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!
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...
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:
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.
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.
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!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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)
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.
