Larger Map

Turns out there are some super-impressive houses out there, built on some super-impressively steep roads. And of course they have a golf course or three.

Then my route took me west out to, well, desert. Around Avra Valley, gas stations, houses, and frankly pavement, all become fairly scarce. Luckily the Google Maps car and "google maps street view" has been to many of these places, and a little research prepared me for this off-the-beaten-track part of my adventure. But until that point, I was treated to a neat road that appeared to stretch forever into the desert. Did I mention it was really, really hot?

At the north-western-most point of my route, I came to the junction shown below:

Although it might seem somewhat crazy to leave a nice(ish) paved road and head into the dust and dirt, you might see from the photo/map that the road doesn't really head directly for a booming metropolis, or any guaranteed supply of water. At least not any time soon, when travelling by bike. So the dirt road is actually the precursor to me staying within the realm of civilization. You see, at this point I'm two flat tires away from a long, hot walk back to town, given that I have only one CO2 cartridge (the pump is on order).

So now that I've taken the road less travelled, and feeling pretty hardcore, you can imagine my surprise when I came across this sign:

Exactly how many bicycles come out this way? Apart from the general lack of pavement and water, I must imagine the gun-toting, cattle-guard-sign-shooting locals are also deterrent.

The rest of the ride went fairly smoothly. I did have a small meltdown as I arrived back at the first gas station, walking in like a ghost, typically salt-encrusted, and then proceeded to sit outside with a 2 litre cup of oh-so-sweet-and-cold pop, but apart from that, made it back barely after sunset.

Cycling Northern Tucson

2011-03-10T23:44:00.000-05:00

I've moved to new digs for a week, giving me a good opportunity to explore a different end of Tucson.

So Tuesday, I rode out to Biosphere2. I managed to get in a four hour ride, do the tourist thing, save the money for gas (for the car I don't possess) and get a sunburn all in one fell swoop!

The first thought I had was, what happened to Biosphere1? Turns out Biosphere1 is earth. Oh, got it. The interior of Biosphere2 is the size of three football fields, and has 5 different climate zones: rainforest, savanna, coral reef, mangrove, and desert. Super neat. It was actually used back in the 90's to test closed-system ecosystems and potential space colonization methods! A handful of people spent two years living entirely on what they grew and raised (and apparently at one point, this was mostly bananas).

The grounds and buildings are currently used by University of Arizona for a plethora of research, including insulation strategies for house rooves, as seen below with the miniature houses. Turns out the best material is a garden.

Crazy, urban MTB race

2011-03-05T01:46:00.000-05:00

VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo.

From the 2010 Valparaiso Cerro Abajo race through the narrow, mountainous streets of Valparaiso, Chile.

Cycling Mount Lemmon

2011-03-01T23:50:00.000-05:00

The last time I attempted cycling Mt Lemmon, I was with Trev, Tom and Paul, and we instead ended up on a steep dirt road with impromptu shooting ranges on either side. This time was the real deal.

I met teammates Brad and Nick, and fellow Albertan Cody, at Le Buzz, a bicycle-friendly cafe conveniently situated a couple of miles (I have to acquiesce to imperial units eventually) from the start of the Mt Lemmon climb. The day was supposed to be very warm, a nice change are Sunday`s `winter storm`. People were driving down, as we rode up, with snow on their rooves...the guys said the locals are so fascinated by snow, they go up to the snow line and put in on and drive back down. Weird.

The riding itself was pretty straight-forward. Engineered grade - I guess it`s about 5% almost the entire way, but the crazy bit is that this goes on for 45km (28 miles)!! Beautiful winding roads, stunning views from the saddle (so no excuse to stop!), and a good climb up to cooler temps. Occasionally, tour-guide Nick would point out the road we would eventually make it to, thousands of feet above. Pretty neat, but I think I liked looking down to the road I just rode/I would be riding soon!

We reached 8,000 feet, which is about 5,500 feet of climbing, at which point the road starts rolling down to Summerhaven beforing finally climbing to the summit at just over 9,000, but we'd heard the cafe there was closed today, and I was out of food and water by this point, so we clicked off some happy snaps and pointed out wheels downhill.

I was warned that it would be bitterly cold on the descent, and I did lose feeling in my shins and a couple of fingers on the way down, but hearing that Calgary is experiencing a -31 (I realize I`m switching back and forth between units...please bear with me!) cold snap right now gave me reason not to complain. :) At the bottom, it was back to Le Buzz for croissants and coffee, and baking in the 30 degree heat.

Mavic bling

2011-02-28T21:59:00.000-05:00

My Mavic Carbone Ultimate tubular wheelset just arrived...serious bling in a package that weighs less than my fully-loaded saddlebag :)

Tucson Shootout

2011-02-26T20:57:00.000-05:00

Kris taking advantage of our sweet digs after yesterday's long ride

Breaking usual habits, I was up at dawn today, to meet fellow teammate Nick for the famous Tucson Shootout group ride. It's somewhat of an unofficial race, with visiting pro's and wannabe's duking it out, like Victoria's Wheelers/Burnside ride on 'roids. First the old dudes left, and half an hour later our group of 50 rolled out out. Apparently they often get up to 200, but there was a crit this afternoon in town.

We cruised out of town for about 30 minutes, before the standard street crossing signalled a start to the action. A serious headwind made life hard at the front and for all the attacks. In one breakaway when it was my turn to pull, I was hurting pretty bad - I looked down to see I was doing around 400-500 watts, youch!

The fast pace lasted about 45 minutes, and ends with a sprint atop a small (but actually deceptively longer than it appeared) climb. I wasn't hitting it 100% on this first time out, but nearing the top the road was littered with blown up riders and I reeled in a few spots as I nearly exploded myself.

After that, there's more cruising while the pack got back together, up to the turn-around for the short version (still totalling 80-100km) and the turn-off for the nut-jobs looking to do Madera Canyon (for a totally of 150km). Today I was one of the nuts.

This part of the ride has a false flat for about 25km, before kicking up for a "4 mile slut of climb", as another rider described it. Nick, Troy Wells who I hear is a pro MTBer and brother of a CX superstar, and another guy eventually dropped the rest of us, but we all made it to the top before heading back, including a Victoria tri chick, who I suspect did not pay for her championship stripes or Shiv.

Now that we'd turned downwind, we easily hit 85kmh down the hill, and averaged around 55kmh all the way back into town. I made it back just in time to have a bonk-induced brain shutdown, miss my turn, and give Nick and I a few unneeded km's. Still, great day on the bike - I earned the beer festival trip this arvo. :)

Moving out and south

2011-02-25T23:49:00.000-05:00

Holy, this had been a crazy week! Enjoyed my last Speed Theory rides with the lads and lasses and got back Tuesday morning. Had until Thursday evening to pack up and clean my house, put everything in temporary storage, and catch my flight to Tucson.

I spent the first two days not knowing where to start. Thursday morning my neighbor, Nina, came over and saved the day. Thank you, Nina!! Long story short, we packed and cleaned like a whirlwind, and I caught my flight. Nina and her housemate are coming on the weekend to finish the cleaning, and they even took Sherman, so he has a home for the month!

So when I got my two bikes on the plane, all for the price of the second and third bag charge, I was on the moon: 1) I had officially made the flight in time, and 2) I saved the $100 bike charges. Love Westjet!

Now I'm down at Stephen's house in Tucson again. Fellow H&R teammates Dustin and Kris are here for spring break, so I joined them today for my first H&R team ride. Dustin took us along a route that included a short diversion on what we think is some guy's drive way. Starts out with a little steep gravel, then it becomes paved and kicks up to, get this, 45%! according to Kris's SRM powermeter. We rode about 50 meters to the first switchback, then bailed and continued on with our base ride.

Here's Kris and Dustin heading back:

Last Speed Theory rides

2011-02-25T19:35:00.000-05:00

Got out to Victoria, BC, last weekend for some stellar weather, 7 degrees - almost as warm as Ottawa! but better than -20 in Calgary. More importantly, dry and sunny. Did a solid day on Victoria hills on Friday, which was apparently Marcy's first group road ride! Wow. Ran a flawless leadout on Saturday to avenge last year's loss on the Wheelers/Burnside ride and did a huge day Sunday to Jordan River, much of which was on the sweet Galloping Goose path system, pictured below.

Free stuff!

2011-02-23T13:29:00.000-05:00

I have a bunch of stuff that I'd like to give away in the next 24 hours. I'll be posting it on Freecycle shortly.

*taken* Computer desk
*taken* Well-used trainer (Tacx Sirius)
*taken* Short clip-on aero bars
Rock climbing shoes, would suit mens size 6-8, never used
Lycra arm warmers, size XL, RBC Whistler Gran Fondo, never used
Backcountry Avalanche Awareness book
*taken* Table & four chairs (similar to this Ikea product)
Microsoft .NET certification books
*taken* Chest of four drawers (this Ikea product)

I'll add to the list through the day, and might put up some photos, time permitting.

Between jobs

2011-02-22T13:15:00.000-05:00

I had my last day at Online last Tuesday. So no desk job until at least September, when my contract with H&R BLOCK ends. Wednesday I slept in, just barely started my morning workout in the morning, and made crepes in the afternoon. So far the new lifestyle is agreeing with me.

Free banana for anyone who can guess the five toppings :) (shipping not included)

Winter volume in Alberta

2011-02-14T02:27:00.001-05:00

I've been trying to get plenty of volume in, cycling-wise, and thanks to a passing chinook, it was a gorgeous day this past Saturday in Calgary. I was bummed about missing the hardmen ride leaving at 10am (by a mere two hours), but eventually concoted a comparable plan for a ride, thanks to Google Maps:

So, I threw my weapons in the car and drove out to the start. Those of you familiar with chinooks will know that although they bring respite from the freezing temps, they also come packing a serious breeze. So once I parked, broadside to the wind, and feeling the wind having a good shot at trying to flip my car, I momentarily considered bailing. Just for a second though. I decided to ride north first, and if I was lucky the wind would abate in time for the westward leg. One of these days I'll learn to leave early on chinnok days for my winter expeditions!

So I set off. I had about 500 meters to warm up, before I was out of the seat, slogging uphill, in my smallest (cross-bike) gear. Then it got even steeper, and I had to sit down, to get enough traction. Uh oh... Fortunately this was steepest hill on the whole ride.

Part of my preparations included listing the township roads/range roads I needed to use to navigate the tricky section to get to Water Valley. Unfortuntely it turned out there were no street signs, so I had to "go by feel". Suddenly my two-lane wide, packed-snow road turned into a track with a foot of unpacked powder, used only once by a snowmobile in the past days/weeks. And that wasn't enough to pack it down - yes, I tried. I figured that there could be sections I'd have to shoulder my bike and run...but before attempting that, I thought I'd check out the turn-offs I saw back on the road first. The first road I tried eventually curved around to the south - scrath that. The next was more promising, and I continued to make good progress (turns out, better than good...).

A short while later, I arrived at a gate. No signs on it, but some pretty serious barbed wire atop and on the sides. I climbed around it, and on other side there was a sign saying "Private Property - No Entry"! Huh. First gate I'd come across, mind you!

I'd left my third water bottle in the car, reasoning that two would be plenty to get to Water Valley, where I could stock up again. Unfortunately a short way into the ride, I saw I was missing one of the bottles...damn, must have been shaken out by the corrugated road. Then when I got to highway 579, I turned left, thinking Water Valley would be just a kilometre or so down the road. A couple of kilometres later, I realized it must have been right, not left...but that would mean wasted time and distance... I kept going. Later, I discovered that not being able to salivate from 5 hours on the bike and serious dehydration makes it hard to eat peanut butter sandwiches. But they still taste quite good!

Still, despite getting lost, I made good time getting to my half-way point at hwy 579/Water Valley. Things were looking up. Turning west though, I realised I'd been assisted by the aforementioned gale-force wind. But I like to think I have two styles of riding, 1) into the wind, or 2) well. :) Later I would also discover that Water Valley is only a third of the way...

I slogged into the wind for what seemed like an eternity, but still, the sun was out, it wasn't too cold, and it was all good training. However, in the back of my mind, I was hoping to make hwy 40 in half an hour, although expected an hour. By an hour and a half, I was getting worried I'd missed (another) turn. About that time, it was getting closer to dusk and I was passing a farm house. Considering I'd seen 3 cars in the past 3 hours, and fewer houses, I decided I should take advantage and double-check my direction...I knocked on their door. Long story short, the awesome women who answered the door told me I was going the right way, but was still 20km from hwy 40, offered to take me there, and I accepted. She bundled her adorable little daughter in the truck and we got there in no time. I missed doing some fun, winding descents, but given that the surgeon said I'm not even supposed to be riding my bike for another month and a half (let alone on icy roads in the middle of freakin nowhere) it was probably for the best.

Awesome. Now just a little jaunt down highway 40 and I'm done. I still had 40km to go, but the wind had died, and there was no route-finding to do. By the Richards Rd junction, the road was even paved. Too easy. I got back to the car, texted Trev and Arunas to let them know that I'd safely finished, in spite of my usual unrealistic planning, and thus the high probability to the contrary. :)

Epilogue
An hour later, I was at Arunas's birthday celebration...the perfect way to end the day! (yes, those are chocolate-covered strawberries. Mmmm!)

AZ brevet

2011-01-31T01:08:00.000-05:00

I was back down in Tucson this past weekend for another dose of long-distance suffering. Randonneurs are long distance cyclists, brevets is what the event is called. I'd say "those people", except that since I'm two for two on the Arizona rando circuit so far this year, I'm in danger of being required to say "we"!!

Anyway, this event was a 300km - the same one I did two years ago, and again I was put up at a little piece of paradise owned by the esteemed Mr Kenny Phd (suffering) (...we always kid that he has a Phd in suffering. I'm pretty sure he has a few business degrees, but they aren't quite as intimidating on big rides/climbs).

Started out in darkness at 6am, in very chilly conditions. It wasn't REALLY cold, since I was escaping -17 degrees in Calgary by being in Arizona, but when you expect it to get up to 25 or so, and so you hope to pack all your cold-weather clothing in pockets and saddlebags designed to hold a powerbar or multi-tool, you dress just warm enough to not freeze. Since it was dark as we set out, it only got colder over the next couple of hours until the sun rose! Brr!

After the first checkpoint, the glorious sun was up and the temp came up a highly appreciated 10 degrees right quick. Our blinky lights seemed quite unnecessary by now, so while I was last in line, I leant down to turn off my blinky on my rear fork. I slipped, and OW! I had a millisecond to realize what might be happening, before I saw that I'd snatched my hand out the rear spokes, fingers intact. With a smarting finger, from what turned out to be a nice gash, as a reminder, I had the next 200km to think about how close I'd come to losing a finger in order to save the batteries in a $3 blinky light...

Now past the 100km mark, we were willing to start digging a little deeper on our pulls. Our lead group of 12 or so was making good progress, and I was feeling pretty good after the sugar-cocktail of my last energy bar, so I got a bit over-enthusiastic on a pull up a hill, where the young dude in our group, Taylor, took over and hammered the rest of the way. By the top, Stephen was calling out for us to "ease up there, young punks" because we'd lost everyone else. Oops.

We made good progress on the next 60km or so through to Sweetwater Rd, which, if you can see in this terrible photo taken by my iphone the day before, has a super-fun/brutal set of rollers, leading to the big climb of the day up through Gates Pass. I was still feeling great, thanks to the training and nutrition plan from super-coach Trev (and advice of unrelated super-physio Dave Holmes), and couldn't help but lay it down. Entirely un-nice/un-rando of me, and by Gates Pass, it was again just the three of us chugging up the front side and then clocking 70kmh on the descent and into the second and final checkpoint.

I've been finding on these long rides that it's the last third that really wears on you. Last year I bonked and recovered and bonked about seven times between this checkpoint and the end, so I was pretty stoked that we camped out for a few minutes to relax and refuel. We rolled out with a good group of 5 or so.

Without the break-neck speed start from last year, and no Trev drilling it, we were a little behind last year's schedule, and so it seemed that instead of having an hour of tailwind, we turned back north at just the right time to have it be pretty consistently head-wind for the entire ride. Fortunately the wind was very light, but it's still kinda like being up hill both ways!

Frontage Rd is a mind-numbingly straight, sanity-testing road that runs between a railway and interstate for about 40 km, but everyone was taking good pulls and didn't complain (until later). Taylor and I launch a couple of attacks to keep things entertaining, but Stephen wasn't buying it and just rolled us up with his unreleting rando pace after maybe a minute each time. Wim was considerate enough to flat just as we missed crossing the tracks before a mile-long cargo train passed, so we really lost no time we wouldn't have anyway.

By the time we were pulling through the bustling metropolis of Eloy (pop. 200), I was definitely in need of sustenance, but could not bring myself to eat yet another chocolate powerbar. I started trying to barter with the other riders, but Russ insisted on just giving me (apparently I wasn't doing a great job promoting my power bar) a pistachio, almond, honey, etc etc little piece of heaven, that saved me from bonking right into the ditch within spitting distance of the finish.

Well, it seemed like spitting distance. Around then, I saw a sign that said 17 miles to Casa Grande, our destination, but who knows where they measure that from, and those friggen mile things...gah! We'd all run out of water by this point (I was thirsty and I could see everyone else was out, so I didn't bother asking) and we just had to grind out that last bit to the finish.

All in all, though, I felt pretty amazing for having done another ludicrously long ride, and not even cowering in the peleton, either. I definitely got my money's worth at the all-you-can-eat sushi that night!

Herbal remedies

2011-01-16T13:39:00.000-05:00

Had a really fun Christmas, visiting a bunch of friends and their families. Unfortunately I also ended up getting really sick...I guess all that socializing doesn't come at a cost mid-winter. It was pretty bad, at one point I went 6 days without talking to anyone face-to-face, other than the grocery store checkout chick. Once I started getting a little better, but still not well enough to train, and I was going out of my mind, I looked up natural remedies for my ailment on the net. Then I went to the store and bought all of them.

The first one I had was a teaspoon of turmeric in milk. I decided they could be categorized by effect/effectiveness, and this one fit into my first category of remedies: preventative. As in, so awful, I'll be more careful to not get sick again, so I don't have to take it again. :)

The next remedy was sliced onion, drizzled with honey. It wasn't very specific about how to do it, but I figured cooked onion couldn't have any magical properties, or I'd be better already (onion, pepper and salt go into nearly everything I cook).

So I cut a slice off an onion, cut that in quarters, and drizzled the honey. In hindsight, I shouldn't have used my organic onion, because I find they have quite a bit more kick to them. Regular raw onion has enough kick.

For the first five seconds, I thought, hey, this is pretty good. The honey really tones down the onion. Then the burning started. First my throat started burning, then my lungs felt like they'd been lit on fire. Not unlike having waaay too much wasabi on your california roll.

So that remedy went into the 'quite possibly works' pile. The way I look at it, if the bugs can handle that sort of treatment, I'm pulling out the guest bed for 'em.

Next up was eucalyptus oil. I have fond memories of eucalyptus from the homeland, both the light fragrance of bush-walking, and the slightly more potent vapours from salves and such. The directions told me to boil some water, add 15 mL of eucalyptus oil, and inhale the fumes. I did as directed. Holy smokes! Did I accidentally make napalm?! Or, more contemporarily but no more politically correct, had I just unleashed chemical warfare on myself? My eyes stung, my throat burned...category two remedy, for sure. And then a few seconds later, it was over...no more vapours or smell. Interesting. Let me try that again...

Paint on a speaker, on camera

2010-12-13T23:55:00.000-05:00

Biathlon

2010-12-09T00:40:00.000-05:00

Tried biathlon last week. Pretty damn cool!

Quick overview: the two sports are skiing and shooting. The skiing component uses the skate skiing style of cross-country skiing, which is way faster than classic. You ski with a 3.5 kg rifle on your back, then stop, try to get your breathing and heart rate under control, shoot 5 times at 5 targets 50 metres away, and ski a short penalty loop for each miss. I believe a race usually has half the shooting from standing, at a target 10cm diameter, and half prone (lying down) at a target half the size. We were practicing standing the night I went.

I felt a little bit like one of the commandos in a James Bond flick, skiing around with a bad-ass gun on my back. :) We used the same targets as the ones used by the Olympic dudes, but I still hit a few, so that was neat. Unfortunately being a crack shot doesn't help me ride up hills really fast...shame.

Oh, the observant might notice the lobster claw glove. I brought them for warmth, but true to form, couldn't one of my 5-fingered gloves on the night (turns out it was down beside the seat) and used that one instead...luckily it was the left!!

Sweeeet spots

2010-12-03T21:59:00.000-05:00

MEC's annual Sweetspots video competition has come up with a very worthy winner!

Movember

2010-11-26T23:08:00.000-05:00

With the month of Movember nearly done, my 'stache has gotten to a respectable - some may even say visible! state. So I decided to do a couple of self-portraits...

Still accepting donations for Prostate Cancer Canada at my Movember Mo Space.

Trail running fun

2010-11-17T21:45:00.000-05:00

http://www.calgaryroadrunners.com/result.php?item=210

Scroll down...further...further... Ok, now don't look at the ages... ;)

The fast dudes in the long race were FLYING.

Trev ran as well, but post-flu. He has totally dialed in his video-making skillz:

Edworthy XC Nov 13th 2010 from thedoctrine.ca on Vimeo.

I made an appearance at 16:30, but I lucky for me I wasn't doing that hill again!

More trials craziness...

2010-11-17T21:42:00.000-05:00

As Mr Pearson said, Danny MacAskill kicks the ever-loving crap out of physics. Again.

Very cool. I couldn't help but think that the wipeouts must be huge. :)

Trail report: bare patches at 1st St and 5th Ave downtown

2010-11-16T09:41:00.000-05:00

Last night the forecast was for 10-15cm of snow. And that was after last night being so warm, I walked home carrying my jacket! This morning the warning was still in effect:

So I decided to ski in! Even though I got up 4 hours earlier than Monday morning, I still didn't beat the traffic...people go to work really early here! Or...yeah, I get to work not so early. :)

The bike path along the river was already plowed, but the greenspace between Memorial Drive and the river was perfect, and once I crossed over, there was a good wide strip that had not yet been plowed. Downtown was a little wind-swept, but it was only three blocks to the office.

Turns out skiing in to work is a better conversation-starter than walking a puppy! Women were literally coming up to me to congratulate me on a great idea and ask where I'd skied from...I guess I don't look intimidating in spandex tights.

Train with Trev

2010-11-08T00:40:00.000-05:00

Us cyclists are a bit weird. This Saturday, I went to hang out at my buddy Trev's place, and the next thing I know, I'm doing a full race-pace 20km TT! Super fun though...Trev had four computrainers hooked up to a computer, displaying real-time data on a big LCD tv. The guys that had just raced were in our faces cheering the whole time - it was awesome! Trev absolutely crushed it/me, even given the fact that I'm coming out of "off-season", so much so that he was wondering if he'd calibrated correctly. I say his spin classes have just turned him into a friggen machine. I'll see if I can get some video of it posted.

How not to dismount a from cross bike

2010-09-22T01:11:00.000-04:00

Shortest cross seasons ever!

What should have been a total non-event, hopping a curb onto the grass at a park, resulted in me hitting the curb, flipping over the handlr bars, and landing on my shoulder.

The images shows the outer-most part of the collar bone (i.e. clavicle), a floating bone fragment trying to push through my skin, and then the other half of my collar bone.

Hasn't actually hurt so much this time around. The worst has been the agonizing hour or so at the hospital, deciding whether to go with surgery (a plate and screws), and the second-guessing since then. I went with the (two) surgeon's advice and did not request surgery. Maybe next time...haha?

Tis the season

2010-09-15T10:40:00.000-04:00

Riding home at dusk, it was getting hard to talk to my buddy because my lips were going numb.

I had a waterbottle in the back pocket of my jersey because I'd removed my bike's bottle cages.

Once I got home, I briefly contemplated cleaning my filthy bike, but decided getting in the shower before I started shivering was a far more attractive option.

Sounds like it's 'cross season!

Gran Fondo Whistler

2010-09-14T11:45:00.000-04:00

Gran Fondo Whistler is a 120km ride/race from Vancouver to Whistler, with a total of 2400m of ascent - yeeha!

I left after work on Thursday with team mate Charles, and we gunned it all the way to Kamloops, where we stopped in a random, dodgy, highway-side hotel. Next morning, we had the beats cranked as we made our way through at least 19 bouts of rain and fog...no wonder it's so green!..and got to Van by noon.

Once in town, we hit up a great bakery, Uprising Breads, and we met up with buddy Sean, who is now well and truly the high-rolling lawyer type, complete with massive, 300 sq ft, downtown Van condo. Did a short ride out to Kits' Beach and the UBC campus. That evening we walked to registration, and saw the beginnings of usual Friday night mayhem on Robson & Granville streets.

Ok, it's Saturday morning we're up insanely early, and riding the city streets, silently joined by other cyclists, converging on the start. Wild atmosphere...as the sun came up, 4000+ people have ammassed for an early rendition of the national anthem. A blast of the air-horn and the 150 Giro riders (the Gran Fondo's race group) clip in and accelerate toward Stanley Park and the Lion's Gate Bridge. It's pretty sketchy riding...the course is set up for a fun ride, so typical race course logic, like avoiding the use of pylons, was out the window. There is a strong cat 1/2/3 field in the hunt for a share of the $12,000 prize money, so pack-ninja skills are paramount. Right after the bridge, all 150 of us fill the sweeping exit ramp and try to maintain a good line to avoid crashes, all at around 50km/h - everyone's trying to look a few riders ahead to be aware, when suddenly there's a police motorcycle parked on the side! The pack is gutter to gutter, so no chance of swerving - luckily I was in the middle of the pack, and sailed past it unharmed, but I heard tyres lock up, followed by a thuds and crunches of bodies and bikes hitting a large stationary object. Ouch. Charles said he was one of them, but after sliding in sideways and a quick hip-check to the motorbike, he bounced back to straight and kept going!! Others were not so fortunate.

Next is a right turn onto Taylor Way and a hammer up the hill. Another crash, but this time low speed. Then we are on the highway. I understand the view is quite nice, but to maintain position in the pack, avoid unaligned pylons, and wheels of riders doing the same, and keep up the pace, I honestly could be riding in a tunnel. The pace is good through the rolling terrain, until we hit Furry Creek: go time! The pro boys are leading the charge up the hill, others that were at the front are going backwards; it's the general panic of selection #1. I can't quite hang with the leaders, but cresting the hill, I'm quickly joined by a dozen or so motivated dudes, and we quickly start a rolling paceline. A few kilometres of hard work and we catch the leaders as we come into Squamish, the half-way point, and we're joined by another large chase group soon after. Not long to recover: another major hill and hammer time!

Time to hurt...this time I feel better, but I can't sit on a wheel...gaps are opening ahead. I work my way forward, but I can see a major gap ahead. The yellow jersey of Gord Jewett pulls past me and he bridges. C'mon, I tell myself! Embrace the pain! I'm behind just one wheel, but I see a gap open ahead, and can't summon the energy for the sprint to make the gap. As we came up on the plateau, the 15 leaders are already ramping their speed and losing us. A group of about 10 assembles with me...paceline time! No, the group is spent. The leaders are still just a up the road. Ian Auld of Top Gear launches an attack to bridge. I also hit it, catch up, and we do some motivation-assisting two-man pacing up the hill, hurting like hell. But we aren't making ground on the leaders, and the group behind us eventually starts gaining, so we shut 'er down and assimilate back into the chase group.

There are motorbikes coming by, giving us the splits for the leaders and chase groups - cool! But we're down by 4 mintues now. I try a couple of times to get a good paceline going, but any time I raise the tempo, I'm off the front, and the four or so Trek Red Truck riders are pulling, content to let me dangle but not put time into them, so I eventually settle in with the group.

Where's Lockie? (I'm #51)
Photo: tesseract33

10km to go: a young lad from Picci attacks, joined by a Trek Red Truck rider. They get about 100 metres out, and another TRT rider attacks, joined by a 4th. I'm boxed in on the gutter. From then on, we know that this is the race. 5km to go...attacks are going, but no one can bridge to the breakaway. It is keeping our pace very high though, and we catch the break.

1km to go: The Welcome to Whistler sign suddenly appears. Nearly done! With so many TRT riders, one of them must be saving themselves. Plus there's probably fresh legs amongst the slackers in the group. There's a right and left turn just before the finish, so I attack. I hit the corner at speed and get a small break...but I'm hurting and there's a short downhill right after, so the group gets in my draft. We're strung out. There are hundreds of spectators, and I'm shocked at how loud the cheering crowd is. I lead around the last corner. But the finish is still quite a ways...I'm blowing up as the group swarms with 100 to go...I roll through in 24th.

How to do a lead out for the competition, by Lachlan. Starting 40seconds in.

What a fun race! Chatting with riders later, I hear Tyler Trace of TRT took our field sprint for 15th, and Andrew Pinfold of US pro team United Healthcare took the overall.

Sean came up that arvo and we stayed to party in Whistler Sat night, then knocked off the drive back to Calgary in one shot on Sunday.

Bow 80 pre-ride and aftermath

2010-09-06T22:48:00.000-04:00

I've been hearing great things about the Bow 80, an 80km MTB race that links up a bunch of awesome Kananaskis trails, so I was pumped to join Stappie, Bunnin, McNeil, Baylee, Bakke and a couple of other hard men for a pre-ride this past weekend.

We left via Station Flats, and everything was going great for about the first 45 minutes, which is when I did a bit of a superman down some rock-strewn single-track. My left side took a bit a beating, but I was able to keep going. No problem...only 6 and a bit hours to go.

I managed to pull myself together for Powderface, but after a bit of gravel, got introduced to real MTB climbing...instead of the usual 100-metre steep spin-up, it was an hour of so of pretty consistent switching-backing as we worked up Jumping Pound Ridge and Cox Hill. I blew to bits.

I eventually caught up to Bakke in time for the thunder, lightening, rain, and reaching the exposed mountain top. Nothing like a few 3-million-volt bolts of lightening to keep you from dilly-dallying. We made it to the descent without incident, and Bakke then got to put on a bit of descending school - when he was in sight, that is. But he waited at regular intervals, while I bumped, crashed and careened down the hill side in typical fashion. No other major injuries, but every little fall involved another body-shot, charlie horse, or corked calf, which was taking its toll!

Note the interesting seat angle...thanks to a ditch seen a little late

Eventually we reach the bottom, at Dawson Creek, and had only 30 or so km of foot-deep mud to negotiate until we got on the Tom Snow double-track to get back to the car park. The others looked fresh and clean, I guess they'd had half an hour to kill while they'd waited. Took almost 7 hours on the nose.

Props to Bakke for the well-timed pants change

As a little post-script, I continued the fine tradition of education-by-injury: turns out the canteloupe-sized rock I took to the kidney did a number on my obliques and/or psoas, which is worst when I try to sit up in bed...like I needed another reason to stay lying down!

Tour de Bowness

2010-08-17T23:47:00.000-04:00

Tour de Bowness has been one of my favourite races since I started racing: well-supported, local stage race, no pesky time trial, and the provincial criterium championship. Last year it was my first cat 1/2 race ever, and I ended up coming 4th last in the hill climb, and I DNF-ed (Did Not Finish, meaning I was lapped) the crit and DNF-ed the road race. Ouch! I was planning to do a lot bette this time around.

We started on Saturday with the road race. I nearly missed it, with my cat having a little fit and showing signs of UTI - I had a little panic, deciding whether I was totally neglectful to leave him for a couple of couple (couple? I'm so unrealistic!) Thankfully my neighbour is a cat-lover and gave me kitty drugs and some advice, and I left Sherman.

Since the RR was only 80km, it's generally a hammer-fest from the get-go - this year the attacks started before the first corner 500m into the race. Godfrey was again my super-star feeder with the rock-solid delivery - eternal gratitude, bro! The top of the one decent hill in the circuit was usually time for someone to attack, but it generally came back together in the following flats through the start-finish. By mid-race, a break of around 8 got away. In subsequent laps, a couple of guys got away to try to bridge. The chase group didn't work too badly together though, and we kept them within sight...with 3 laps to go, we had them just 20 seconds away. No need to bridge, right? Well, that was as close as we came...they hit it around then, and we basically never saw them again. Too bad, I felt pretty good at the end and took the field sprint for 11th.

That night I was at the vet until midnight, to find out my cat was just having a little attention-deficit. Great! But time for bed. The next morning I was up at three, to follow triathlon natural Trev as he did his swim leg of the half-ironman, in a kayak, videoing with a hero-cam (video looks great!). Back to bed for a nap, then time for the COP (Canada Olympic Park) hill climb. Pretty straight foward...hammer for a couple of minutes on the road, while the downhill kids were hooting and hollering on their way down through the trees. This hill climb is a three-up, so we started in groups of three. I had some great companions in Gideon, TT specialist of H&R, and Manuel the hill-climbing pocket rocket. They pulled away by the end, but I got an amazing PB for the hill, 3:38, 20 seconds faster than last year, when we had a hurricane tail-wind. Suhweet. Good enough to 16th.

Monday was the big one - the provincial criterium championship. Thankfully they did away with the ridiculous "neutral lap" of last year, which is often done at 50km/h..neutral? Pfff! It would be 45 laps of pure pain and tight-pack, nutso- cornering and awesome-sprinting craziness. I got in a break after a few laps in, and the next 20 laps were super intense. We managed to drop most of the pack, but a couple of guys bridged up, so there were about 10-12 of us in the group. Semi-pro teams Trek Red Truck and H&R had a few guys in the break, but Bailey, Jesse and I took our fair share of pulls. On one, I pulled around to take my pull, meaning the usual ramp up to max heart rate for a lap...and going through the start-finish, I hear Dallas (who, with Godfrey, were way up in the pimp Oakley commentators booth...think a tent on top of a Greyhound bus!) say "...and Lockie is going on a flyer!..." I look back and the group is 50 metres back. Oops, that wasn't the plan! haha I slowed up - no chance of holding them off solo for 15 laps!

With 6 laps to go, H&R Dustin attacked off the front, and every lap, put a couple of seconds on us. With 2 laps to go, Jesse and I got on the front and drilled it (read, I took a pull for 10 seconds, before Jesse the steam-train took over) and in that lap, we were back together. Out of province pro Jamie Sparling attacked with a lap to go, but he's a marked man...he wasn't able to get away. It was coming down to a sprint. An RMCC guy, who I had no idea was with us, I guess he was lurking at the back that whole time, came around me. After rounding the last corner, it was a drag race. RMCC guy blew everyone away, and I held off a couple of dudes to get 7th. Awesome, I'm stoked with that!

Montana road trip

2010-08-13T00:41:00.000-04:00

Last month, I did a solo drive down to Bozeman, Montana, to ride in an amazing stage race, which I blogged about on the Speed Theory team blog. In the interests of brevity, and keeping it mostly cycling-focused, I skipped mentioning a few details...

First, I had a slight money debacle. I currently don't have a credit card, because after I lost it back in May, I didn't want to tell the bank and have to memorize another number (I have the memory of goldfish). I stopped in at the Speed Theory store before I left Calgary, and half an hour out of town I got a call from Speed Theory saying I'd left my debit card at the store. Crap! I was running a bit late (who, me?) so I didn't turn around, but hey, no problem - I had a bunch of cash in my wallet...

It wasn't until I got to the border that I realised I was forgetting a little detail about the whole different currency thing. I had to exchange $10 with some other travellers just to get my visa-waiver to enter the States. With the $4 change from that, I bought a gallon of gas, which was enough to get to Bozeman Fri night, and then to the TT Sat morning. After the TT, I couldn't rely on my winnings (having come last), but thankfully I met a French Canadian expat, who exchanged my remaining $60. I had enough to get another tank of gas, buy half a pizza Sat night, and after my host bought a couple of tubes off me, I had enough to get back to Calgary!!

I realized/learned/was told back when I was a ~~stingy~~ thrifty rock-climber, that communities are much happier to see you if you spend money while you're there, so I always make an effort to fill up with gas and buy food in whatever town I stay in/near. Obviously I couldn't do that this time around. Instead, I subsisted mostly on canned beans and canned fish, which I brought as a backup, for the road-side bivvy I expected to need on the way back on Sunday.

Surprisingly, the combination of garbanzo, black and lima beans didn't make me more farty than usual...it's possible my body was in a state of shock that weekend at the treatment it was receiving.

Driving down, I was pretty amazed by the Montana scenery that unfolded before me, even just what was visible from the highway. Wanting to do the trip in a reasonable amount of time (ended up being 9:30 hours there, and just 8:15 on the way back), I didn't stop to take photos, so here are a few of the pics I shot from my car, generally while straddling a couple of lanes...

Nationals photos

2010-07-01T01:42:00.000-04:00

Some shameless cross-posting of photos from Nationals

New wheels! Got these bad boys on Thursday, in time for Nationals. 404 front, 808 rear. Ride like a dream, which is clearly what I'm thinking in this photo :) Actually, it's at the top of the steepest hill on the nationals circuit, so now a hairpin corner, a sprint to get up to 40kmh again....and then recover!!!!

Staging, before the start, with Trev beside me, my super feeders Mike and Darcy at the fence, and Svein Tuft (Garmin) in front.

Spending a little time in the winning break (before being spat back into the peleton).

Canadian Road National Championships

2010-06-29T00:48:00.000-04:00

Oh my god, I just had the ride of my life! As I said on the Speed Theory blog, I was pumped just to be lining up with full-on pro's. Then I managed to get in, and do a couple of laps with, the winning break of the day. And not only did I manage to finish, but in a totally awesome, way better than expected, 38th out of 154 guys!

I'm stoked.

Sounds like dinner time

2010-06-23T20:05:00.000-04:00

If I wait until I download an app that will rotate this video, my nieces will probably be old enough to do it for me (and tell me I'm an old git with no concept of technology), so here it is! Thanks for uploading, Tim!

And if my translation of baby is correct, it is time for me to go home for my own num-num's.... :)

The girls are walking! from Lachlan Holmes on Vimeo.

The lastest addition to the stable

2010-06-22T01:37:00.000-04:00

It's getting a little cramped in my lounge room...

Banff Bike Fest

2010-06-22T01:19:00.000-04:00

So this is what it's like to ride with the big dogs. So far this year I've had a roller coaster of decent finishes and DNFs (and, as someone suggested, a DNR - Did Not Register). Banff was unfortunately a bit of a low, performance-wise, with some mediocre results, including an ITT 46 seconds slower than last year. All that training....

BUT we had some killer weather, including just *perfect* Sunday RR conditions, on the sensational Banff Ave - Tunnel Mountain loop - I really felt like I was riding a stage of the Tour at some points -, and Trev put together some amazing performances to finish 12th in a super-strong field of 85 cat 1/2 and trade team cyclists, I got to live the pro life for 4 days and enjoyed great company with my awesome Speed Theory team mates.

A couple of pics from the cat 2/3 race: Charles, Ryan and Clarke leading the chase group...

...and Keith mixing it up with the leaders.

A test of commitment

2010-06-11T14:32:00.000-04:00

Weather in Calgary has been particularly crappy lately. But with a bunch of big races this month (Speed Theory 40km TT, Pigeon RR, Banff SR, Nationals RR) it's not the right time to drink beer while waiting for the weather to clear. Just as much as the big hill in the middle of the race, this time is a decider of who wants it and who doesn't have the heart...

Race Report Season

2010-06-06T22:21:00.000-04:00

I should really be preparing for my presentation on Wednesday, but I'm getting behind on my race reports.

Last weekend was the Speed Theory-hosted Incredibilus Velocitus 40km ITT (held in Acme, Alberta, hence the cool road-runner-esque name). The weather was...challenging. However after a bike-fitting "party" (a cyclist's party involves two, or maybe if things get really crazy, three, beers) I was pretty pumped to try my new lower aero-bar setup. And my sunnies deflected most of the hail. I managed a respectable 4th, getting beat by ERTC boys Blaine and Geoff, and throughly schooled by Gideon. I should mention that I edged Trev out by 1.8 seconds (I suspect he's getting laid too often these days), but we both managed to squeak under the 1 hour mark.

Today's race was the presitigious Pigeon Lake RR. 300+ racers, and about 45 in cat 1/2. Absolutely stunning weather for riding. The flat-to-rolly circuit, no wind, and long distance (160km) resulted in a fairly moderate pace...I don't think anyone was dropped! After much surging in the first lap, a break of three was allowed to go, but didn't stay away long. Trev attacked on lap two, I attacked as soon as he was brought back, then he attacked when I got brought back. The two other guys in his break represented ERTC and Top Gear, teams who's riders made up maybe half of the peleton? They didn't waste the opportunity, and in a short while were out of sight. However after 80km the other teams in the peleton organized a solid pace line and pulled them back.

The finish straight is a deceptively long uphill climb for about 1.5km. Every year, in almost category, there are poor fools who try their luck as soon as the pack turns the corner. This year in my cat, I was that fool. I got a decent gap, and it might have even stuck, had Dallas not been leading a Top Gear leadout freight train and I was reeled in with 500m to go...I recovered enough by 200m to pass some guys and salvage 10th spot.

Spring time

2010-05-12T17:39:00.000-04:00

I was out riding on the bike path on Sunday evening and saw quite a few goslings being herded across the path by hissing parents.

So I went out Tuesday evening, and riding around Princes Island park, it didn't take long to find a whole gaggle of goslings.

It had only been two days, but it's easy to see how quickly they grow.

.

It was pretty cool to finally get some shots of them...after riding along the path to work in the spring of 2007 (my first full spring in Calgary) I've been meaning to get out the bazooka lens in the spring and go shoot some fowl. I haven't seen any ducklings yet...I wonder if their breeding season is a little later?

Lack of Velocity in Edmonton

2010-05-06T13:34:00.000-04:00

Been getting a couple of questions about last weekend's big event, being the first ABA race of the year, the Velocity stage race.

I spent the weekend prior putting the (painful) finishing touches on my winter of training, then participated in a mental-beatdown of a course in Edmonton, which ran from 8:20am to 9pm or later, every day, returning to my room to do my taxes and get in short spins. Avoided checking email and answering calls all week.

You can probably see where this is going...I got to Friday, shelved the programming mind-benders, and switched to thinking about racing. Only, the registration was only open Monday to Thurday. Saturday morning, the ABA officials were relatively unsympathetic, and I wasn't in the mental mindset to argue it.

I actually enjoyed having the opportunity to help my team mates over the course of the weekend. God knows many of them, or others, have helped me in moments of last-minute pre-race panic. I lent my rental wheels to team mates, fetched water, stood in the feed zone...all good things for giving back.

Was I mad about missing the race? Hell yes: this was one of 4 big races for me this year. Mad at the officials? Yes and no...this wasn't the first time I've been disorganized (although it may be the best excuse I've had). Also, it's hard work organizing a race, and some people were sincerely sorry to shut me down - others were complete jerks, but whatever...what goes around, comes around.

On to the next one...

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A quick recap of the action: H&R Block rider Chris McNiel tore up the time trial in cat 1/2, a shade off a 50km/h average for the 10km. For Speed Theory, Thomas made the podium in cat 3, while up-and-coming cat 5 racer Mark J and women's powerhouse Marilyn both got 4th.

In the crit Mark MacDonald edged out Dan Wood in a awesome sprint finish, but Trev had a stand-out performance, trading pulls at the front all race and finishing with the pack. In the women, two Bici riders asserted their dominance, but there was a great showing by the big Speed Theory contingent, with those doing their first ever crit having solid races, and Tanya clinching the field sprint.

The road race didn't have too much out of the ordinary happen. Welchie crashed again. Big breakaways in many fields. The only things that got me pumped were strong showings by all the Speed Theory women, Harley's solid sprint finish, and Trev's 1.5 lap pull to catch the pack followed by an attack and bridge to the breakaway...awesome! He subsequently dropped out of the race and turned down a beer, but I think that was just to make us think he's also mortal. Unlikely.

Insert video of baby nieces walking here

2010-05-06T13:33:00.000-04:00

Insert video of nieces walking here (hint hint)

Prairie-Roubaix race report

2010-04-19T04:22:00.001-04:00

I was thinking of calling this post "Would I be finished yet if I didn't have team mates?"... ;)

From my point of view, the A race went something like this: moderate pace for first of five laps, but 4 guys attacked and were a minute or two up the road. Then when the peleton (main pack) got to the gravel section the pace went ballistic. I didn't quite hang on to the lead group of 15, but right after the gravel Trev luckily paced me up to the lead 15, while the other 20 guys in the race strung out behind in some fashion - to be honest I never looked back, because turning my head took energy I didn't have to spare.

Half way through the second lap I attacked and tried to bridge up to the breakaway 4, but only made it three quarters of the way before the course turned into the wind. I foolishly/fruitlessly kept working to bridge, and got caught by the pack just as we hit the gravel. They went hammering by. I then time-trialed by myself in the wind for a lap before getting caught by a chase group containing team-mates Simon and Trev. Trev basically stopped on the start-finish hill so I could catch up (but apparently not hearing Jared's calls to wait a sec :) ), and again, he was a monster, this time for a whole lap, and left Simon and I just a couple hundred metres to make it to the next group. Simon then ground out some crazy pulls and we caught the next group, but in doing so Simon and Trev were popped.

By this point there were really only 5 guys, chasing the lead four who were way up the road. My group of five consisted of me, Scott from Rundle Mt Cycling Club, and three guys from the Bow Cycle team. Those three guys work us over pretty perfectly and cinched 5th and 6th, leaving me in 8th. Dallas, I hear, rode the entire friggen race solo and won, and Mark McDonald, Bunnin and Dan Wood worked together until the gravel descent into the finish.

Cycle to This House Of Sky

2010-04-04T20:17:00.000-04:00

This is a great time of year for outdoor types in my area. I can cycle outside in shorts and jersey, or I can head into the mountains to ski or ice climb. On Thursday evening, I had the brilliant idea that I should combine both in to a multi-sport adventure. I worked on Easter Friday, my birthday day, so I considered this to be belated birthday present to myself, or more correctly, exercising my right as "birthday boy" to do whatever crazy thing I wanted to.

Depending on which circle of my friends you belong, the plan doesn't sound too crazy at first...cycle 90km to the Ghost River Wilderness Area, walk to the classic ice climb This House Of Sky and climb it, then go home.

The reality of the situation is somewhat tougher: the cycle would be 180km round-trip, 30km of which would be effectively logging road, and another 20km is not normally driven on without a high-clearance vehicle. The prevailing westerly wind kicks in early to mid-morning, and while riding into that, I would be carrying ice climbing boots, axes, crampons, gloves, and enough food to see me through the day. Plus a headlamp. :)

The night before, I had concerns about the viability. Doing the math, a realistic 25km/h cycle, plus what is normally a 4 hour climb, plus hiking a half-marathon, and a couple of hours for stopping to eat/change clothes, etc, plus a date that night at 7 or 8pm, did not give me time for 8 hours of sleep. I decided that I would have to average 30km/h, not stop, solo the climb quickly, and hope that I could cycle the hike. Thus reassured (that's my strange way of spelling "deluded"), I set my alarm for 7:30am.

8:45am - leaving the house, 45min behind schedule

My back was in pain after about 500 metres. Note to self: buy panniers. The wind was already starting to pick up. No problem, I'd just ride harder.

10:50am - arriving in Cochrane, about the same time as 15 knot winds. Two hours behind schedule. I realized my schedule was out the window.

From Cochrane I had a slog into the wind for 20km, until the turn north onto Hwy 40. The trees and hills along the road started helping, so I was able to make it to Waipourous by 12:30 and stop for lunch. I'd told people I'd be back early evening, and not to worry unless I hadn't contacted them by 9pm... Okay, great, that gives me 8.5 hours to get back, so an hour to get to the Ghost, an hour to get to the climb, two hours for the climb, two hours back to this point, and 2 hours to do what had taken me 4 hours thus far (I'd have a tail-wind, right?). Yikes, that's starting to sound tight, I'd better start cycling again.

Just a few km after Waipourous, the road turns to gravel. No problem. Then at the turn-off to access the Ghost River, it is...well, a bad gravel road. I remember it being uncomfortable last time (I was on a cross bike sans backpack...). Let's just say it deteriorated from there...

I'm sure there is a road here somewhere.

The driver of the pickup in the photo offered me a ride. I declined, because, as I told him, I'd got myself into this situation "somewhat intentionally".

500 metres later

As I started changing my flat, I saw that I had three spare tubes (how responsible of me) but only two CO2 cartridges (doh!).

After the break, I didn't need a speedometer (which is good, because I didn't have one) to know that my progress was slipping into single digits. So a few kilometres later when I was offered a lift, this time with climbers going into the Ghost, I took it. 10km is 15 minutes! Just 5km to the climb! By this time I'd stopping doing the math on my schedule...I'd made it this far with that damn bag, I was putting those boots on and sinking an axe into ice, regardless of the improbability of making it back on time!

Since the flat, I'd been cycling out of the seat a lot, to reduce the weight on the back wheel and so hopefully reduce the need to use my last CO2 cartridge. Let's just say I was getting a good full-body workout.

Not your normal road bike terrain

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I was able to cycle a good chunk of the rest of the way, and finally I made it to the climb. By this time I was feeling pooped. Like, really really pooped. But at the same time, I love this climb and was pretty excited to climb it again. It's mellow and "stepped-out" enough that I wasn't worried about soloing it, but by the second pitch I had to put my sandwich away and use two axes. :)

Made it!

This photo is the proof. For anyone that has climb THOS, you'll know that you can only see this once you finish the last pitch. The WI4 and last pitch of WI3 is way back there, and I thought I'd toss my axe in the photo for good measure.

Ok, so I "made it", but at the same time, I was at the 21km mark of a marathon. I didn't bring a rope, so I had to downclimb the 12 or so pitches of the ice climb, which is decidely harder than going up. The hardest part is actually starting to downclimb a pitch...sort of requires you pretend the top is a horizontal ladder, and you step backwards and then down the face, hanging your butt out so you can see where your feet are going while your top half is still on the horizontal. Fortunately it requires a lot less energy, so I felt really good at the bottom.

This photo is one of the creek crossings I had to do. Sometimes there were logs I could walk across, and on occasion I wheeled my bike beside the log for balance. This time, I went bare-foot. Yes, that's snow beside the creek. At least I had a half of a tea-towel specially for drying my numb feet on the other side! :)

The ride out went fairly quickly, with the strong tailwind blowing through the Ghost valley, and once I *cycled up the Big Hill on my road bike* (It's about 200 metres, 15% and loose gravel - I'm thinking of putting that on a t-shirt) the ride out was mostly downhill. Unfortunately by the time I got to Waipourous, the wind had all but died, so I didn't do the 50km/h I was hoping for.

After I got cell reception as I got close to Cochrane, the tone of my date, all dressed up with nowhere to go, convinced me that calling for a ride was required (thanks David!), and I skipped out on the last 30km. Still, not a bad day's work!

I'm back. In one piece

2010-04-03T23:35:00.001-04:00

Just got back. It's...9:30pm, so a tad later than planned. Now I'm going to go shower and try to eat 10,000 calories. Then collapse.

Plan for tomorrow

2010-04-02T20:19:00.001-04:00

With the silly things I tend to get up to, and having no desire to end up like Aron Ralston, it's about time I tell people where I'm going. So here's the plan: ride to the Big Hill in the Ghost (well, I guess technically it's Don Getty PP), ride/hike from there to This House Of Sky, solo that, potentially all the way to the ridge if the WI4 at the back is solid, then doing it all in reverse. I figure someone will read my post in the next week, so if you haven't heard from me in the meantime, perhaps ask around... :)

Here's the map (I only have a rough idea where THOS is on a satellite map):

A recipe that worked!

2010-04-02T15:30:00.000-04:00

I sauted 3 cloves of garlic, and an onion. Then I browned a pound of ground beef and added that. Drained and added a large (540mL) can of lima beans. Then threw in a couple of pinches of salt, two tablespoons of paprika, some cayenne pepper, chilli pepper, and black pepper. Added a cup of pasta sauce and one pound of baby carrots. Simmered for half an hour.

Served it with couscous and broccoli.

Nutrition-wise, it contained a ton of protein (100g from beef, 20g from beans, and 24g from the couscous) and carb (180g from the couscous, 50g from the beans) and is enough to feed two hungry cyclists.

A good way to fuel up for tomorrow's adventure!

Ronde van Cowtown

2010-03-29T18:03:00.000-04:00

Elevation profile of an in-town ride!

Google maps ride route, and just in case the map disappears, here's a png:

Two for two!

2010-03-27T15:50:00.000-04:00

Had another great race, even after a night of fashion, breaking b-boys, rapping and funk. It was another intra-club race, this time two loops of the Prairie-Roubaix course. I'd write a report, but Trev already put up a hilarious post on the ST blog. Again, Trev handicapped himself, this time by towing a combine harvester for a couple of hundred metres each lap (show off! ;) ), and he still managed to pull alongside me before the final descent to the finish.

Calgary is awesome

2010-03-26T16:34:00.001-04:00

I'm impressed that someone got the domain name calgaryisawesome.com...definitely catchier than calgaryishohum.com. But taking a look through all the recent posts, wow, I think Calgary DOES have it going on! Sometimes it's just hard to find out about these things, unless you're in The (appropriate sub-) Scene, be it dance, music, theatre, fashion, comedy, etc etc. For instance, I always seem to randomly find out that High Performance Rodeo is on, making me think I'll completely miss it one of these years.

Anyway, check out the blog.

calgaryisawesome.com

Cycling training articles

2010-03-24T11:24:00.000-04:00

Found some interesting cycling training articles. Tim, I think you'll agree with much of them, particularly the "anti-machine, pro-free-weights" one! :) Even a couple on sports psychology in there.

Peaks Coaching Group articles

One for one

2010-03-24T11:04:00.000-04:00

So I might as well take this fleeting opportunity to boast about my current win to races entered ratio...one for one!

The Speed Theory cycling team, being the team-focused, energized, generally awesome team that it is, hosted a little club race, a 20km TT, last Saturday. We scored some wicked weather (I'd say "lucked-out" if I had a purely Canadian audience, but the alternative translation of said phrase being the exact opposite, I'll resist), and had a solid turnout of 23. We did a couple of laps as a group to get familiar with the course. Basic directions are "turn right at every intersection, not including driveways" (since the 15,000 sq ft houses in the area have significant driveways). Rolly, twisty, gravelly, with the odd horse and even a horse-drawn carriage...I think the term is "technical".

Description of the race itself: I pedalled really hard for 20km.

Admittedly, I was on a TT bike while other, stronger guys rocked their road bikes (you know who you are (<cough> Trev)), but still, gotta celebrate the small victories! :)

http://speedtheorycyclingteam.blogspot.com/2010/03/club-rave-20-km-tt-results.html

Battle Abbey

2010-03-10T01:21:00.000-05:00

It's been far too long since my trip to Battle Abbey to still not have a post about it. I'm reconsidering my approach to this, and I'm using the reasoning that Rome wasn't built in a day... Not that this post should be compared to Rome.

An interesting prelude to the trip was finding someone to come along. And then when someone did decide to come, not buying their flight until 90 minutes before the flight left Toronto! Nigel, you are setting a bad precedent for procrastinators everywhere! :)

Nigel made it to Calgary, and so Sat morning we drove to meet the chopper in Golden, BC, and fly 150 km south from, well, anything, into the mountains to the hut, with 10 (12?) other skiers, 3 guides and one and a half chefs (two chopper trips) (the second chef was in training, and had recently broken both ankles). Pretty wicked flight - I remember thinking about 30 seconds in that it would take at least 4 hours to cover that ground on skis. Then for the rest of the week, we were skiing from the hut. We had to skin up every bit that we skied down...multiple 1,500foot (about as long at top-to-bottom Mt Buller or maybe half of Lake Louise) runs of untouched powder (we were the first group of the year), racking up something around 32,000 feet of elevation gain for the week. Exhausting but great.

In the mayhem of finding a new abode in the week before the trip, and moving into said abode two days before leaving, I neglected to bring a battery charger for my camera...or a charged battery. I got 6 photos I think, before it died. Moot point though, since I can't find my card reader. Until I find a few select pics to post, here is the group's combined haul:

http://picasaweb.google.com/battleabbey2010/

So cute!

2010-01-05T22:25:00.000-05:00

My twin baby neices are two days shy of 1 year old, and are pretty adorable.

Jayco Classic

2010-01-03T06:23:00.000-05:00

After doing the 120km Amy Gillete charity ride, I was chuffed to find out we had arrived in time to see all three semi-pro crits that were in today's stage of the Jayco Classic. Brilliant way to recover from a long ride: watch other guys suffer! :)

Sorry about the prevalence of iPhone photos...I didn't expect to be watching a race!

New Year's bike tour

2010-01-03T06:08:00.000-05:00

For New Year's, my buddy Simon and his girlfriend invited me to come on a three day bike ride from Wangaratta to Bright and back.

Ordinarily, 80km in a day would be a walk in the park. Trivial, even. However, add 40 degree heat, mountain bikes, and a 40kg bike trailer and it turns out it's harder than it appears on paper. But we didn't have too hard a time.

Bright was positively jumping on New Year's Eve. We also happened to be in the wettest part of Victoria: 50mm overnight (i.e. deluge). 11pm-12:30am consisted of listening to a band play in the second storey balcony of the pub across the city square, from under our own balcony, and watching kids dance and roll around in the rain in the square.

New Year's Day was pretty easy...ride 60km to Milwa, mostly downhill, stopping for lunch and two wineries for tastings. The following day was even easier: ride 50 metres to the mustard shop for tastings, another 50 metres to the olive shop (fresh olives! Mmm!), 400 metres to the Brown Brothers winery for a comprehensive round of wine tasting, 2.5 km to the cheese factory (yes, more tastings) and finally 18km to Wangaratta.

Feathertop Winery

Mmmmm....cheeeese!

Doing nothing to dispel myths about Australia and spiders...I guess it was drier in the tent

Photos from Toronto

2009-12-07T13:28:00.001-05:00

I've heard that it's not the camera that makes a good photo, it's the person behind the camera. Possbily true for outdoor photos during day time...

Had a great time in Toronto last weekend. Met up with great friends, enjoyed the city life, and got in enough sport to make me need a rest when I got back to Calgary.

A couple of iPhone pics of the Cavalcade of Lights fireworks at Nathan Phillips Square that I went to with Nigel, Noah & Gwyn and co.
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A shot of me taken by Ed with what appeared to be a pretty phat lens, but unfortunately using a Nikon... ;)

Extending the season: 'cross in Toronto

2009-12-07T13:22:00.001-05:00

I was visiting some friends in Toronto this past weekend, and although I took my cycling shoes and shorts, I didn't anticipate a race... My buddy Nigel told me about Subway Cross, and another friend Shawn lent me his sweet (although a wee bit too small) rig AND loaded on his new race wheels and tubulars. Doesn't he know about my terrible reputation for staying upright? :)

Great race, though. Thanks to Cyclocross Ontario for putting it on, to the weather gods for making it not a COMPLETE mud-fest, and again to Shawn and Nigel for gearing me up.

I have to admit that I was picked up from Nigel's by Shawn because I was running late, and when I got to the course, I had to call Nigel to bring my shoes that I'd forgotten... Some things never change. :)

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Bike on bike

2009-12-07T13:17:00.000-05:00

Noticed a guy with a unique bike transport arrangement at races this year. Caught these photos at the last road race of the season...does it remind anyone else of a male chihuahua and a female lab? :)

It's all about performance

2009-11-26T16:37:00.000-05:00

Still finding people to share this with, so I thought I'd throw it on the ol' blog.

Typical cycling conversation with significant other

2009-11-24T04:50:00.001-05:00

Great vid making the rounds on cycling blogs everywhere.

I wasn't sure whether to laugh at this, or be worried that this conversation was deja vu from this past summer. Although, cycling makes me super-human and therefore impervious to disease, so I could laugh at that bit... ;)

Cyclocross miles

2009-11-23T01:30:00.000-05:00

Had an awesome cyclocross ride today with Keith. Keith's been riding for ages in Calgary, and knows tons of backroads and single-track (narrow mountain bike trails) around here.

Anyway, when the alarm went off this morning, I was definitely re-thinking the late night drinking beer and watching UFC. Showed up late, but luckily Keith wanted to grab more layers, so I only got there 5 minutes after him, not 45...

Started off bloody freezing, but we quickly got into some hilly single-track in the Tuscany ravine, out of the wind, and that thermostat up to operating temp. My off-road skills have improved with the bit of MTB riding and cross racing this year, so I managed to only fall down one thistle-infested gully, and only ran into one tree.

After that we were cruised past the Rocky Ridge? golf course, and then got onto gravel road. It had warmed up a bit and we were riding with the wind, riding through rolling ranching country, just perfect. Only saw a couple of cars over the next hour, so I could concentrate on reducing the fish-tailing and watching Keith ride along rock-steady like he was on a trainer.

A short paved section, then we got to Bill Hill Springs Provincial Park. We rode straight through the car park and off the road, threw our bikes over the barbed-wire farm fence and rode across paddocks, walked over some partially frozen creeks, more fences and creeks, a bit of snow-covered trail and a few hundred cow patties...just like I imagined cyclocross how real cyclocross started! So fun! (however I now hear that's not that accurate...I'll have to do some research).

A quick stop in stop Cochrane for food, dragged our butts up Cochrane Hill, then crawled into a head-wind back to town. About 5 hours, door to door. So tired, so sore, so stoked at an epic ride!! Well, not as epic as Dallas and Stappler's recent ride, but awesome for me.

Last splash

2009-10-02T02:22:00.000-04:00

Tim had a stop-over in Toronto on the way to Africa, so I joined him to be tour-guide, and spend time with my Toronto friends. Nigel organized an awesome trip to the Madawaska for some white water canoeing. Shawn was also there, which was great to increase the average canoeing skill in the group, while Noah...not so much on the skill front, but a good job on boosting hilarity.

Normally alone, I can increase the likelihood of a group epic, but with Tim there two, it was practically guaranteed. And we didn't disappoint: late Sunday evening we found ourselves canoeing/kayaking down the river, with head-lamps on, heading towards a class 4 rapid (i.e. we probably wouldn't have attempted it in the daylight). Luckily we found the portage before the rapid.

Having Nigel along, on the other hand, increases the chance of having a frisbee and good food (particularly bacon). Two for two...Nigel finding another use for a frisbee, and check out these flame-grilled beauties:

Looks like we got our last dip in the water just in time, as snow is forecast for this coming weekend!

'Cross fun

2009-09-21T02:33:00.001-04:00

Tuesday crits, run by Midweek Mayhem, change to Tuesday cyclocross. Just as much fun, if not more! Ask someone that has done cyclocross what it's like, and invariably the answer is "fun!". It's strange, since all the running up hills, lifting bikes over hurdles, and contantly accellerating out of corners is SO PAINFUL! :)

Tim has gotten pretty hooked too. He's flying back from a quick trip to Vancouver, so that he doesn't miss his last chance for 'cross before he leaves this fair land.

Love this pic taken by K2: