jmoote's cycling blog

This blog is now on vacation until further notice

2011-12-11T13:55:00.002-05:00

Given my lack of interest in updating it, I've decided to post thoughts, links, media, etc. on a tumblr which you can now find at jeffmoote.tumblr.com

Cheers!

Summer wrap-up part 3: Provincial TT and Pre-cyclocross musings

2011-08-26T07:45:00.000-04:00

Part 3/3 of the recap of my Summer racing and training...

Ontario Provincial TT Championship

This would be the last of my racing efforts for the pre-cyclocross season. I had a few more

weeks of training since the Binbrook TT and really hoped to put in a good ride. That all fell apart about 15 km into the race.

I don't know exactly what the problem is/was, but some residual tightness in my hips causes some misalignment and on the TT bike where the saddle is not as supportive this is exaggerated. The result was a lot of pain on the bike even when not really going that hard, never mind pushing a TT effort. By lap 2 of the course I was not even trying, worried that I'd injure myself further jeopardizing the rest of my season.

The published splits tell a lot - my first 20 km in 28:38, 12th place. That was with a significant drop in effort for the last 5 km. Lap 2 I pretty much shut it down, bringing my total time up to 1:00.01 and 17th place. It was not the result I was looking for, but that was largely outside of my control. I really should have stayed on top of tightness and asymmetry leading up to the event but had never had such a problem as a result to indicate it was this much of an issue.

Preparation for Cross Season

With the TT behind me, everything now is working toward cyclocross. Training is going as planned, with a couple weeknight mtb races and club rides for intensity and lots of cyclocross practice.

Also taking up a lot of time is planning for my race, the Firemen's Park Cross. Being my first time organizing a race, there is lots to learn but so far it's been a pretty smooth process. It appears everything is going to go off successfully. I hope everyone enjoys themselves and the course, and that this event can become an annual thing in one form or another.

My schedule for the fall is posted, including some events I'm not 100% sure I'll be doing. In any case that's the core of it, and I look forward to seeing everyone at the races and getting back into the whole cross season routine.

Look for more updates soon, as I have an interesting development in the way of competition with the one and only Chandler Delinks.

Summer wrap-up part 2: Binbrook 40k TT and lots of MTB

2011-08-25T07:45:00.000-04:00

Continued recap of my Summer racing and training...

HCC Binbrook 40k TT

Having planned to do one of these all year, I finally made it out to a HCC club TT which was run very well and gave me a much needed opportunity to practice the 40k distance for provincials. I had a good ride, doing the course in 53:45, just over three minutes slower than Darko. With this under my belt, I felt good about the pacing for Provincials and hoped to improve on this effort.

"Hamilton Endurance Ride"

Jeff Landry has been putting these rides together on a roughly annual basis since about the time I got into racing. I've done a few of them, the first in 2008 when I was significantly less capable, and again in 2009 when I taco-ed a wheel fairly early into the ride. I skipped the 2010 edition, but returned for this year's which was to be taken in the opposite (anti-clockwise) direction and included lots of new (to most of us) trails.

These rides circumnavigate Hamilton and Dundas taking in most of the local trails along the way, climbing and descending the escarpment many times. The full route is over 100 km and is mostly off road except for short connecting sections and the stretch along the waterfront between Hamilton and Burlington.

Starting at Cafe Domestique in Dundas, somewhere around 23 of us set out for this ride. The first section along the escarpment which was supposedly going to take around 3 hours turned out to be more like 4.5 due to many flats and bent derailleur hangers. This really challenged our water rationing and also set the tone for the day's pace. At this rate we would not complete the whole route, which was fine as in the end we still did the intended duration of roughly 8.5 hours. Lots of technical escparpment trail was ridden and for the most part I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I cruised up the King Rd climb from Burlington to the trailhead in Waterdown gradually distancing myself from the others despite Jeff (wisely) having called off the KOM competition. I definitely need to return there to climb that on my road bike as it was a very nice extended climb for Southern Ontario.

After the ride Mr. and Mrs. Monster hosted us for a great BBQ at their place in Dundas where we all refueled and recounted stories of the day. Miraculously I had no crashes or mechanicals, failing to live up to my reputation and generating no particularly interesting stories.

Duke's Summer Epic 8h MTB Relay

For no particular reason I felt compelled to do this event. It would be a good way to put lots of time on the bike and practice my off-road handling. I recruited fellow Niagara resident and SHCC member Ryan to put our previous tag team back together: "SHCC - What's the Rush?"

We travelled up to Hardwood hills and met up with all of the other SHCC folks. For no particular reason we decided Ryan would head out first and we'd do double laps all day until the end when we might switch to singles to finish it off. It was around this time I remembered the 34t cog on my cassette was a little bent, so I went in to see Benno at the shop and decided to throw a 12-36 HG-61 cassette on. This would prove to be very nice later in the day, given that I was running a single 36t ring in front.

Ryan and I tagged off after his first two laps and I set out just below O-Cup pace, riding carefully as I did not know the course. I felt really good, and picked it up a bit for lap 2 putting in almost the same time for that lap. It was Ryan's turn for 2 more and I ate a bit, drank some water and got ready to go again. Feeling good, I again headed out and put in a quick lap, but the second of this set did not go so well. I cramped up early and often in this lap, and it only got worse as the day went on. To make things worse, we were now in 2nd place so we had some reason to keep trying in order to hold on to this and see if we could catch the "Lapdogs Tom and Larry Show" who were leading.

I cramped lots more, and later found out Ryan was suffering just as much as I was out there in different ways. In the end we held on to 2nd but my body was not happy. It hadn't been to receptive to food all afternoon and though I was drinking upwards of 1.5 L/h I was still very dehydrated. It took a lot to recover from this one, but in the end it was probably worthwhile.

Next: Ontario Provincial TT and Pre-cyclocross musings

Summer wrap-up part 1: Detroit and Windsor Crits

2011-08-24T12:01:00.000-04:00

While certainly not timely nor regular, my posts on here have at least settled into a good rhythm and without full race reports for each event I am not constantly behind. Due to the amount of material I am going to split this into three posts over the coming days.

Since the last post I did indeed race two more crits and TT provincials, both of which were pretty huge failures for very different reasons. I also did the Hamilton Cycling Club Binbrook 40k TT, a social but nonetheless pretty epic mtb ride and an 8h mtb relay in between. All of those things went surprisingly well.

Criterium Detroit City

The Ciociaro Club Criterium, the 6th race on the O-Cup circuit for 2011 was held on a closed track in Windsor. The day before a criterium was run in downtown Detroit, so a few of us headed over to race that as a warm up. It turned out to be a very well run event for a first time race, and the course was moderately technical but fairly open through the streets of downtown Detroit. The race went pretty well for me, really, though the heat was not making it easy. I closed down a few gaps and tried a couple attacks, once bridging up to a fairly strong but not so organized break. In the end I was positioned fairly poorly for the bunch sprint, and there was a crash in the final corner. I avoided it by going wide up on to the sidewalk and back on to the road under the tape, rolling in for 30-something-th.

Ciociaro Club O-Cup

The Ciociaro O-Cup itself was a bit of a priority for me, one of my last chances to earn some needed upgrade points on the Ontario circuit. The race was not very interesting to start, and I found myself away with one other strong cat 3 who I had raced with before. we quickly gained a lot of time on the group, maybe 20 seconds in a matter of a couple laps, but with only the two of us it quickly was brought back as soon as they recognized the danger of letting us get any further ahead. While recovering from that effort, the big break of the day checked out, and it was full of strong riders. Four in total got clear and at least two of them were guys I knew could win this race.

Sticking to my plan, I intended to bridge to this move while it was still in sight but after the gap was established. Other strong riders left in the pack had the same thought as me, but decided this was going to happen about half a lap sooner than I'd have liked. I was too far back, and was playing catch up with the bridging group from the beginning. Six of us tried, got clear, but only four made it across. I was not one of those four. Now the break was 8 riders, with 15 remaining in the bunch. Normally this wouldn't be a terrible situation, but the break contained all but three of the stronger cat 3s and it also contained no Juniors. That last point proved to be fatal as more than 50% of the remaining 15 were Juniors with no reason to chase the break at all. As such there was a lot of dead weight and only a couple of us making any effort to chase. Add to that SRS and CHCH blocking for their riders in the break, and there was pretty much nothing we could do.

The organizer Dylan was giving us good updates over the PA each lap, but unfortunately I think the updates the break was receiving were even more useful as they knew when the chase was gaining ground and were able to pick up their pace accordingly. I would take a pull of one or two full laps on the front and bring back 10 seconds on the break. Then someone else would hit the front and let the gap go out 20, so we were constantly losing ground despite the efforts of a few of us. Had there been another two or three taking pulls like mine, we would have had the break back in less than 6 laps but most of the guys capable of doing this were either in the break or Juniors, so it did not happen.

In the end, the Juniors picked things up in the last 5 laps and raced their race. For the rest of us it was over long before and I simply cruised in at the back of the bunch, disappointed.

Next: Binbrook 40k TT and lots of MTB

Mid-summer update

2011-07-01T19:37:00.002-04:00

Officially only a week and a half into summer, but well past the halfway point between the start of racing for the year and the start of cross season so... we'll call it mid-summer since it makes me feel better to think summer is over soon.

Lots of happenings since the TO crit, starting with my first hack at a 40 (actually 43.xx) km TT on the Nationals course to see how I'd handle the distance. Of course it had to be during a crazy thunderstorm, but despite this the course was super fast that day due to a tailwind on the climb and into the finish. I am happy with my time though I think I can do better with more practice pacing that distance. Somewhere in there I strained something in my quad because as soon as I got off the bike I could barely stand up. I (foolishly) rode the next day thinking I could work through it, but after a visit to the RMT on the following Monday and easing myself back into training I was good to go a week later.

Next I thought I'd see if I still remember how to ride my mtb by RACING AN O-Cup. Yeah, this should go really well. Actually, it was, until my frame broke. I was having a decent race on par or better than any last season when after the start climb on lap 3 my chainstay broke and I rode around confused about why my rear end was tracking really funny, but only intermittently and my wheel was still true. Then I figured out the problem and packed it in.

Now stoked about mountain biking, I dropped my frame off to be repaired by the master (he's going to add an EBB and that frame will be reborn as a singlespeed) and met up with Oggie to buy his Superfly frame. Just like that, I had a mtb again! Mid week I got word that a local team for the Summer Solstice 24h was short a bunch of riders. Having already planned on racing the crit in Georgetown Sunday, and to feed a friend in the National RR Saturday evening (not to mention wanting to spectate) I offered to do a few laps Saturday afternoon. I ripped one off and was feeling good about heading out for a couple more before taking off. 10 minutes into my next lap I clipped a tree or something and THIS was the result. Blerg.

Off I went to the Nats RR where Brandon who I was supposed to be feeding had already abandoned (shitty luck, but so it goes!) so I settled in to watch the Spidertech show. Yeah let's put 3 guys in the 4 man break and then put our other 12 riders at the front of the chase group making everyone else's ride futile! Britton fought hard nonetheless until they worked him over, dropped him all the while Svein was bridging from the chase. Good show with the boys going 1-2-3 and gifting Svein the title.

The next day was the National crit in Georgetown where they also had a Senior 3/Master 3 race that apparently only 12 people wanted to do. It was very poorly publicized I guess. Early on, three of us went clear and proceeded to lap everyone. With about 5 to go, Michael Aston checked out on the climb and decided he wanted to win with a 30 second cushion, not just outsprinting us. David Grose and I did the cat/mouse thing a bit, I put a dig in on the last lap and couldn't quite hold the gap, then he outsprinted me. Good times.

Watching the elite men/women in their POINTS RACE crits was fun. What a crazy course to do that on, but it made for a good show. Hopefully all those who crashed are healing well.

Today (Canada Day) was the annual CHIN Picnic Crit - but unlike normal this was the venue for Masters and Junior National crits, and there were a few races going on the side including the 3/4 race that I was a part of. I was having a really good ride for the first 20 minutes until I figured my rear tire must be going flat or something as it was all over the place in the corners. I rolled into the pit only to have the commissaire and myself determine that my rear tire was indeed not flat at all. No free lap! Given the options of quitting, hopping on the group and finishing a lap down or chasing like hell, I went with the latter. I rode a 10 minute TT, holding off the group pretty well until they decided with 2 to go that I was possibly going to be in the way so they pulled me. Though STILL extremely frustrated with my rookie mistake (note to self, make sure the damn thing is flat next time before pitting) the consolation is that I was able to go nearly as fast solo as the charging pack, and could/should try to replicate this effort off the front next time I have the opportunity.

Not too much left for the summer before it's ALL CROSS ALL THE TIME. Probably just another crit and TT Provincials for me, along with some mountain biking and such. Cyclocross! It is coming!

TO Crit Race Report

2011-05-31T11:52:00.003-04:00

Sunday was the Toronto Criterium in the St. Lawrence Market. This race has a long history and was once quite prestigious taking place at a prime evening time drawing large crowds, offering big prizes and attracting many pros. This year was much more low key, essentially like any other Ontario regional level race.

The course is a 4-corner block with Front Street and the Esplanade running parallel at slightly different elevations making for a fast downhill corner 2 from Scott St onto the Esplanade and a small rise between corners 3 and 4 on Market St. Corners 2 and 4 are just greater than 90° and proved to be the most important. I probably clipped a pedal in corner 4 about three times during the race, but never more than enough to cause the rear wheel to skip just slightly.

The race started pretty fast from the gun, though my poor warmup do to a trainer malfunction may have influenced my perception of this. It was not bad though and within a few laps I was sitting comfortably in the front half of the group. We were combined not only with the Juniors as usual, but also the Master 2 Men and Elite Women. With some strong crit racers among the M2s, there were a few wheels I knew I should follow in addition to those in Senior 3 I had to watch.

The race was largely uneventful with no moves going clear for any distance. I put a couple digs in on the front to help string things out when I felt like it, and never felt in any real difficulty. At about the halfway mark a prime was announced and I stuck to my plan of not going for it, but trying to go with any counter attacks that followed or to bridge to a break if one formed. Edgars Apse of the Darkhorse Flyers soloed away for the prime and immediately after the line a Senior 3 rider (David Grose, Bikesports) attacked and I was quick to follow hoping we could bridge to Edgars and get a rotation going. Ideally a couple M2s would have followed but that was not the case. We reached Edgars on the backside of the course but nobody was keen to get the move going. I pulled through and gestured for someone to come around next time down the start/finish, but they had sat up and we quickly reintegrated into the bunch.

Nothing much happened for the remainder of the race until 3 to go when Etzl and Zottl attacked and went clear (and eventually went on to win). Because the move only contained Juniors the majority of the field was happy to let them go and set up for the bunch sprint. On the backside one of the Juniors from a rival team was begging me to come around, but there was no way I was chasing down a couple of Juniors nevermind a fellow SCCC rider.

I came through corner 3 on the bell lap in a great position but mistakingly took a fairly central line through the last corner. I got up to sprint but quickly found myself boxed in behind 2 M2s and a Junior with 150 m to go, watching Scott (Lapdogs) ride up the right to take 3rd in Senior 3 while I sat down and cruised in for 4th. I am really annoyed at myself for poor line choice leaving me nowhere to open up the sprint, but this was the first real crit I had done in a couple years and I still have much to learn. Next time I will know better!

Mostly I was reminded how much I like crit racing and while different, how it offers many of the same stimuli as cross. Now I can't wait for the last few crits on the calendar, and then CROSS SEASON.

2011 Spring recap!

2011-05-23T13:04:00.002-04:00

One advantage of not updating my blog in a long time is I get to post about months of racing and training at once, masking my laziness as simply trying to be concise.

Since the last update there has been a full spring of racing starting with the Tour of Pelham which served as a nice warmup and test of the equipment for the big show of Ontario spring "classics", Paris to Ancaster.

Both races went pretty well for me. I surprised myself with 12th at the ToP just falling short of making the group of 8th through 11th with some local strongmen. Paris-Ancaster was a big focus for me and I wanted to see just how much I could improve from prior performances. The top 10-15 are a very elite group, and I knew I would fall short of this but hoped to make the second or third group on course by the major selection which always happens after the turn off the rail trail about 20 minutes into the race. I did this, falling a bit short of the group I had hoped to make but working with Preston Wagler for much of the middle part of the race until we were caught by a fast moving group with some familiar faces. We worked with them to make good time on the last rail trail before the mudslides and hills begin at the end. I made it through the first mudslide cleaner than some, not as clean as others and found myself riding with a Niagara local, Alex Schmidt riding for team Liberty! Bicycles this year. We hit the last few hills at a good pace and I figure I was on track for a nice top 30 finish or very close when I heard some hissing from my front tire and saw a nice spray of sealant coming out. I stopped to let the sealant do its work and luckily it did, allowing me to ride the final climb with enough air, sprinting Stephane at the end and losing. Were it a road race he probably would have been called out for not holding his line but at that point I can't blame him - everyone is wrecked when they finish this race whether they are Mike Garrigan winning for a second year in a row or a cyclo-tourist completing the event for the first time. It is a tough race, which is why I like it so much.

Between these two events I also kicked off my road season at the Tour of Bronte, a nice half dirt road half paved race without much elevation change. I hoped to do some damage here after a decent race but poor result the year prior, and followed some early moves in the first lap but nothing was opening up. At some point Rob Bruce and one of the M3s got clear but were not chased with any great urgency. I guess none of us expected Rob to solo away for 50km, but this is exactly what he did! We controlled the gap in the middle laps and almost had it under 30s, but it was really just the Team London guys and myself doing any real pulls so eventually the gap went back out and we were left sprinting for second. Geoff Power of Team London took this decisively with a nice leadout from his teammate, and I managed to grab the 5th S3 place. I'll take it!

Since then I've raced the next three Road O-Cups on the circuit: Springbank, Bike the Bruce and Nith River. Springbank was good if not a very chaotic race - pouring rain the entire time and with standing water on the fast back side of the course it was bound to be. The racing was fast from the start and I held my position in the middle of the group but wasn't really moving up. A few laps in there was a crash (on the UPHILL turn?) and I came quickly to a stop behind it, thinking I'd avoided any damage until someone slammed into the back of me (really?). Being a crit, despite nobody calling it one as such, free laps were given for mishaps so I cruised up to the tech zone and waited with a few Juniors including local Matt Hopkins to jump in as the pack came by. There was no break when the crash happened, but I guess it kind of split the pack because when we rejoined it was a pretty small group until some of the stronger guys from the main pack bridged up. Things were going well with this group and I prepared for a bunch sprint, until Tim jumped with about 700m left to go and before anyone expected it. Impressively, he held a gap of 4 seconds at the line over the rest of us - kudos Tim for doing it once again! We sprinted it out for second, which was taken decisively by Christian Jug over a fast charging Geoff Power and Russell Van Every, and I managed to pull out another 5th.

The next few races have started to go downhill as the training has been pretty steady and I haven't felt too fresh. Nothing I'm too concerned with, but it can be frustrating at times. Bike the Bruce was going well until a break finally stuck and I wasn't in it. On that course there was no way I was going to be able to bridge up to them, and I had spent too much to do anything in the finale. I positioned myself well avoiding a crash on the twisty run-in at the end, turning the final corner in a great position. I jumped to go with the train, but my legs were simply not there for the sprint, so I got out of the way and sat up as the rest sprinted it out. The Nith River RR yesterday was a continuation of this theme, with a different plot. I had a good first 2 laps, during which the weather went from sunny to rain so heavy it was impossible to see more than a wheel in front of you. A bit uncomfortable when the pack would jam the pace on the hills, I was hanging in and positioned well when the day's move went. I jumped to get on Tim's wheel and made it across the small gap that had started to open. All the right faces were there - the perfect combination to form a winning break, with a course and weather that made it likely to succeed. I thought it was all coming together, but once again my legs did not answer the call, this time spitting me out the back so fast I didn't even catch on to the pack as they went by. I gave the nod to Steve in the commissaire's car as he went by that I was done, and rode out the lap. Oh well, there is always another race!

That brings us up to date and with the Ontario calendar being laid out the way it is we're well over half way through the season. Likely just a couple more races on the road for me, maybe a mtb race or two and then we're into Provincials. I'll be making the trip to Ottawa for TT Provincials to see how I stack up, and the Provincial RR is a possibility as well. It is being held on the familiar Bamberg loop outside of Waterloo - my old training grounds.

2010 Results

2011-02-22T14:00:00.001-05:00

MTB/Road:

Frostbike - 5
Good Friday RR - DNF
Tour of Bronte - 19
Paris-Ancaster - 108
XC O-Cup #1 Mansfield - 27
XC O-Cup #2 Albion - DNF
Life$tyle$ 24h - 2nd mens team
Canada Cup Hardwood - DNF
XC O-Cup #4 Mountainview - 20
XC O-Cup #5 Buckwallow - 23
CDMBR - 4
XC O-Cup #6 Kelso - 17

Cyclocross:

Jump the Cheeseburger - 10
Green Mountain 1 - DNF
Green Mountain 2 - 55
Ellison Park Cyclocross - 6
SRCC Guelph Cross - 13
GP of Gloucester Day 1 - 18
GP of Gloucester Day 2 - 46
Cobb's Hill Cyclocross - 4
Toronto International Cyclocross Day 1 - 4
Toronto International Cyclocross Day 2 - 2
Ontario Provincial Championship - DNF
Kelso Cross - 13
Parma Cyclocross - 3
Canadian National Championship - 36
Delaware Park - 7
Kissing Bridge Cross - DNF
Hardwood Cross - 12
Baseball Cross - 13
Riverdale Cyclocross - DNF
Subway CX - 7
NYE Cross - 3

Frostbike 2011

2011-02-20T15:58:00.004-05:00

This post is for De Cal, who is calling me out for never updating the blog. Fair enough.

Today was the first race of 2011, The Frostbike winter mtb race hosted by the Shorthills Cycling Club (not to be confused with the QBP trade show of the same name happening at the same time). Thanks to Andrew winning the male overall, he was taken out of the running for age group awards bumping me into 3rd Male Under 30.

Conditions were a big unknown all week but turned out alright. Lots of exposed ground for February, and only a little ice so I opted for the Racing Ralphs over studs. I think it was a fair call as there were not many places I had to be cautious due to ice and my only crashes had nothing to do with ice. I managed to take a chunk out of my knee in a high speed crash on the canal path of all places... ruts are not my friend?

It was nice to get out and work the lungs and bike handling a bit after many hours indoors. Now, back to the grind (i.e. work, training, wheelbuilding, etc...)

2010 Season Recap

2010-12-31T11:00:00.001-05:00

I've finally given in and admitted I'm never going to write all the race reports for the 2010 cross campaign. Given that, rather than letting this blog die I'll recap 2010 in this post and start again with 2011.

I didn't realize it until toward the end of the year, but 2010 seemed to be the year of the DNF for me:

- First with Good Friday which was unseasonably hot - combine that with racing poorly and having to chase on within the first lap and it didn't take long to pop. Rode lap 2 in a small chase group, then we collectively pulled the plug.

- Next DNF was Albion, where I was having a good race until a crash in a muddy ditch. I have crashed many times and not DNF'd, so I guess this one was hard enough? My front shifting was also gone after this and doing another 2 laps in the small chainring didn't seem like a great option at the time.

- The Hardwood Canada Cup was another hot day. Very hot. I was not the only one suffering, and maybe it wasn't that bad but by lap 3 I was riding so sloppy on account of fatigue that I nearly washed out in every corner and had a few too many close encounters with trees. I was really concerned I was going to hurt myself if I continued.

- I drove 750 km to Vermont for the Green Mountain Cyclocross weekend, and managed to DNF Day 1. It was also unseasonably warm (noticing a trend?) but I was theoretically already accustomed to that after a good race in hotter weather the week before. This time, however I went out too hard on a hilly course, then managed to get crashed out by someone on the descent, at which point I basically stopped racing despite wanting to continue. At least Day 2 was better.

- At Ontario cross Provincials it was another case of going out way too hard. I started hard, attacked my group to get to the next one, then attacked again but when I got to the top of the climb I pulled over and dry heaved for a bit. Rode another lap and decided to cut my losses. Good training, maybe? Probably not.

- Kissing Bridge cross: out of shape and just couldn't bring myself to keep climbing that hill every lap. Definitely a low point in the season.

- Riverdale cross was going really well for a couple laps, and then I crashed hard on the descent, bouncing off of my shin hard enough that I couldn't pedal for awhile after. It was just bruised, but enough to get me off the bike.

That sounds like a lot of excuses. I can't say I regret too many of these, but it gave me some ideas of things to work on.

Aside from that it was a fairly successful season overall. Mechanicals were few and never very serious. I didn't have any huge results, but there were definitely some highlights to my cross season. Gloucester Day 1 felt like the ride of my life, and I think there's room to do better (not just with training/fitness, but how I raced it too). Nationals went about as well as I could have hoped and I also managed to have a good race in Buffalo the next day as well. Cross season was successful enough that I can say I want to do it again very similarly next year, just harder, better, faster, stronger (that's right, I found a way to slip in a DAFT PUNK REFERENCE).

I don't have too much more to say about 2010 before moving on to the present, but I have to thank everyone who helped me along the way this season. Sponsors, coaching, friends, training partners. It all plays a huge role in making this kind of progress. THANK YOU.

Super Race Report Catch Up Time!

2010-11-10T19:51:00.003-05:00

Alright, after being questioned multiple times online and at races about my fantastically out of date blog, let's get this done so I can write a semi-current post about Nationals, etc. Apparently 15 races in 9 weeks is a lot, and I suck at finding time for blogging. At some point I may write a more detailed account for memorable races such as Gloucester, but for now I'll resort to point form and blurry memories.

When I left off I had done the Ellison Park race in Rochester, the first of the Full Moon Vista series. The next day I was back in Ontario for:

Speed River CC Guelph Cross
- first Southern Cup of the year
- good size elite field
- craploads of off-camber and one really steep climb

I had one of my usual amazing starts and found myself on Box's wheel at the back of the front group with Mogg leading the charge and I think Derek H in there as well as a couple others.

I was promptly spit out the back the first time up the climb and dropped back first to Marco, then back to a group with Isaac. Still not a bad place to be by any means.

Of course I continued to drop back until I was solidly in the bottom half and trying to hold off as many as possible. Brusso kept having issues like dropping his chain and then proceeded to ride back up to me and make me work to hang on for a lap. Finally his issues stopped and he dropped me.

Good enough for 13/21 with the majority of the guys I am normally battling DNF'ing. Too bad I could not have a better showdown with Mark R, but such is life.

NEXT:

Grand Prix Of Gloucester!
DAY 1:
- holy crap it's Gloucester
- there is way less grass here than I imagined; lots of rocks
- are they seriously sending us down this sketchy chute off of a paved
downhill start?!?

I got on course early for a recon lap and mostly I liked what I saw. Sand pit was good, lots of turning, not too much climbing... my kind of course.

I watched Pete battle it out with Hines and JOHNNY BOLD and take an impressive 3rd in the 35+ while riding the trainer. Got to staging JUST in time not to miss my 1st row callup (www.crossresults.com FTW!) and got the worst possible lane on the left. Ok maybe the second worst lane... but anyway, used my hole shot power to avoid the sketchiness (for that,
see here) and held 5th wheel or so for half of lap 1.

Lots of the usual pack surfing and a multiple lap battle with Geekhouse rider Josh Wright, but overall one of my best races ever led to a respectable 18/114.

DAY 2:

- this is the "traditional" Gloucester course

- uphill start is less sketchy, but also less favourable to me

- long headwind sections

- awesome runup

Day 2 I was staged 2nd row, and was kindly reminded by a fellow racer as I rolled into the start pen that I was not wearing a helmet. Really? Shit! Race back to the tent at the top of the hill and put it on and got back in time not to miss my callup, but just barely - how's that for a warmup you ask? Well, my heart rate was pretty close to where it would lie the majority of the race, but it sure didn't make me feel any better.

Off the gun it was the usual elbows out, try-not-to-go-backwards-because-it's-uphill start. Yeah I suck at going uphill. I hit the grass maybe top 20, which I guess means I more or less held my own off the start.

Basically the race went like this: suck wheels across the field and the sea wall, make up 3 spots on the runup, make up 2-3 more in the twisty bits up to the barriers, lose 5 spots in the long windy headwind section, lose 5 more on the paved climb to the finish. So... do the math, I was sliding backward at a comfortable rate of 5-6 spots per lap. Starting with around 15-20th and you get can predict my finish with amazing precision: 46/119.

Definitely not the great ride I had on day 1, but it was a great race for learning experience nonetheless. I got to race man-to-man for the full duration, and I had some exciting battles which is really what cross racing is about anyway.

Also notable is the dinner we had Saturday night. We found a nice little restaurant and a bunch of us had this shrimp scampi type dish with feta cheese and spinach. Local seafood rocks!

Full Moon Vista Ellison Park Cyclocross

2010-10-17T21:41:00.001-04:00

Alright, blogging in bed from the iPhone so as you can imagine I'll want to keep this brief (but of course I always say that).

So for my first foray into the upstate NY cross scene I decided to head to Rochester for the Ellison Park Cyclocross. Unfortunately I couldn't do the UCI race they were hosting on Sunday as I wanted to race in Guelph, a great stop on the Ontario calendar and the first race in the new Southern Cup series this year.

I carpooled to Rochester with Shawn who would be racing the 35+ after my race, the cat 3/4. The drive was much smoother than the usual GTA trek and I can see racing in this area more often out of convenience.

We arrived and after the longest car to registration walk ever got signed in. The course featured one major climb and lots of deep sticky grass. Aside from the climb and descent, there was not much in the way of features but the long grass and seemingly endless false flat sections would be plenty to suck the legs out of anyone.

I got to the start corral early enough to secure the last spot on the front row and proceeded to get one of my now signature holeshots. By the top of the climb one guy came by, and I figured I'd get on his wheel and go from there. Turns out he was having none of that and promptly rode away and won the race. Awesome.

I figured I was solidly in line for a podium spot, or at least to place in the money which was 5 deep, but lap after lap guys would roll up to me and slowly, painful to watch slow, ride away from me on the many slogs through the grass.

That pattern repeated until 45 minutes (or near enough) had passed and I finished 6th. Damn. In any case all that climbing made for good training and fellow Ontarian and former teammate Mel Bunn was 2nd in the women's race, which was little more than a preride for the UCI race which would be using the same course.

All in all, the Full Moon Vista folks put on a good event and I will be attending more of their races.

Enough blog for now... Guelph RR soon.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Race Report - Green Mountain Cyclocross Weekend

2010-10-08T20:45:00.002-04:00

After starting the season with a fairly low-profile local race, I went straight to the other end of things racing a weekend of UCI C2 races in Williston VT, the first of the VERGE NECCS series. Of course I wasn't racing the UCI category there, because unlike at home there is a large Cat 3 field well suited to my abilities. It's challenging but I'm not at risk of getting lapped or pulled, as all the guys are +/- maybe 10% of my ability. Racing in a field of around 100 (since we raced with the Juniors too) is a really different experience from a field of 20 or 25 at home, and is great for working on group racing skills and getting used to passing.

Day 1

Started with a fairly early morning, beginning with coffee and breakfast. We soon headed over to see the cat 4 race in which one of the guys I was staying with was racing his first cross race. John had a good ride and ended up 3rd.

My first impression of the course, or what I could see of it from the start/finish area was something along the lines of "hmm, I bet there's a bit of climbing on this course." Little did I know...

The tech guide stated there was to be no practice on course aside from specified times which were two half hour slots, one of which was AFTER my race for the Elite Men and Women to take advantage of. Of course, I missed the other half hour that I was to use so thanks to some advice from Vicki I hopped on in the small gap between the masters 45+/55+ race and the 35+. I got in only half a lap, but it was enough to know that there was more than a little bit of climbing per lap - there was a lot. One never ending gradual climb off the start, a couple punchy little ones, and another long grinder halfway through the lap.

To add to the insult of a hilly course (with my lack of climbing ability) I started getting major GI distress during my warmup. I blame the HEED that I drank, since it was the only thing I had that was not totally proven in my pre-race nutrition routine.

So I lined up at the start, a little less warmed up than I'd like and full of cramps in my gut, and blasted up the hill. I think I was around 10th-12th wheel on the first descent - way too far up for me on a hilly course in this field. As a result I slowly drifted back the next time we hit a climb, then again on the start climb on lap 2. Somewhere around lap 3 I really blew up, and was quickly shot out the back.

So 10th or so on lap 1, maybe around 20th on lap 2 and then out the back to somewhere around 60th I'm guessing. I was cruising the flats and making up spots where I could, but still steadily loosing a few every time we went up. I figured that was sustainable until the end, but then on one of the sweeping descents I was maybe following a bit too close and the guy ahead went decided to have a yard sale on the off camber corner. Obviously the correct reaction was to lock up my rear brake and crash myself out trying to avoid him... yeah that is a much better idea than simply riding over him (note to self: next time, ride overtop of crashed riders).

I picked myself up, but the usual post crash lack of motivation was hitting hard, and I basically soft pedalled for the next half lap. I tried to get moving again next time up the start, but there was nothing there. I coasted the descent, pulled into the pits and saved myself the grief of finishing in 300th place by pulling out. Save it for tomorrow... yeah that's what I was doing. Tomorrow I would be out for blood. And maybe trying to recover some dignity.

Day 2

The morning was much the same routine, except the race times were shifted a bit earlier to allow an early escape for those driving from out of town (a great idea). Rolled in part way through the cat 4 race to see John finish up, not quite as strong as the first day but hey, it was his second cross race!

This time I was sure not to miss the dedicated course preview time, and headed out for a couple laps with a whack of cat 3s and M35+ guys. The first lap was a parade pace as we were letting the last cat 3/4 woman finish up, other than one dick from Svelte who felt the need to blast past everyone, including the poor woman who was still racing. Thankfully he got an earful from the rest of us and was not seen again.

The course was a lot better than the day before, although still full of climbing. Not all at once though, which was nice. There was still a few long false flats and at least one part I would definitely call a "climb" but also more turns and sections that actually required a bit of bike handling. The run/ride-up with logs embedded in the ground was nice - I rode it in pre-ride but knew that I would likely be running it most laps in the race, if not all of them, because getting the preferred line in traffic would be questionable and I am pretty sure I am just as fast off the bike on something like that anyway.

I should interject now that surrounding this weekend was a showdown between myself and a longtime friend Brandon. Brandon is a cat 2 on the road, and has historically been a much faster cyclist than me. When it comes to technical stuff however, he is your typical roadie - I can outride him most of the time on mountain bikes, but we haven't raced head to head in cross for a long time so this was our chance to see who would prevail. Unfortunately the Green Mountain courses favoured a rider with good power to weight and did not require much in the way of skills, so it looked like he was going to go 2 for 2 against me. Both days I took off much faster on the start, but steadily lost ground on the climbs with Brandon eventually passing me.

So back to my race - I got off to a nice start, and was riding in what was probably the 2nd group along with my teammate Nick. Nick is also much fitter than me, but it turns out he was just sitting in and would later move up (or I would drop back - same thing, right?). About 3 laps with that group, and then a few of them (including Nick) shelled the rest of us on the climb into the runup.

Not too long after, Brandon also rode away on a climb but I largely kept him in sight - allowing the gap to go out to maybe 20 seconds or so. A lap later and all of a sudden he was going backwards HARD. So hard I passed him on the climb... weird, but ok. I'd find out later he torqued his back and was hurting, but that sounds an awful lot like an excuse ;)

So a couple more laps go by and we're at the bell lap. I'm not having my best race, but I'm holding my own against the guys I'm with. I notice I can probably take most of them in the corners, and while I'm not comfortable I seem to be hurting less than those around me. Good news for the uphill grassy sprint finish that this might come down to. Little did I know, 10 seconds back on my group Brandon was closing fast. About 500 metres and maybe 4 corners left to go I was eyeing up my group and sorting out how I would drop them all in the second last straight and nail the finish. Right about that time, Brandon got on my group, and managed to do so without me noticing. I didn't realize until I exited the last corner (in front of the guys I was with, as planned) and heard someone shifting up to sprint. "hey, didn't I just drop everyon.. oh shit, it's Brandon!" Time to give'r, but he's a cat 2 roadie remember... so yeah, I lost that sprint, but only by a bike length, so I'm not totally upset by that one.

2 for 2, he got me... but there's always Nationals. It's in November, so maybe there will be snow, or at least rain, and hopefully that will make it slippery enough that my technical skills prevail and I can take some revenge.

So that was my Green Mountain cyclocross weekend. Vermont is beautiful, but they have hills there (ok, so I should have known that). Good experience racing the large VERGE series cat 3 field, and a good warmup for Gloucester!

Only 2 weeks behind on race reports now - AWESOME!

Race Report - We Need More Cowbell: Jump the Cheeseburger edition

2010-09-24T21:58:00.002-04:00

Skipping over the end of my mtb season (because who cares about mtb racing anyway, right? At least when you're a mediocre expert rider trying to crack the top 20...) I'll get to catching up on and hopefully keeping up with race reports for cross season.

The season opener for me is as usual for Southern Ontario, the local race (for me) at Burgoyne Woods in St. Catharines. Driving only 15 minutes to get to the venue is awesome. Pounding stakes until 8:30 the night before, not so much, but someone has to do it!

I got to the venue early enough to see the morning races go off and generally have a relaxing start to the day. Hopped on course for a couple laps between races and having helped design half the course found it much as expected - stupid fast, but with enough corners to require SOME skill to keep your speed.

Hopped on the trainer during the second race, situated perfectly for spectating and chatting to fellow racers as they came to sign in. After the course cleared I got on the backside to do some more practice while they ran the kids race on the other side. Lined up good and early but conceded front row spots to others who I thought deserved them - mistake #1.

Off the line I got a bit hung up with Andrew, but thankfully we just leaned on each other a bit and got going. I guess he missed his pedal, which explains it, and thankfully he's someone I can trust to lean on and get on with things. Unfortunately that put me pretty far back into the first corner so it was time to chase like hell through the technical section before it opened up as I knew gaps would open between groups as soon as things got straight and wide.

I managed to get in to a group wth Brusso, Nick, Andrew and myself which lasted about 1 lap. At that point Andrew and Nick rolled off the front while Brusso and I just kind of looked at each other, both of us not really able to get on it without digging a huge hole for this early in the race. Shortly after that we hooked up with one of the Masters, and so began our little train of 3. We rolled around for a few more laps everyone going smoothly and keeping Andrew and Nick in sight. Smoothly until I washed out in the sandy pine section that is, which sucks because I was otherwise cornering better than the others.

Train o' Wilby, Moote, Brusso

Same train, different order

That gave them their gap which was really only 5 or 10 seconds, which I planned to close down on the next time through the technical section because there was no way I'd make up ground on them in the straight bits. Unfortunately maybe they knew this, and I hear them talking and next thing I knew they'd taken off on the big finish stretch, quickly sending the gap out to 30 seconds or more. That was essentially the end of it, and I was left to go alone for the last 2 laps or so, holding off those behind with ease and making up a little ground on those in front but not enough to matter.

10th on the day... not bad for the first race and way better than last year. First Elite race I didn't get lapped in too, and not for lack of speedy guys at the front. Cheers to my teammate Pete for taking the sprint against Chown by about 5 cm, even if it was because the line was painted crooked on the grass (hmm, who painted that line again? oh yeah it was Chown... he took it well though and there was a photo to back it up). Oh yeah, the new bike rocks. And thanks to Jeff K for the photos I stole for this post (without permission!)

One race down... off to VT next for my VERGE NECCS debut.

Overdue race reports: Mountainview and Buckwallow O-Cups

2010-08-01T00:06:00.001-04:00

Since these come many weeks after the events I will omit lots of details.

Mountainview:

Carpooled up to Midland with Kerton and De Cal, straight to the venue on Saturday to preride. Some new singletrack was added compared to the 2009 course and this year I would be racing the full 1:30 course with "Glassford's Grind" included. A grind it was - this course has so much potential to be a good one for me save for all the climbing. With a couple large climbs per lap it really didn't suit me and I knew my race would be hard.

Hard it was, with no really good feelings at any point. My usual 3rd/4th lap gas/cramping made climbing pretty tough. Another one down... at least I finished this one.

Buckwallow:

Another Saturday preride, I found Buckwallow much as I remembered it from last year except I was riding a lot better. With the suspension fork on my bike this year the descents were very manageable and a lot of fun. A couple lines were giving me trouble. In the end I got all but one (in the 1:30 only section) figured out, and decided I would run that one in the race

Nice prime rib dinner in Carnarvon and a quiet evening at teammate Jarrod's parents' cabin.

Race day came and I started to observe the carnage that this course seems to cause for the racers. Broken bikes, broken bodies and broken spirits. It really is a race of attrition for all but the best bike handlers.

I got off to a good start but was surprised how fast I got swarmed. At the first small climb after the LONG FLAT doubletrack start I was in the bottom 25% but not too concerned. I found myself battling back and forth with Zoltan and he got by on the long rocky climb taking a cleaner line (forcing me off mine? no hard feelings though). Lap 2 I reeled him in and focussed on riding cleanly. By the end of the lap I had a small gap so I hit the gas HARD when I got on the start stretch of doubletrack and opened up a nice margin. Around this time i passed Shawn who usually doesn't hold me off this long, so he seemed to be having a good race. Spent the rest of the lap padding said margin so I could ride lap 4 at a more relaxed pace.

Lap 4 was going well, just finishing it up when Shawn caught back up to me with about 2 k to go. I was holding a pretty good pace until the large rock obstacle in the very last section of singletrack. I came over the top of it as I had probably 6 or 7 times prior that weekend but something happened and I was over the bars and sliding down some very abrasive Canadian shield rock. I let out a good shout of pain, enough to convince some spectators my leg was broken (it was also mighty tangled in my frame) but eventually collected myself and soft pedaled the last 500m or so to the line. While down Shawn who was right on my wheel at the time passed, as did one other from my category apparently. Damn, robbed of 22nd place ;)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Blogging lapse

2010-07-24T12:03:00.000-04:00

It's been quite busy in the past couple months and for whatever reason motivation to post has been low. I am hoping with the BlogPress app I am more likely to post regularly now.

I plan to catch up on the past couple months of race reports, but it hasn't been anything too exciting. The good news is that everything is falling into place for Cyclocross season - very exciting!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Race Report: Hardwood Hills Canada Cup

2010-06-02T12:10:00.003-04:00

A little delayed as usual. Going back to the last post (Albion O-Cup), training has been relatively solid - hard rides a couple times a week and last weekend I may or may not have raced a 24h event that may or may not have happened.

As such, I was going into the Canada Cup with less than fresh legs, but everything seemed relatively good otherwise. Everything except for the weather which had been dry and hot for 2 weeks. Race day would be no exception with temperatures around 30° in the afternoon and humidity adding to the feeling - it was going to be tough for everybody. I know most people were happy it was not 4° and snowing like 2009, but I will take that any day over the heat. Temperatures under 20° are where I am happy.

Anyhow, the trip to Barrie was long involving a detour to the shop to get a new damper for my fork. I got to the venue late afternoon Saturday and did a medium pace lap with Jarrod and Mac before heading out for dinner at East Side Marios and then to the Georgian Suites Hostel for the evening. Replaced my damper in the hostel, not without spilling fork oil all over the floor (and cleaning it up). Good thing it was tile...

On to race day, I got to the venue pretty early to work the feed zone for Jeff in the 9:30 race. During the elite race I got out to warm up and came back to watch the finish. Watson was doubling the second Joyride jump pretty nicely each lap. Top style points, even if he was 3rd in the actual race.

Lining up for the race it was clear the heat was going to be a factor. We got off and as everyone else's race reports indicate, it was just a big dust cloud which made breathing and seeing anything tough. I got on Justin's wheel as usual but couldn't hold it up the little climb after the woodchips ended. Into the singletrack I was sitting ok, but there was a big bottleneck and I was waiting my turn. Got rolling, only to find people all over the trail off their bikes around the next corner. Got back on, but I am pretty sure I was last at this point.

I chased back up a few spots and was riding with Jay Menard, who was also suffering. I felt pretty terrible and was not getting up any of the singletrack climbs well at all. We caught Peter Mancini who was presumably also having trouble his first race back from an early season injury. He caught on and then started to pick up the pace a bit, which was good because it changed my mindset from just riding around back to racing a little. Jay didn't hang on to this pace so it was the two of us for the rest of the lap.

Lap 2 was pretty poor as well, but uneventful aside from a couple encounters with trees. Starting out lap 3 we got halfway up the woodchips and Pete pulled a U turn. I tried to convince him to keep going but he was done. Back to riding slow for me, but now I was more fatigued and I couldn't handle the bike at all. I did not have the strength to weight my front wheel to turn and was washing out all over the place in the loose sandy corners. As such I was starting to think I would only hurt myself by continuing, and after a sketchy 3rd time down coffee run I pulled the plug.

Reflecting on the race, aside from the heat which I could not change, I definitely went too long without an easy week. I will take this one very light on training and see how this weekend's race at Mountainview goes. After that it's a much needed few weeks off before the next race. Lots of club rides during that time should help get my fitness back on track and then I will start building toward my fall cross season (I already can't wait for cross and the nicer weather it will bring with it).

Albion Hills O-Cup Race Report

2010-05-10T20:45:00.004-04:00

With the rain throughout the week prior, I was beginning to think that this would be a repeat of last year’s slog in the mud, and mentally prepared for that sort of race. Preriding on Saturday just as the last of the major rainstorms blew over, it was clear that while the course was wet, it had taken the rain quite well and would dry up quickly. By my 1:30 start on Sunday the weather was perfect and the course had recovered very well. So well they decided to re-add the green monster climb to our race. I’m not sure if anyone was really happy about that, but it’s certainly a good challenge for the legs.

Up the Green Monster (photo credit: Ryan Jakob)

After blowing up 3 laps into my race at Mansfield, I knew I needed to pace myself better and decided a heart rate monitor would help me do that. I lined up behind Justin Henri and off the gun followed him through the start loop and up into a mid-pack position.

Throughout the first lap holding his wheel was almost too easy, and I was perhaps reserving too much. I pulled ahead and away at some point and pushed my pace a bit, but it still seemed manageable. At some point he caught me, finding his legs and soon left me behind. Toward the end of the lap however, we were back together going into lap 2.

Lap 2 was much of the same, although Justin rode away from me up the green monster and it was all I could to to get over the top. For the most part however, this lap was uneventful and I felt like I was riding better and maybe speeding up a bit.

I was riding back and forth with Zoltan as we hit the feed zone on lap 3 where he grabbed his bottle and subsequently put in an attack just fierce enough to get away. I thought I might catch him once the ground leveled out a bit, but when I came around the top he was gone. I now had a carrot, but he was out of sight which makes it a bit harder.

Up the green monster my legs were starting to knot up and I decided to dismount, since it seemed to be common among those I was riding near and as such I wouldn’t lose any spots doing so. It was a good call to save my legs at this point.

Coming down goat path some elites were lapping through and I was doing my best to get down the switchbacks and on to the doubletrack as quickly as possible to let them by. This turned out to be too quick, and when I hit the muddy ditch at the bottom I lost my front wheel and ended up sliding into the bushes on my back. I was slow to get up, and though my bike seemed fine the front shifting was pretty much gone due to various things being full of mud and twigs. As such I did my best to ride it out, but I was simply not going fast at all. I was spinning around with my HR at 170 bpm, not racing. Since I couldn’t seem to get going again, I decided there was no point in doing a 4^th lap in my little ring at this dreadfully slow pace, so I called it. I do not like to DNF but there was not even a training benefit from the pace I was doing after the crash.

Overall, I am happy with how my fitness was going and my handling through the singletrack. I just need to further dial in my nutrition and pacing and I think I’ll have a handle on how I need to ride in Expert. From there it is just a matter of not making these mistakes and trying to improve incrementally.

Next up is the Life$tyle$ of the Rich and Famou$ 24h race, and then the Canada Cup at Hardwood Hills. I’m looking forward to a couple solid weeks of training and then these races

Mansfield O-Cup #1 Race Report

2010-04-26T09:21:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my first race in Sr. Expert, and generally went better than expected. My result was better than expected (27/31) and I didn't bonk on lap 4 like I thought I might. I did manage to drop my chain 2 times that I had to get off and replace it, and wash out in a sandy corner on a doubletrack descent, surprisingly not hurting myself or my bike.

The race morning prep was quite a different routine of course, racing at 1:30 instead of 11:30. I couldn't just eat breakfast and race on that, so it meant preparing and eating a lunch type meal around 10:30-11:00. The in-race nutrition is also a little different - I knew drinking would be very important and I mixed myself a bottle per lap and arranged to have someone in the feed zone. Because I'd only drank a half bottle on the first lap I skipped my first feed but probably should have ditched my half bottle for a full one, as I may have paid for this later.

The start was not as furious as I had anticipated, and even from the back row I found myself solidly in the middle of the group on top of the climb and into the singletrack. I found a train of riders to go with for the first lap, though the faster ones were already riding away from me with no ability to respond.

On the tech climb I ran into traffic, catching a lot of the riders that had rode away from me - this provided a nice rest while waiting to walk up and put me in a good position for the rest of the lap. Lap 2 was similarly uneventful, losing a few positions still but riding well. When Justin came up to me I hopped on his wheel knowing he should generally be faster than I would pace myself alone. Overall that seemed like a pace I could hold, but he washed out on a couple loose sections and repeatedly had to chase back. The latter part of the lap he was riding smoothly and was great to pace behind. Up the start climb for lap 3 however, I could not hold his wheel any longer and let him go.

Lap 3 I found myself feeling the verge of cramping on the steep singletrack so I knew I would have to back off and count on riding smoothly and mostly in the saddle the rest of the race. I could climb all but the one rooty climb in the saddle, and did so choosing to run the last bit of that one to save my legs. The rest of lap 3 and 4 were spent trying to ride with good leg speed to keep the pace high enough, and simply trying not to cramp whenever things pointed up.

I managed to hold off Zoltan, my category-mate from Sport last year, by just over a minute which I was happy with.

There's definitely some lessons to be taken from this race, and overall I'm happy to be racing Expert. There was a brief consideration that if I went back to sport I could be quite competitive, but I am not really racing mtb for results, and these expert races will be far better training. Plus, should I get a little faster to stay in the mix, everyone I know seems to be in expert so I'll have some good folks to ride with as long as I can hold their wheels.

Next up, Albion...

Paris to Ancaster 2010

2010-04-19T14:40:00.003-04:00

First, the week before the race: busy with final exams, and then I got a stomach flu monday night. This meant no food for ~24h and no energy until about Thursday. Wrote exams Wednesday and Thursday and generally just tried to get my body back to functioning. It wasn't clear until Friday that I would even start the race.

Rode my bike for about 10 minutes on Saturday to ensure it wouldn't fall apart, since I built it on Friday.

On to race morning, I did the usual milling about the start area, stand in the washroom line etc. Got a solid 10 minutes of warmup... not a big deal as I'd be stuck in traffic for the first 30 minutes of the race anyway.

I got a good start from about 4th row of the non-top 100 1st wave, and moved up quickly. Soon on the rail trail I realized I was seeing a lot of top 100 folk, so moving up nicely. The loose right hander was sketchy as usual... had to change lines a few times while running due to slower runners/bike pushers (come on, shoulder your bike! Dermont gets off on that one for riding a tandem, which I ran past on the hill).

I kind of missed the group that formed on top, so I chased and made contact right around the first section of "singletrack" and continued to pass in there when possible. On the next road section I again missed the train, so it was chase time again. Got a good group which I stayed with into the next off-road part beside hwy 24.

From here it was the usual bridging from group to group. I figure I made it somewhere near top 50-60 by the 40-50km mark on the rail trail. I mostly conserved energy at this point, sitting on until it was time to leave that group behind. I made sure to lead down the chutes and mostly left people behind there, although I did get caught in some traffic.

Finally, the climbs at the end - the first one didn't feel too good in the legs and I knew I had to be careful of cramping so I spun a pretty small gear, losing a couple spots, gaining maybe 1 or 2. Down the descent was good, then up the final climb on mineral springs. Things were going ok in damage control mode until it kicks up for the first time. I had to unclip really fast to avoid falling off my bike, and the cramping almost prevented me from walking. It flattens out after that so I spun the legs out and thought I might be ok... as things pointed up again I definitely was not. Off the bike and kneeling in the ditch, legs seized. Awesome. I finished the walk of shame around the corner and got back on the bike for the last few hundred metres, only to watch Pierre Perrin ride by and beat me by 9 seconds, just to put another nail in the coffin.

All things considered, I'll take it. 108th, so as long as a few people ahead don't do the race next year I should get to start in the front part of the 1st wave. Given who I was riding with around 40-50k and where they finished, I should be able to make a large improvement in next year's result.

Tour of Bronte

2010-04-12T12:39:00.006-04:00

After my poor ride at Good Friday, I wanted to get back on track, but training these days is limited due to school commitments. As such it was some club rides with the SCCC and a couple tune-up rides the week before to get ready for the the Tour of Bronte the following Sunday.

Going into this race I was much more optimistic. Cooler temperatures with equally nice weather made for a comfortable body, and the course couldn't suit me better: nearly pancake flat with 70% on dirt/gravel roads. The plan was to drive the race from the front and see what happens - a break would be favourable since I don't feel I have much of a sprint these days.

The rollout was calm, and for a minute it seemed as if the pack would take things gently for awhile but before we hit dirt the first time Tyler Holtzman of SCCC attacked, feeling out the pack no doubt. It was quickly shut down, and hitting the gravel it was Speed River's duo of Tim and Bayden to the front. Bayden got off solo for a few km, but this move too was shut down. From there we had a more relaxed couple of laps with some hard accelerations to keep people on their toes. I maintained a position in the top 5-10 finding it safer to navigate the loose corners there, and allowing me to follow or chase attacks if needed.

Coming around the start/finish I saw that I'd lost my teammate Shaw, who was now riding off the back. I later found out he went in the ditch on the first gravel corner, as many others did throughout the day. Realizing I was alone I knew I had to watch for the decisive attack and follow it.

The intermediate laps saw pairs getting away occasionally, but they were quickly reeled in. The Speed River boys would put one off the front and counter when caught. Very smart - that's how you drive a race. Catching up with my buddy Tim (MBRC.org - Gears) I knew he was good for a hard effort so I followed him off the front a couple times but we never really got clear. Still too early.

With 2 to go Tyler and Max put in a big SCCC attack, and Tim (SRCC) was the only one to follow. I knew this was a good move so I gave it everything to bridge. This was probably the nail in my coffin for the day, but it was my only hope. I was able to pull through a couple times but was clearly the weak link in this break and we'd eventually be caught since Tim was also not working 100% given the 2 on 1 situation.

It was on the bell lap that Tyler made the decisive move and again Tim followed. All we could do was chase from there - first Mark Palma (Sweet Petes) and I, then lapdogs on the front. With Tim in the break, Bayden interrupted our rotation in the chase, so Mark tried to go for it. I couldn't follow but a Handlebars CC rider did go with him so it was 2 groups of 2 up the road and the rest of us chasing. We closed down the gap nicely but ran out of road as this was the final lap - Mark and the Hbars rider would be caught about 1k out and the Tyler/Tim move stayed clear by 3 seconds at the line. I got interrupted by a rider who sat up after their pull in the leadout, and thus rolled in at the back of the pack - such is life.

I was happy to take this race from the front and ultimately I didn't pick my moves well - too many too early, and I wasn't there when it mattered. If the composition of the second last break was a little different it might have stuck, but we really needed another strong rider in there and me to be taking stronger pulls. Good experience racing from the front of a strong pack, and learning when to follow and when to sit in.

Look for photos at www.cyclingphotos.ca in the next days, as I know Mr. Safka was out there shooting.

edit: here is one of a couple that he sent me

I'll probably be taking a break from the road for now, focussing on mtb for the summer, but I am going to work a few crits into the schedule later on.

For now, back to studying and punching out these last few projects so I can actually start training again in a week or so.

Good Friday

2010-04-09T12:01:00.001-04:00

Time to take a short break from studying to catch up on the last couple weeks of racing here.

First, the season opener Good Friday RR. This year was unseasonably hot and sunny, and saw a huge number of participants. The day began with the huge S4/M3 field and a number of crashes - some more serious than others. One fellow was still in the hospital as of the last news article, and we're all hoping he comes out ok.

This, I think, set the tone for our S3/Junior field and everyone seemed to be racing safely. Unfortunately, with the delayed start and generally busy start area I was at the back of the staging area. I was in the wind and fighting my way up from the start as a result. The heat was also getting to my stomach, at 28° and humid. As such, when we hit the hills the first time I promptly went backwards, and by the 3rd one turing on to Safari road, I was losing contact.

From there, I looked for other dropped riders to chase with but nobody would cooperate. Finally, toward the beginning of lap 2 I worked with a junior to get up to Rob Wilson of SRS and Jay Menard. The 4 of us rotated nicely until the junior fell off, and we continued to paceline the rest of the lap, losing Rob somewhere near the end of Brock Rd. With just Jay and I coming through the start, cramping all around, we decided that was enough and pulled out. It was simply a bad day on the bike, and my stomach was the main factor.

Next up on my racing schedule is the Tour of Bronte.

this time, really long time no blog!

2010-04-01T22:03:00.002-04:00

The reason for this is school. School that is about to end (for the foreseeable future). Being that this is the eve of race season the reports will start to flow, and within a month I should be back to regular blogging when my life returns to normal.

So for now, some thoughts on tomorrow:

It's the first race of the season for me (minus Frostbike, which I think of as part of my '09 season, periodization wise)
It's the first race for most Ontarians
Legs feel ok, numbers are looking good for April
I'm racing in a new category - looking forward to that for many reasons
Time to see where things really stack up!

So with that, see many of you tomorrow. It should be a great day for racing.

A detailed analysis of tubeless tires for cyclocross

2010-02-28T17:53:00.003-05:00

A topic that causes much contention on internet message boards, and is generally pretty interesting to a lot of people is that of tubeless tire setups for cyclocross. I would like to give a detailed look at where we are at with the technology, and where things might be headed.

Historically, tubulars have ruled the discipline, and for good reason. You can safely run them at pressures suitable for the amount of traction required, and even ride them flat to the pit if needed. Most importantly, good tubulars have extremely supple casings (on the order of 300+ tpi), so they conform to the ground extremely well aiding traction and comfort.

Clinchers on the other hand, offer anywhere from 60 tpi to 320 tpi casings, though somewhere around 120 is probably average. The ride of the nicer clinchers is better than the cheap ones, but still does not come close to the performance of tubulars. Also, running tubes (even latex) at the pressures required for cross almost invariably results in a pinch flat costing you the race. When this does happen, you can't really ride it to the pit because the tire is likely to peel off the rim.

The mtb world has been familiar with tubeless tires and rims for some time, and the technology is now quite mature. There are 2 camps, generally speaking:

UST which is a certified system encompassing a spec for both tires and rims. The rim and tire have matching bead profiles, which are much more square than conventional folding beads to give a secure lock. The tire includes a butyl layer - essentially a tube - so that it will hold air. The system may be used with or without sealant as a preventative measure from punctures.
Converted setups, which involve a rimstrip (originally Stan's Notubes, but now often simply a split innertube) and the use of sealant to seal both the tire/rim interface and the tire casing itself (if a non-UST tire is used).

Since sealant affords such good protection against punctures, almost everyone uses it in their tubeless tires and suddenly UST becomes a lot less attractive due to the extra weight of the UST-spec tires. This has led to the development of "tubeless-ready" tires, or those which have stronger/tighter beads but not an airtight butyl layer so they can be used tubeless with sealant at more competitive weights. Parallel to this, non-UST spec tubeless rims have been developed, most prominently by Stan's Notubes where the bead hook is designed specifically to hold on to non-UST beads in a much more secure way than option 2 above. In my mind, this is really the gold standard of tubeless setups, and thus 3 new distinctions are formed, each with loyal followers:

Those who prefer tubeless ready tires and rims (eg. Bontrager TLR setup, Hutchinson tubeless ready tires) with sealant, sometimes on UST rims.
Those who use Stan's Notubes rims, any clincher tire of their choice and sealant - with the rim being designed to fit standard tires tightly, a secure and reliable setup can be had without the weight penalties associated with UST and tubeless ready tires.
Those still using converted rims and tires - definitely becoming a minority, and IMO this setup does not have the same level of reliability at the bead interface, since it depends on a rimstrip to make a tight fit, rather than a special bead hook or tighter beads on tubeless ready tires.

So getting back to cyclocross from all of this: there are very few tubeless ready tires available, and no UST spec exists. As such, the primary systems in use to date are either converted rims or Stan's Notubes rims, both with standard tires. Performance, including bead security at typical cross pressures, has been an issue especially with converted setups. Most people using Stan's rims and some of the tighter tires do not have this problem.

This takes me to my inspiration for this post - having installed cross tires on my 29er wheels before, I notice that they have a great profile: wide and high volume, which is sure to increase performance.

Indeed this is what many tubeless users have been enjoying, since the only Stan's Notubes rim appropriate for cross has been the ZTR 355 29er rim, which is 24.4 mm wide (19 mm internal). The problem with this is having a wider rim means setting your brakes up for said rim, so when a standard road wheel is used they are not in the right place (far beyond what can be accounted for with a barrel adjuster). Also, at 410g the 355 is not really as light as it could be for cyclocross use. In response to this demand, Stan's has released a road/cross rim called Alpha 340, which is 22.35 mm wide (17 mm internal) and approximately 340 g. It also has machined sidewalls, which will improve braking greatly over the non-machined 355. This is still wider than the average road rim, but narrow enough that with careful setup one might be able to get their brakes to work with both using only a barrel adjuster. Unfortunately, much of the advantage of the wider rim has been given up, and I think if you were to really commit to tubeless use (i.e. switching all your wheelsets) that having a ~24 mm rim but with machined sidewalls and low weight would be ideal.

----

Lets consider however, the Alpha 340 as the best available tubeless rim for cross at the moment. Building these up fairly light with American Classic hubs and DT Revolution spokes 28h/32h front/rear you get a wheelset that is 1274 g ready to mount tires (incl. rimtape and valves). If we consider a typical high end clincher is 380 g and use 75 g of sealant per wheel, that amounts to 2184 g for the whole setup.

Now for a "typical" tubular setup of about the same calibre we'll take some Velocity Escape rims laced to the same AC hubs with DT Revolutions 28/32h. This comes out at 1327 g. Add some FMB tubulars (370 g each) + Mastik One glue (75 g for the pair), for a total of 2142 g. This is 82 g less than the top of the line tubeless setup above, and probably costs about the same when all is said and done (cheaper rims balance out more expensive tires).

So how does this wash out?

for similar money to a mid-range tubular wheelset (+ good tires), you can have the best tubeless setup currently available
the Alpha 340 rim is marginally wider than your average road rim - this is good for users who want to be able to use their road wheels or perhaps a set of tubulars they already own on the same bike, but this is not ideal if the goal is the best tubeless performance possible.
the tubeless setup is still dependent on low tpi tires, so the grip and ride will not be as good as tubulars until this situation changes. Low pressure performance is unknown at this point, with the rims not yet on the market for significant testing.
tubulars still come out lighter (though not by much, if you put the money into light tubeless wheels) and have inherent advantages (being able to ride them flat, etc.)

This shows promise for the tubeless camp, but it does not yet appear to be a viable idea for serious racing, considering that it costs as much as a set of reasonable tubular wheels and the best tubs you can buy and the performance is still less.

If we can get wide enough tubeless rims (dedicated cross rims, i.e. machined brake track, lightweight) and good supple clincher tires, ideally with beads optimized for tubeless use (i.e. tighter) there may be a case for making the switch, but at that point you have to commit all of your wheels to ensure brake compatibility.

In other words, we're not there yet. Keep buying those tubular wheels when the road racers dump them at the end of the season, and keep gluing up your Dugast/FMB/Challenge/Tufo tires with care, because it's the best we've got for the foreseeable future.

Escarpment climbing in Stoney Creek/Grimsby

2010-02-24T20:26:00.007-05:00

This past Saturday I headed out with a group of cyclists cobbled together via a series of emails Friday. There were riders of varied ability, and the goal was to head out at a social pace to Grimsby and climb the escarpment a few times, then head back at a similarly relaxed pace. Some folks are heading to South Carolina in a few weeks and wanted to prepare their legs. Myself, I just wanted to get the km in my legs and do some hard efforts on the hills. 3 of us headed out from Niagara Falls around 8:15 to meet the rest of the group in St. Catharines at 9.

After some discussion about what route to take, we departed and rolled through Jordan and Vineland, fighting the strong west wind the whole way. Our first ascent to the top of the escarpment came at Mountain Rd in Beamsville - a gentle climb for 3 km averaging 3.3%, with the steepest part at 12%. Manageable, and one of my favourites in the area. I pulled away from the group, not intentionally, but just wanting to climb the whole thing a bit above threshold. I expected Dan to give chase, but it was Shawn who started to close on me but never made it across. We spun easily at the top giving me a chance to eat while the rest caught up. From here it was along Ridge Rd toward Stoney Creek.

At our farthest point, we descended McNeely Rd, which was a very new experience to me. I've never done a descent with such steep and tight switchbacks, so needless to say it was a bit hairy. Then, we climbed back up. 3 of us did, anyway. The climb is 1.6km, avg grade of 7.1% with sections at 17.1%. Needless to say, tougher than any other climb in Southern Ontario. It didn't help that my winter bike has a single 42t, so I was climbing in 42x28 (approximately equivalent to the second last cog on my road bike, 39x23). That was fun. Down Fifty road, and into Tim Hortons we went as we were now quite hungry and ready for a break at this point.

Following the refueling stop, most of the group went back up Fifty Road (no easy climb but gentler than the others in the area) while the same 3 of us decided to climb Wolverton Rd. instead. Wolverton is 1.3 km, avg grade of 8% with sections at 17.2% - similar to McNeely but 300m shorter and thus a little steeper on average. Also, the steepest part is a long stretch at 16-17% about 3/4 of the way to the top that just about breaks your legs.

Once on top, we enjoyed a nice tail wind, the same wind we'd fought on the way out. This carried us home, which included one final climb up the shorter and gentler escarpment back home in Niagara. In total the ride was about 145 km door to door for me, with about 850m of climbing. Not bad for a "flat" area with no mountains or real hills to speak of.

Here is my ride data, as well as an elevation profile (with slightly different time/distance since it was from Shawn's GPS file - you can ignore the peak power, since that is some bogus thing calculated by the software - that file did not have any power data from either of us).

Sunday I did an easy 1h recovery ride on the trainer, and then it was a couple days off to tackle midterms and other school business.

Tonight, a few high(-ish) cadence intervals to work on form and to get the legs warmed up after a couple slow days:

Tonight's interval session

2010-02-17T22:00:00.004-05:00

I figure I'll start putting some numbers and figures up here for the data junkies, and the rest of you can just ignore it if you find it as boring as it really is.

I got on the trainer tonight for 90 minutes, including 2x20 minute blocks of "Sweet-spot" aka sub-threshold effort. This is just hard enough that it requires concentration, to maintain but doesn't really inflict pain, at least not all at once. The cumulative effect is pretty significant though, and it's one of the best ways to squeeze high TSS workouts into small blocks of time.

Here's the ride:

I was able to hold the wattage pretty well, and was even considering a 3rd effort but a tight feeling in my left leg that wanted some stretching and R&R put a stop to that idea. I was getting the feeling that if I pushed through it I'd end up straining it.

Back tomorrow with another workout, hopefully.

Joyride150 report

2010-02-14T21:17:00.003-05:00

This morning I headed off to Markham to meet up with a few friends at Joyride150, my first visit to the park. Upon arrival, I met with Brad and Jared and we set to work installing my old brakes on his new Gioda Espresso. Unfortunately his fork had IS tabs and I didn't have an adaptor for the front brake so we were only able to install the rear - but one brake is ok for a bike park, right? If you like skidding around corners it is. The bike looks beautiful and I'm sure Jared will be happy racing on it this summer.

I had my waivers signed at home so the membership card was a quick and painless experience. I paid my fees for the day and headed off to change. I put on arm warmers, but those came off after 1 quick warm-up lap. Throughout the day we would find the temperature quite comfortable when riding (even sweating a little when you get going on the pump tracks) but rather cold when you stop and are a little moist.

Overall the park was very fun and surprisingly XC friendly - the XC loop of course was good, with enough features to keep it interesting and a couple challenging features if you want to take the hardest line. Some relatively tame rock gardens (more like rock carpets?) but I still managed to crash trying to enter one parallel to the wood border, sliding along instead of rolling over it.

The pump tracks are a bit tight for the wheelbase of an XC bike, but are still fun and I found #2 to offer good enough flow to spend a fair bit of time on it. A few laps on the pump track are quite tiring and heavy on the upper body work. It's nice to mix them in with laps of the XC track.

The skinny lines are probably my biggest challenge, but I found I got significantly better over the course of the day. There's a nice progressive ground level line that goes right down to a 1.5" board in the front area. I was nailing that, so back to the sport skinnies I went - I can ride about half of them, half of the time. A few are completely beyond my reach right now, and the rest pose enough challenge to make it enjoyable and productive. I was happy to clean a few of them after a couple attempts, for sure.

Overall the park surprised me with what it had to offer for an XC rider, and also with how much space there was for a busy weekend day. While occasionally you'd get crowded or held up it was usually just a case of choosing another area for the moment and you'd have lots of space to yourself. I must say it was easy to log 4 hours of "training" and have it not feel laboured - I am tired, but since the load was distributed to my whole body my legs are not fried. That in itself is a great value to a racer who is doing base or the start of a build period. I will definitely return at least once this winter, and would be a regular visitor if I lived nearby.

Training update: winter singletrack, FTP testing, Joyride150

2010-02-13T17:23:00.007-05:00

The title pretty much sums up what I've been up to lately. Trying to log the hours between some scattered trainer rides and getting on the mtb whenever possible. Singletrack conditions have been excellent lately with the relatively low amounts of snowfall and consistently cold temperatures to keep the base frozen. Today's snow was just a little moist which made the grip so good it was almost like summer, as long as you stay on the little stripe.

Last weekend was the Frostbike winter mtb race put on by the Shorthills Cycling Club in Port Colborne. They did a fantastic job and for a first time race it went off perfectly. Much effort was put in through the week prior to pack it down with club rides and trail work sessions. The weather cooperated and as a result racers were treated to great conditions. I managed 4th in the U30 category, since they separate out the overall M/F winners (so really I was the 5th fastest time in U30, and 10th overall for the men, if I have it correct). I wasn't too concerned with my performance so it was fun to go out and hammer for 3/4 of an hour and see what came out in the end. Lap 2 stood no chance of bettering my time but I went out anyway to get more riding in for the day. Fitness was definitely not my limiter here, but rather bike handling - these trails are relatively technical and with the winter conditions required my full attention to keep going where I wanted to.

This past week I did my first FTP test for the year at home, and the results were more or less as predicted. I still think I could do better for pacing, and push harder overall so I expect the numbers to go up as I get used to the protocol. Also, I think once the testing moves off the trainer and outside it will be a little easier. I've got a number in mind that I'd like to see by race season and with the next 8 weeks of build I think it is within reach.

Finally, tomorrow I am off to Joyride150 for the first time. I figure I need to check it out sometime, and meeting up with Jared to sell some brakes was the perfect excuse. It sounds as though I'll be meeting up with a few other friends throughout the day, so it should be nice to check out the park and socialize a bit in between as well. Hoping to get ~4 hours on the bike but we'll see how quickly I tire out. I do have pretty much no upper body strength... I will report back afterward with my thoughts on the park.

Good news!

2010-01-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

I had a pleasant email arrive in my inbox today: the OCA High-Performance Committee approved my request to race Sr. Expert for MTB-XC and Senior 3 road this year. As I noted before, I chased that mtb upgrade last season and fell short with 258.4 of 260 required points. Based on my cyclocross results and desire to improve, the HP committee agreed that I was up to the challenge. Now I need to make sure my legs are too. Just 11 weeks until the first O-Cup!

Rebirth of my True North 29er

2010-01-28T20:08:00.002-05:00

Going back to a post from 14 April 2008, I wrote about my True North mountain bike, a steel 29er that Hugh put together for me, and the beginning of my custom bicycle experience. The bike took me through my first couple race seasons and certainly helped me to advance my riding. The rigid fork brought the same kind of fun to mountain biking that one gets riding a cyclocross bike on mtb trails, but there was still the forgiving cushion of a fat tire below. It certainly helped me hone my skills from nonexistent to capable, but for 2010 I thought I might try a suspension fork - it will supposedly make me faster. So I picked up a Fox F29, with the G2 offset spec'ed for Gary Fisher to regain some of the quick handling that will be lost with the resulting slacker angle on the bike since it was built around a non-suspension corrected fork.

Now I'm getting ahead of myself... sometime in summer '09 I was riding at the Hydrocut and feeling like I was unusually off with the amount of toe-overlap issues I was having on switchback climbs. Then on the ride home I noticed a strange tightness in the headset. Upon inspection when I got home, I noticed I'd bent the steertube of my steel fork. How, I don't know, but I guess it was one too many hard whoops taken without unweighting the front enough. Off I went to visit Hugh, and sure enough he said he could fix it. I borrowed a fork in the meantime, keeping me on the bike to finish my race season - excellent!

Toward the end of the '09 season, I noticed what might be a crack developing at one of the chainstay/BB welds. This too proved to be true, so with these two issues plus the increasingly worn paintjob, it was time for some work.

The folks at True North had the frame stripped, Hugh then repaired the fork and chainstay, and while he was at it I had him add provision for a front derailleur pulley like you might find on a cross bike. Then it was time for new paint. The result, this:

As you can see in the second and third photo, I'm running a double crank (Middleburn Duo RS-8) with a Dura-Ace 7800 front derailleur. The 2x9 gearing suits my needs perfectly, and the combination of this crank and derailleur is super light. The shifts with the D-A derailleur seem way quicker than when I had an XT on there, too.

I'm going to save the detailed parts listing for a later date. The bike is currently built with the rigid fork and studded tires for winter riding. Once I get the suspension fork setup and summer tires on, I'll make another post complete with weight weenie spreadsheet. To tide the WWs over for now, as pictured it's pretty much right on 25 lbs. Swap out for race wheels and it's 21.8, or 23.3 with the suspension fork.

I am super excited to ride this bike again. The Frostbike is just over a week away, which should be a great way to bring the race legs back to life briefly :)

Plugging away

2010-01-26T23:10:00.003-05:00

Another slow update, as not much has been happening lately. Training is moving along well, though a bit lean on the hours still. Finding time is not the problem, but finding time to ride outside is. Motivation to ride inside is hard to come by this time of year, and unfortunately there's not even snow to hike/snowshoe in. Just rain and a sloppy mess. Hopefully that is changing this week.

I'm now 3/4 of the way through the study at UofG and have had a chance to work on my timetrial pacing among other things, when completing these sessions. Once I am recovered from the last set of biopsies I will do my first (proper) FTP test for the year to get the power zones dialed in. I'm feeling strong, so as long as I can stay healthy and start to bring in the intensity I should have a good start to the season.

My mtb frame should be finished tomorrow. I visited it today and they had just put the first paint on it. The repairs went nicely and the bike should be better than new. I'm looking forward to getting it built back up, and hopefully doing some winter riding this weekend if conditions allow. Possibly preriding for the Frostbike which is coming up in a couple weeks. I really hope they get good conditions for the first edition of this race. This weekend should be a good preview of what it will be like if frozen, but without a good base of snow - I'm guessing icy and bumpy. Studded tires and possibly my new suspension fork should make those conditions no problem, I hope.

Long time no post...

2010-01-17T23:20:00.003-05:00

Mostly because I haven't been doing much, especially to do with cycling. I've been doing a poor job of training, but haven't lost much fitness so as long as I get back on track now I should be ok.

While I'm writing, I might as well say a bit about the study I am doing at Guelph U. I am volunteering as a lab rat for a PhD student's study. She happens to be a notable racer on the Ontario Elite women's circuit, so of course there's lots of knowledge to be gained alongside my experience. In a nutshell, on 4 occasions (2 hydrated and 2 dehydrated) I ride for 90 minutes at a fixed proportion of my VO2max wattage, with 2 minute intervals every 20 minutes. Following this, I complete a TT equivalent to 6 kJ/kg which for me is 520-530 kJ, generally. The rest of the details are best left out until you can read the paper once published, but the above gives you an idea of what I am required to do.

So what have I gained so far? VO2max test was productive, as I now see my progress since I was last tested about a year and a half prior - this much was very good. Also, the TT portion of the trial is a good indicator for FTP, and the results so far have been surprisingly good (as far as I'm concerned). If I can get my shorter efforts up to the same calibre by race season, I stand to do quite a bit better than last year, I think... but of course numbers don't always translate directly to results.

That leads me to my next thought: I think I am now reaching the point where I could use a coach. Until now, I have felt that as a novice racer I can improve at a significant rate simply by riding lots, with a bit of structure and advice here and there. For beginners, there's no substitute for hours/km in the legs. I also had (and still have) some weight to lose, and this has had more bearing on performance than optimization of my training. Now that I've had a couple years to develop in this way, I am asking myself questions I no longer have the answer for. I see numbers that seem higher than my results would imply, so perhaps it will take a coach to direct my effort toward getting those results. We'll see.

As for the 2010 season, I'm still working on setting goals and finding it very difficult. The structure is more or less laid out and I know that I'll basically race the XC O-Cup series and a couple select events, ultimately building toward a strong cross season. I may aim to peak for Nationals, and I definitely hope to do more racing in the New England race scene where a strong B field offers a lot of close competition at my level, rather than the huge disparity of ability within the relatively small number of racers in Southern Ontario.

I will eventually get some concrete race schedule stuff up here, as well as more thoughts on my training plan/goals. Also, look for some posts containing the upcoming rebuild of my 29er and road bikes - both frames are in getting fixed up and repainted and will be put back together in a spiffy new way over the next month or so.

2009: year of the crash

2009-12-29T14:44:00.004-05:00

It's a little early, but I'm going to do my year end summary now. Click here for last year's. I'll start by addressing the subject matter of the title - I don't think I've had a year or even known someone else who had a year with so many crashes. Not just laying the bike down in a corner but full-on nasty incidents that break skin and equipment.

Most painful crash: definitely the one on Pelham road in the summer. Put a spirited club ride, triathletes and recreational riders on a twisty descent at the same time, and you get a mess. A mess that left a couple people pretty badly injured (broken collarbones, etc.) I left some skin on the road, ruined a saddle and a rim and generally felt banged up from that.

Most irritating crash: this is almost a tie - 1st place is the final km of the Good Friday road race. I'd hidden myself in the pack all day and was fresh coming over the last drumlin. I made the selection of a group of maybe 10-12 that would contest the sprint, and we were ramping it up on the last section of road. Strung out single file, I was maybe 5th wheel and somehow the 2nd or 3rd guy manages to go down taking a few of us out. I couldn't be more angry, and still am that I didn't get to see how I'd do. 2nd place is the piece of tape taking me out at the Riverdale cyclocross on lap 2. Again, I was having a good race and got taken out. This one I was not so angry about though, because it wasn't caused by someone else's incompetence.

Other notable crashes:

Bike the Bruce ended with a crash in the pack about 2 km from the finish. I was only mildly involved with a broken spoke and no injury, but Jef Perry was in the ditch with a broken collarbone and Rob Visser's bike ended up hanging in a tree like it was posed. Not a fun way to end a good race.
Just today, I was riding a pretty sketchy snow covered descent in Shorthills PP, on my cross bike thinking it was no worse than on my mtb. The front wheel hit an icy root and went sideways, and my head and hip hit a tree. Also no fun.
100k Hamilton area mtb ride - an MTBR tradition, turned into a 5ok ride for Brandon and I after I overcooked a gravel corner on a quasi-road section in Dundas Valley. I left Jeff with only minor scrapes, but Brandon took himself out good trying to avoid me (we never made contact, as far as I know) ending with some road rash, and I tacoed my rear wheel. Much smashing and turning of nipples later, I had a wheel that at least wasn't rubbing the frame as it spun, but it was super wobbly. Brandon and I spun back to the car mostly via roads leaving the others to finish the ride properly.

With the crashes out of the way, we can move on to better topics.

Best bike I raced on in '09: I think the True North Ti/carbon cyclocross bike takes it. It made it through 20 cross races with no issues, and performed as well as I could expect a bike to.

Best new component purchased: FMB tubulars - I rode a set of the SSC for many of the season's cross races and they were really fantastic. I liked them so much, I'm importing a bunch of them for some friends and local racers as well as myself. Runner up goes to the Vittoria Open Pave CG tire, my new favourite and go-to for almost all paved (and not so paved when I feel like it) riding. Not the lightest but very comfy, fast and reasonably durable. I'd really like to try the new 320 tpi version next year, or possibly the tubular version of the Pave.

Best race performance: although I have some good results, the best race was not necessarily the best result on paper - not even the most memorable, my best performance objectively speaking was probably at the Good Friday road races. Having more early season fitness than other guys in my category, I rode a really good conservative race and had more to give at the end than I should have. Runner up in this category is probably the Oktoberfest CX where I was back and forth with Noah all race, both of us hitting the ground a few times but me just once too many to go for the win. I am really happy I was able to drive that race and chase back after each crash.

Best overall ride: again, it's one memorable enough that I wrote a blog post for it. Club rides are almost always enjoyable, but riding in a 5 man break for an hour where I am clearly the greenest is a great experience, and being able to pull through and hang until the leadout for the sign sprint was a great feeling.

That's all. Not as many categories as other year end summaries, but I've tried to capture content in each that was significant to me. Here's to another great year in 2010.

Christmas cycling stuff

2009-12-27T13:28:00.001-05:00

So it's the time of year where most people in North America obsess over gift giving, etc. and thus I have a few goodies worth mentioning, care of my family.

Before I get to that, I'll provide the training update. 72km of salty wet roads this morning, 2 coffees, 1 baked good. Fenders are really necessary in this stuff. My chain sounds like a sandbox, but otherwise the bike takes it pretty well. So far I'm 1 week into the 2010 training plan and actually on schedule... that may be a record. Hoping to get out for a ride tomorrow, off road if things are frozen enough.

Now, on to the Christmas stuff:

- MSR Denali snowshoes. Humourously enough, we have no snow now, but last winter I did some winter hiking and would have done more if I had snowshoes for the day after fresh snowfall. These should be great for stomping around in the powder.

- Embrocation Team Issue non-warming embrocation by Mad Alchemy as well as the Embrocation Team socks by Swiftwick. I needn't say more. I haven't even done a ride in these socks and I want to get our team on board with some Swiftwick Four Ole socks (or maybe the Merino version?)

- not cycling specific, but I got a large Stanley socket driver/wrench kit, which is excellent. About 5 of the 211 tools can be used on bikes, and Stanley is a key sponsor of the US Gran Prix of Cyclocross so this makes the blog.

- a pair of Smartwool medium weight hiking socks. I love these, and they are my go-to sock for winter activity.

All in all, lots of good stuff.

Christmas Eve ride with some Hub folks

2009-12-24T12:01:00.000-05:00

Before heading back to my parents' for Christmas I joined Mr. 5, John Stewart, Shaw and Mike from the Hub for a 2.5-3h spin around the Campbellville area. I have no idea where we were for most of the ride, but it was great nonetheless to be out.

I was falling off the pace on the rollers - maybe I could have stayed on with some effort but at this time of year it's not what I need to be doing, and everyone was good about waiting - basically doing their own thing to manage the effort. Base training is really hard to do in groups, especially with varied abilities but a good group of people makes it easier to adjust to suit everybody's needs as best as possible. In this case that meant leaving John Stewart on the front for most of the ride to pull us around.

We took a couple photos on a particularly nice road, but neither shows all 5 of us since someone had to man the camera:

Training update: winter riding begins for another year

2009-12-20T19:48:00.005-05:00

It's been a good week for training, or at least a good weekend to cap off a week that started slow in the riding department:

Thursday was an easy 1 hour spin on the trainer while catching up with some cross footage from earlier in the season.

Friday I had a VO2max test at U of Guelph for a study I will be participating in there, which is conducted by Heather Logan. This is going to be an interesting experience, as I always learn a lot being a lab rat. Numbers are ok - way up from last time I did this test about 1.5 years ago. The downside is my weight is up from the beginning of cross season by about 4 kg, so I'll try to lose that as soon as possible and then gradually drop from there into the race season. 80 kg by the first O-cup maybe?

Saturday was my first SCCC club ride in awhile, and the turnout was low to match the temperatures. 6 of us rode the usual Saturday route to Smithville. I think my forehead froze. When I heard that there was a mtb ride option for Sunday I decided this would be less cold and more fun, and borrowed a set of cross wheels from Shawn since the only bike I had with me was a cross bike with road tires.

Sunday's ride was a good one. A few hours in the usual trails around St Catharines, trying to keep up with some quick mtb riders on my cross bike. The single 42t was a bit much, but I made it up everything I realistically could have expected to. Maybe a bit too much intensity for the legs at this point, but it was worth it. A couple hours of nap time with the compression tights after has my legs feeling ok. I may get a short core session in today before bed.

Monday is off, dictated by Tuesday's dry run for the study at Guelph. I may do some more core work if I get bored. Tuesday will be the first run of the protocol for the study: 90 minutes at a fixed intensity (70% of VO2max power), followed by a 6kJ/kg TT. I'll be doing this weekly for a month in January, which should be good for the sum of my intensity for the week leaving me to do easy rides and hiking to make up the rest of my base in that time.

Hespeler GP race report

2009-12-13T19:06:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I headed down to the Hespeler Arena to help the other Hub folks set up for today's cross race. Cold and frozen, the ground was not too receptive to stakes. Once we got things figured out, and found the softer spots things started going a little better. We got about 2/3 of the course staked and about half taped before light started fading and we were all getting cold. The remaining work seemed manageable for the morning.

I had planned to help with setup today but was wiped out from Saturday and opted to sleep in. I rolled into the arena around 10 to talk to some of the morning racers and get suited up. I decided to get dressed in my cycling gear nice and early since it would be just as warm as jeans and a coat. Rolled around during the 11 o'clock race cheering and heckling.

The last couple laps were done in freezing rain/hail, causing me to retreat to the car. I got out after it let up a bit and started my preride in some drizzle. Lots of running sections, some nice fast ridable sections and lots of power stuff. As expected. I didn't really plan to take the race too seriously, but I was going to give it a shot and at least get a good training ride out of it.

A training ride it was indeed. On the first lap I gapped a couple folks and hoped to stay with Jarrod but he and Brusso were riding away from me. I kept Jay behind me for awhile before he found himself on my wheel and stayed there for a lap or so. We were pretty well matched but he was making far fewer mistakes than me. I think I was actually riding a hair faster, when I was riding but I would lose that advantage whenever I messed up. At some point he came around and I stayed on his wheel for another lap or so. Eventually, he rode me off the wheel again due to small mistakes, sliding out in corners and such. I had enough gas that I thought I'd be able to catch him, and just at that point I made a critical mistake on a running section and went down hard. I scraped my knee, and the pain made for a slow re-start to my chase. By the time I got up to speed again Jay was gone and the ride was now just to finish and get a good training ride in so I toned things back on the slippery corners and tried to ride as smoothly as possible.

Box and Chown came by during my 2nd last lap, making it my last as I'd hoped as I watched them catching me on sections where the course had looped back on itself. I rolled in for 6th, though there was some confusion about placings due to lapped riders. In the end, just one spot out of the podium and I would have liked to challenge Jay for that. If it was in the midst of cross season I would like to think I could have stuck with Jarrod longer, but then again he's probably in off-season mode too.

All in all a good training ride and fun day putting on a race with the Hub Race Team.

2010 training begins, and my thoughts on compact cranks

2009-12-06T18:10:00.003-05:00

Today I woke up to an email from Joel who was to be my riding buddy for the day, saying that the roads looked pretty slick. Content to go back to bed, I believed him. I woke up around 11:30, and things were looking better so I started getting motivated to head out. I finally got dressed and out the door around 2pm, and hit the road on my cross bike complete with 24c Vittoria Open Paves and a 50/36 compact crank.

I ended up riding out to Bamberg and back, a rolling out and back that takes me a little over an hour in the summer, and about 1h20 today. It was a great day for a ride, with the temperature hanging around 0° and relatively clear roads. Only a couple times was I a little hesitant riding through some snow or icy looking patches. It felt good to get out for a road ride and in general to ride without going hard the whole time. Cross season really is a strange period for training - it has me so used to riding only at high intensity, or at a recovery pace. It was nice to ride some easy tempo for a bit.

It was also my first road ride all season on round chainrings. Overall I think it'll be good to move back to them for awhile. It felt a lot less stressful on the quads (because I was likely not pushing as large a gear, and the ratio is not effectively higher in the power stroke) and only took some minor thought into a good pedal stroke. I think the Q-rings have their place, but for me as a developing rider it's not the right time to switch over completely.

Now on to the compact gearing. I was riding 50/36 with my usual 11-26 road cassette out back. I really had no idea what to do with the front derailleur most of the time. The 50t was too much for the rolling hills at base efforts, and the 36 was a huge jump down. I eventually figured out that using the 50 for descents and tailwind sections and the 36 for everything else was the best compromise. Lots of 36x13, 14, 15 type gearing going on - something I'd normally avoid with a 39t on my road bike. I did enjoy the 36x26 for going easy on the hills at this time of year, but I also hit 120rpm or so in the 50x11 on some pretty tame descents. For the flat to rolling terrain we have in Ontario, I really don't see compact gearing as a viable option on a proper road bike. The common 50/34 is only worse in this respect.

The plan for this crank is to run a tight 36/42 combo for cross racing, and basically to stay in the 42 most of the time like a single ring. It came with 50/36 chainrings and I plan to leave the 50t on for some road riding over the winter and for Paris-Ancaster (if I even do P-A?)

Non-race report: Subway CX

2009-11-29T23:36:00.004-05:00

I didn't race today, but I did go to the race so I figure I'll write a bit. Rolled in at the beginning of the 10 am race, saw Stephen go by quite quickly. That had to be a podium in M3? We'll see when the results are up. Chatted with some of the usual cross folks for a bit, the recurring topic being why I wasn't racing. My answer is that I'm finally taking a break. I thought all week about racing but decided to spend one on the sidelines, and after doing so I don't regret it.

The elite race was a great one to watch, with a front group stringing out early behind Morse, all the usuals in tow: Box, Stafford, Chown and Watson. Not far behind was Brusso and Mancini and a few others. Ah yes, Sam. He wanted to do the Elite race, and was told he had to win his Junior race first - and did so in style after flatting and chasing back. He sat in that lead group for about half a lap, then began falling back. After 2 laps, about to be caught by Mancini he pulled out, apparently having thrown up in the bushes. Nice.

Back to the front, Chown was there setting the pace with Box and Stafford in tow, Morse and Watson a few seconds behind. Then he flatted, leaving him chasing back to Morse. That would basically set the stage for the battle of the day, Box v. Stafford. It appeared they might come to the line for a sprint, but the last couple laps saw Erik pull away slowly opening a gap that would stick to the end. A well deserved win for him, after so many close ones. I'll let Watson off the hook because he's already taken a break from the 2009 season and is starting for 2010 as he explains over here.

I'm enjoying that post-season break right now, and will bring the tubulars out once more for Hespeler in a couple weeks. Other than that it will be riding when I can and trying to fix all the damage racing has done. I'm really looking forward to getting back on the base plan and racking up the kilometers for 2010. Time to start planning (ok, much of the planning has already been done). I'll start talking about next year's schedule soon.

CSAJ Riverdale Cross race report

2009-11-22T21:21:00.002-05:00

Today I racked up my first (and I suppose only) DNF of 2009. The photo below says it all:

Lap 1 went really well - started a little slower than usual, seeing if settling into a spot I think I could finish with worked better. It seemed to, as I finished lap 1 feeling good and started to pick up the pace to try to catch the next man, only metres ahead. Out of the baseball diamond spiral I stood up to accelerate, just got up to speed and saw a flapping piece of broken course tape. Then I was on the ground. I guess the tape grabbed my handlebar and pulled the bike out from under me.

It was a mess, with the brake cable housing actually out of its stop and such. I fixed that, then shouldered the bike for the runup since I was more or less at the base. Remounted at the top, only to find my chain off. Fixed that, got going again, but by now the majority of the M1 field had passed and the Seniors were long gone. After pedalling along for a bit longer and looking at the increasing amount of blood coming from my knee, I decided to call it a day. I let Steve and Al know I was done, and went about cleaning up my leg. After a brief wipe with some TP at the washroom I figured some first aid would be wise, and got helped out with a proper cleaning and some gauze.

Now that I'm home and showered, it's not so bad but I put some 3M Tegaderm over the wound in hope of fast and clean healing. I'm getting quite good at this after my road season this year...

Back to the race, the St. Catharines folks had a good showing with Geoff winning the S3/4 race, Brandon Etzl sprinting to a win in the Junior race, Aly taking 2nd in master women and Nathan dominating the Sr. mens race. The course was pretty good, with the long runup and another climb taking up the majority of the time, and the rest being a mix of straightaways and spirals on the flats. Not a very selective course, so it came down to who had good legs... which I did, and I think I would have done well, perhaps not getting lapped by Nathan which would have been a first since upgrading this year. That said, I am content with my season and was not necessarily out to accomplish or prove anything in particular. I'm very much undecided about racing next weekend. On one hand, the legs are there and it would be nice to finish the season on a high note. On the other, my head has really not been in the racing lately and I have little left to do with my season. Goals passed and fitness maximized, I really need to change gears and get back to the longer hours in the saddle for next year's preparation. I guess I'll have an answer by next Sunday!

USGP Mercer Cup Day 2 and recap

2009-11-16T17:45:00.000-05:00

Day 2 began with me feeling quite a bit less sick than when I went to bed, but not generally feeling too fresh. This is typical for the second day of a double weekend, and with running around the pits and such a bit of extra fatigue was expected. The plan was largely the same for Sunday as I was racing at the same time - a stop for coffee and a breakfast bagel, sign on for the day, warm up, race, then work the pits and spectate. The course had been changed a little, with some sections cut out, some new turns added and a few sections run parallel to the previous course. Still, a lot was the same and there would be many sections that would be a muddy slow grind. Luckily I had a pit bike care of Marc Boudreau (and pedals for it c/o Natasha Elliott) so I was not as worried about the mud as just a tough second day of racing.

The weather took a considerable turn in the warm and sunny direction, so I was able to warm up in shorts and a jersey. I spun up and down the road through the park and did a few starts and hard efforts. I got to staging a bit earlier and got into place with my callup - 2 places better than the day before (i.e. same spot, basically). It turns out the guy beside me was 5th on Saturday and wasn't too happy that they didn't award any callup priority based on results from the previous day. I can't say I disagree with him. The whistle came up pretty fast, and we were off. I didn't really have a bad start, but I also didn't move up much at all so I basically hit the grass in about 50th or so. That was fine, because I found I moved up a lot easier on the grass than on the start Saturday. This did work, and on the hairpin bottleneck that everyone ran I got through quickly and gained probably 10 spots. I rode myself up another 5 or 10, easily into territory I could not sustain (top 30). As soon as we hit the flats I started falling back, and probably hit about 50th again - back where I belonged(?)

This was fine, but I felt like I was really just out for a ride and not really racing. My heart rate was not up and I couldn't get motivated to get going since my legs were still working hard to push through the mud. I pitted after 1 lap to get on a bike without so much mud, but right away the bike all over the place in the rear. I figured I just wasn't used to Marc's bike and the other tires weren't quite as good in the mud, but once I hit a less muddy section it became apparent that there was little to no air in my rear tire. Since it was my own tire, I decided to risk riding it out, trying to keep the weight over the front and limped into the pits. I think this is probably where I lost the rest of my places, only a handful of which I'd get back in the end. Rode into the pits and got my bike back, and was off. A lap later I pitted again and got the bike with the same rear wheel so I figure they must have got it to hold air. Ran most of the off camber by the expo this time and then pitted again to finish the race on my bike. With the bell lap upon me, for some reason my body decided to start racing and I was picking off a few guys here and there. Maybe got 1/3 of the spots I lost riding the flat to roll in for 63rd, 12 worse than Saturday, feeling like I hadn't really done much.

It turns out my 'flat' was the result of the valve being open or something like that, because the tire held air after that and appears to be fine. Thank goodness for tubulars. The same event on a clincher would have been a DNF because I was not running half a lap, and there's no way you can ride a clincher flat like that.

As for the rest of my day, I helped Alex out in the pits a bit and then got Jared's bike ready to pit for him in the Elite race. Watched the Elite Women go, and by now things were considerably drier and faster. Katerina Nash put on a good show, dropping Dombrowski to take another win. On to the men, I was pitting for Jared but it was clear from the Women's race that there would not be much action there unless there was a mechanical. Bikes were coming in clean and the course was only drying up. The pit was actually a good vantage point to watch from when it wasn't busy, so I got to watch Tim Johnson put in a huge effort halfway through lap 1 to drop everyone and solo away to victory. The battle for the rest of the top 5 was quite interesting with Trebon, Wells, Kabush and Driscoll swapping spots a few times and working on gapping each other before the finish. The remainder of the top 15 was a good show as well with DSJ riding himself into 11th for the next best Canadian showing behind Kabush.

The drive home was long and we had quite a hard time getting propane for the van after 2 am. We ended up making it into Toronto at the very end of our range and finding some fuel. It's amazing how many truck stops were either out of propane or had no staff on hand at night who were licensed to pump it. It was 6 before we got to Waterloo, barely able to stay awake and having to work just hours later. I got an hour of sleep and showered before heading to work. Needless to say, it was a long couple of days. I'll be resting up again this week, as at this point in the season I'm pretty much coasting on what fitness I have and trying to hold on to my form for a couple more weeks. The last few races should be very fun and largely low-key, though it should still be some good racing.

USGP Mercer Cup Day 1 report

2009-11-14T22:33:00.002-05:00

I don't think I will be able to write much before I feel like sleeping, so I'll do a brief report today and a full report of the weekend later.

Today's race went reasonably well considering course conditions and my cold. I got to the race and got my number/chip and then back to the van to get dressed. There was no question about tire choice or pressure - it was Rhinos as low as I cared to run them. Rather than risk loading up the bike with mud in my warmup, I skipped a preride lap and did some sprints on the pavement near the course while the 3/4 women raced. I wasn't really concerned about getting much effort in so much as spinning up the legs to get moving, so the warm-up was kept short.

Onto the starting grid I got to experience the size of my field. With something like 83 there, it was the biggest start I've done. I was pretty much right in the middle, maybe 8th row. Zipped off the tights and jacket and passed them off, and we were away. The start was long and paved, and it was only halfway up the paved section that I heard bikes hitting the ground - luckily behind me, so I just kept pedalling! Into the grass things were good and I was moving up. Through the technical bit I rode right past a bunch of guys who were either running or sliding out. Nice! I was probably sitting top 30 at this point, but once we hit the muddy, bumpy slog through the field I started dropping back rapidly to guys with more fitness. Settled in and most of lap 2 and 3 were spent gaining/losing less than 5 spots. I picked it up on lap 4 and caught a couple guys I'd let go, but of course others had the same idea and likewise passed me.

And that was it... rolled in after 4 laps of about 10 minutes each, and I figured I had no idea how I did. Turns out it was 51st, which is better than I expected coming into the weekend. I'll take it. Tomorrow's goal: top 50 ;)

After my race, I got changed and checked out the Expo a bit. I got a sweet Stanley coffee mug, and got it filled with beer for free (this was part of the promotion). Enjoyed some frites and chicken fingers (ok, not really belgian frites, but french fries).

Then it was over to the pits to see how Alex was doing. I helped him pit for Natasha Elliott, since the pressure washers were hit and miss and half of the laps you had to wash the bike by hand. More of that in the Elite race where I was pitting for Jared Stafford - terrible service at the wash station! What a joke.

Pitting every half lap or every lap at minimum was a huge advantage, a huge advantage I didn't have. So for tomorrow, even though the weather is supposed to be better, I've secured a mix of borrowed gear to use: a bike from Marc Boudreau, and pedals from Natasha Elliott since she's the only person I knew with Looks. Thanks for hooking me up! No more 40 lb bike for the last half of the race.

New Jersey bound

2009-11-11T17:45:00.000-05:00

For those who don't already know or haven't picked up on it in my race schedule to the right, I am headed to Trenton, NJ this weekend to race at the USGP Mercer Cup. The USGP is one of the two major series in US cyclocross (the other being NACT) and while Verge and Cross Crusade races may get some pretty huge turnouts there's no field quite as stacked as a USGP Elite race. Thankfully, unlike our local races in Ontario the USGP has something between the Elite and Cat 4 races - the 'Killer Bs' as it is called. This is every Cat 3 plus all the Cat 2s who don't feel like lining up with the pros. Needless to say I've got my work cut out for me, but it's going to be amazing racing no less than 90-100 other guys at once.

I'm traveling to the race with Soigneur Race Services, along with a few other Ontario riders (a couple of masters and up and coming U23 powerhouse Jared Stafford). It is sure to be a great weekend of racing, recovering and watching the Pro/Elite men and women.

So what does the week before entail for me:
- almost zero riding, as I'm on the tail end of a LONG season and had a tough double weekend (the 4th in a row, in fact)
- 8 months of tension in my hamstrings and hip flexors relieved in 30 minutes by my RMT (awesome!)
- clean up the bike and wheels a little better than usual
- new bar tape!
- trying not to get sick, though it has been tough this year and I feel like I need all the sleep and vitamins I can get right now

I believe the hotel has free wi-fi and I should have lots of time so I intend to do updates Friday/Saturday evenings and then Sunday or Monday evening I'll get my Sunday recap up.

Race Reports: Nassagaweya and Barrie

2009-11-09T21:56:00.003-05:00

First up this weekend was the Nassagaweya Narly Cyclocross (aka Garrett's farm).

I was unsure about racing both days this weekend until Thursday night with a good workout and a bit of peer pressure making me think it was a good idea. Off to the farm near Moffatt on Saturday morning, the drive was largely pleasant as I made my way through Puslinch and Aberfoyle. I got there just in time to hear the whistle go for the 10 am race, in which a few friends from SCCC were doing their first "real" cross race. I set up my trainer at the top of a grassy hill where I could warm up and spectate simultaneously, then walked around and chatted with some people for awhile. Hung around the finish to see how everyone's race went (Dan won!) and then hopped on the trainer for the first couple of laps of the 11:30 race. It was a great vantage point as I could see about half the course and cheer folks on as they went up the small hill after the pits. After considering not doing a pre-ride lap I eventually did head out for one quick loop.

Lining up for my race the field was small, but bigger than expected for a low-profile race such as this. A few of the fastest guys were there (Watson, Chown) but many were missing. Still plenty of people faster than me, and a few whom I thought I might have a good race with. After some light start line banter, Steve blew the whistle and we were off - make that I was off the front. Why? I have no idea! I led up the runup and continued until the bumpy run-in to the woods where I promptly dropped my chain and watched the whole field ride away. This was extremely frustrating, and of course it took far longer than it should have to get it back on.

(photo credit R. Watt)

Chasing from this far back was extremely demoralizing and I wasn't feeling particularly fresh. I made a deal with myself that if I didn't catch anyone by the end of my first lap I would pull over. Of course I had to lose that deal and caught ChrisZ just in time. So off I went, feeling progressively less like DNFing but still not great. I picked off a few more riders, and plugged away. Only Watson, Chown and Mogg lapped me, which was good. The entire last lap was spent fighting off cramping in my quads, which the 6 dismounts did not help with. Every time my leg was straight coming over the saddle to remount it would lock up.

(photo credit R. Watt)

Rolled in for 7th, which was fair enough. I would have liked to race back and forth with Stephane as we seem well matched, but the dropped chain meant I would not see him for the rest of the race. Back home to clean up the bike for Sunday's race.

(photo credit R. Watt)

Barrie CC Cyclocross @ Hardwood Hills

Much like the Kelso weekend, Saturday evening didn't leave a good feeling in the legs for Sunday, but by morning with some food and rest everything came around a bit. I headed up to Hardwood with SRS and some folks from the SRS team and Hub Race Team. We rolled in just as the 10 am race was finishing so I had a chance to wish the 11:30 racers a good one and start getting changed.

I got setup and hopped on the course for a couple laps after the 2nd race was done. Right away the false flat start leads into a fast section with a sandy turn and then the big sandy climb. Rode it clean in preride but knew I wouldn't have the legs to do that every lap. A fast descent led into a technical sandy section with lots of 180s and a spiral, then another climb like last year with the mean tape chicane that sucks all of your momentum. A fast descent into another moderately technical sandy 180, fast power section around the reservoir and into the barriers. After that the 2nd half of the course was all typical Hardwood: wood chips, false flat doubletrack and a couple more loose turns. All in a fast course on which I'd be turning 8-9 minute laps even with a full 3km or so length.

We were lined up way too early for the start, so again lots of banter on the line. I was in the front row between Mark Batty and Erik Box. I really should have rolled back and let someone faster up there, but there was nobody asserting themselves so I stayed. Off the whistle Erik missed his pedal and we locked bars, but a little shoulder to shoulder leaning and we were both good. I hopped on near the back of the main group but was struggling with the pace and hoping there would be some separation.

Of course that separation came in the form of the sandy climb, but instead of splitting the group it totally strung it out. Batty was off the front, and I was barely clinging to a wheel. Noah, who was doing his first race of the 1 pm start got away from me somewhere in there and I was determined to reel him in. Determined enough, apparently, to put in an 8:07 for lap 2 - if only I could have done those all day! I got his wheel and quickly came around as I was feeling pretty good. Looking back to see he was still on my wheel, I saw him in the bushes but didn't hear much carnage so I kept going figuring I'd hear the story later.

That was pretty much all - put it on cruise control, lap times were getting gradually longer. Coming through for 4 I was shown 5 to go and I must say that was pretty discouraging. Later that lap Watson came by so I felt a little better knowing it was only 4. Up the second climb on one of my later laps I was greeted by teammate Joel and Emily Batty - I guess Emily was there to cheer on her brother. I must say her recommendation for a good line on the climb didn't seem too good, because I didn't make it and had to dismount 3/4 of the way up :P

(photo credit Mike Clark)

Rolled in for last place, aside from a few DNFs, but felt pretty good as there was really nowhere to hide in that crowd today. Everyone there deserved to be in front of me, and they were. It would have been good to race Noah, but I guess after his crash he was not feeling great and pulled off. Sounds like he may have the sickness that is going around, so hopefully he'll recover from that and we'll be back to usual in a couple weeks at Riverdale.

One more weekend down, and now on to the big one as I'm headed to Trenton, NJ for the USGP this weekend.

SRCC Hallowe'en CX Stage Race - Report

2009-11-02T12:01:00.001-05:00

This weekend Speed River CC hosted Southern Ontario's only cyclocross stage race. Of course it's not a stage race in the sense that it includes different types of events, like what was tried out in Oregon this year.

Tim and his crew design some wicked courses, always sure to break your legs and make you smile. Alright, I'm not entirely sure I smiled during the race at all Saturday, but I guess I did afterward.

Day 1 Report

Day 1 is the lower ground of the two courses, and with the rain we had this week it was sure to be wet. How wet? Well, I thought it wouldn't be that bad looking over the section of course near the start/finish when I got there, but after I headed out for my pre-ride lap I hit the first couple corners and turned straight around to go switch to my Rhinos in the pit. Little did I know what came later.

Mud

So the course was basically some muddy but easy enough turns on the bottom, then up a climb, down a bit, then up some more into some thick grass which at some point (different for varying levels of skill, strength and pain) became a runup. For me that was right at the bottom after about lap 2. On top were some sloppy turns and puddles, followed by the nastiest headwind section ever - I think the wind was a lot stronger later in the day, as our lap times are not as much faster as usual compared to the earlier races. After the false flat/headwind section it was down a somewhat sketchy paved/gravel service road descent, some more muddy turns then into the area by the start. A short ride up/down loop, a few 180s and the double barriers and that's a lap. 11 minutes of pain, at the rate I was going.

Aweful runup

My race was fairly uneventful and basically consisted of trying to go fast, blowing up on the runup, and finding some legs somewhere after the descent to ride the 180/barrier section at a reasonable pace.

Barrier shot

Got lapped by Watson and 4 others making it a 6 lapper for me. I was racing back and forth with Stephane until his derailleur blew up, which is really unfortunate. For me however, this left me with a large gap behind to the next Sr racer and not much chance of catching anyone so it became a matter of survival. On that course it was enough of a challenge.

Day 2 Report

After day 1 I was at home feeling so tired that I was considering DNSing for day 2 if my legs didn't get any better by morning. Thankfully they did, and though I was a bit trashed as always after a hard Saturday race, my legs felt capable of at least starting a cross race.

Day 2 is on much higher ground, and is thus usually drier. Last year I raced day 2 but not day 1, so I was a little more familiar with the terrain. Tim mixed it up however since access to the runup off the beach was closed - he instead took us across a different short sand section and around the parking lot. Then on the face of the hill much of the off camber was replaced by one giant climb. The remainder of the course was similar - fast back and forth on the false flat in the main area.

Rode the sand cleanly/Watson about to lap me

Off the start I was doing well through turn 1 and into the barriers. I got caught in some inside traffic on the 180 that follows, but was hanging on the back of the main group up until near the finish line. Most of lap 1 and 2 I tailed Zach but he was just a little quicker. Lap 3 saw a big drop in my pace, and Zach just kept going. As the race went on my ability to climb the hill went down the drain, and my quads felt like they were about to lock up every time up the runup. I think I was just worn down, and it was really all I could do to sustain my pace and hold my position for the last few laps.

Much drier for day 2

So racing in elite is hard, but I definitely enjoy the challenge. I can already feel next season's goals and plan coming together, which is great. I'm not going to hammer any of that out in writing until the season is over, but it's great that I'm thinking that way. Plans for next weekend are still uncertain, but as of now it looks like I'm going to limit it to one race which is likely to be the Barrie Cross.

PHOTO CREDITS: Nial Fisher/Ines Meyer for all except sand shot (which was poached from Andrew Watson).

Training = fail

2009-10-30T17:30:00.000-04:00

I'm terrible for skipping workouts, that much I'll admit. It's very rare however that I don't succeed once I get myself into a chamois and on the bike. Last night I finally got around to doing the interval workout which I'd originally planned for Wednesday.

I was going to do 3x15m blocks at race pace (near LT) with 5 min recovery in between, but quickly realized I was going to have to cut back. So after a brief warmup I started the first interval hoping to do 10 minutes. At around 8 minutes the power dropped right off, but I finished it anyway. 5 minute recovery, and into the next interval... nothing there. The legs were just gone, so I pulled the plug, spun the legs for a couple minutes and packed it in.

In retrospect I probably didn't eat enough during the day, but even with more fuel I'm not sure I could have done the full 3x15 planned. Just a bad day on the bike.

These happen I suppose, so I'll probably do a short opener workout tonight and then put my legs up to rest for the weekend.

Southern vs. Eastern Ontario CX Challenge, round 2

2009-10-26T20:03:00.003-04:00

This year the two cyclocross series in Ontario met once again in Kingston, though this race is really more like an Eastern beries race that the rest of us are invited to, as it's run closer to them and by their rules.

The Eastern series has its good and bad points - the good:

It's big, more participation than Southern Ontario for sure
2 start format is basically Elite men and women, Master A & Juniors in one race, everyone else in another. This works really well for the novice riders and passably well for Master B/C/D. If they used ability based Masters and put 1/2 with Elites and 3 with Novices it'd be perfect. The Elite women really benefit from racing with a larger field and it's nice at the back of the Elite men to have some masters and women to ride with.
Pretty nice venue in Kingston, and from what I hear some good ones in Ottawa too

and the bad:

Not staked and taped, silly flags of death instead - tape keeps you honest, while flags let you go wide. Also yellow flags and fallen leaves look the same. Also, flags eat derailleurs. Thankfully none of mine yet.
Unnecessary barriers, way too many of them and terrible placement. The double barriers were good. The one before the climb beside the terrace was ok, definitely better than last year. The others were totally useless - they were uncomfortable for everyone elite to novice, and did not force selection. Instead they annoyed us. The one on the run-up should be placed at the bottom to force a longer run, or not at all to allow stronger riders to ride it. The one after the right hand turn/off camber is redundant, as the off camber is selective on its own. Dismounts at zero speed are stupid, and do not make the competition any more interesting.

Enough of my rant, and on with the race report.

Lining up with the A race, it was apparent that the race was smaller than last year, I guess in part due to Quebec provincials being the same day. Still, it was a nice size field with about 50 starters. People there are crazy, lining up well to the sides of the actual lane just to get a front row position. I'm not sure how it actually helps when you're that far off to the sides, but whatever. I lined up in the back but in a good spot to move up the centre past some slower starters. Sure enough, something happened right off the gun and people were on the ground right in the middle of the pack - I'd say at least 10 people. I narrowly got around them which helped my start as a bunch of people were caught behind. I don't think anyone was hurt, but it sucks to get messed up by such things.

Anyway, the first lap was one of follow the leader - hard because I was following riders faster than myself. I recall being around Brusso, Marc Boudreau and Nick. They all promptly dropped me part way through lap 1, but I was still going along well. First time up the paved climb to the start was very selective and I was gassed at the top - many people passed me at that point, but I probably settled in close to my real position which was good as I was then able to focus on riding a good tempo and holding off anyone else. I did this, and even reeled in a couple over the next few laps. I still felt terrible after every climb and runup, but I was railing the descents and powering the flats very nicely. I must say I felt like I was really going well, even though my lap times say otherwise. I did get complimented on my cornering by a spectator though, so I must have looked like I know what I'm doing.

Toward the middle of the race I was being pursued by 2 Ride With Rendall riders who were soon joined by my teammate Melissa. Seeing this, and determined not to be caught I picked it up and was able to hold them all off. I think Mel dropped one of them and I put enough time on all of them to ride within my limits. The last time down the terrace I dropped my chain and I was quite worried about the rider who was chasing, but I got it back on to finish 11 seconds clear of him, thankfully.

It was a really good experience to race in a large Elite field in Kingston, and though I felt terrible and slow I have to say it was a good race. Next up is the Speed River Halloween stage race at Kelso this weekend - definitely a highlight of the Southern Ontario scene. See you there!

Willow Beach Race Report

2009-10-26T18:47:00.001-04:00

On my way to Kingston for the Southern-Eastern CX Challenge, I had been planning to stop and race at Willow Beach. Of course a late night Friday catching up on some work and a lack of pre-registration nearly had me decide that sleep was a better option. With my new later race time racing Elite men, I was able to roll in comfortably in time to get dressed and think about warming up.

Warming up consisted of riding one lap of the course with a few others after the 11:30 race, and rather than warming up it really was more like cooling down with the amount of cold water/mud spraying up from the bike. Needless to say the course was downright soupy in spots. There were puddles that when pedaling your foot would become completely submerged in at the bottom of the pedalstroke, and there was mud deep enough that I didn't see anyone successfully ride it in at least one spot. With no traditional double barriers, there was still 3-4 places requiring dismounts: a set of stairs, a ditch that was risky to ride, deep sand coming off the otherwise-ridable beach and a muddy section too deep to ride. I attempted to ride the latter two, but was running them for all of my race laps. For more perspective check out some photos Wes took during the morning races.

The field was very small with 11 Elite men and 4 Master 1s, which was kind of nice as my first racing Elite. Still, there was enough depth that I'd have to work hard nonetheless. The start was surprisingly less crazy than expected and I found myself not far off of Erik's wheel, which I knew would not last. By the time we came off the beach I was back where I should be, in the bottom 1/3 or so trading spots with Wes and Jay.

For the most part the race was a battle against the elements, though I did succeed at dropping a few people and ended up having a decent battle with Jay. He had put some serious time on me at one point but I guess a rolled tubular cost him about half that gap, and a pull from an M1 helped slingshot me into the muddy slog in the field where I cranked along slowly, but fast enough to close down the gap. As we got back on our bikes Kyle Douglas came by, lapping us making our current lap the last. Happy to see this happen, we both pushed a bit harder, and in the end he came onto the lawn a bike length ahead of me to take 6th place, putting me 7th ahead of a few others - not last in my first Elite race, this is good.

I learned shortly after that Erik had hit his head on a tree and was strapped to a spinal board for safe measure. Turns out he spent a few hours like that but after a trip to the hospital and an x-ray, he was cleared with no serious injuries. We're all very happy to hear he's ok but this is just one more item to the list of bad luck he's had.

I cleaned off my bike a little in the lake, but even after this it was still muddier than it's been, and possibly muddier than my bike got in any cross race last year as well. After the drive into Bath to stay with Nick and Melissa at Nick's parents', I cleaned it off pretty well and set it to dry for the next day's race with the Eastern Ontario folk.

NACT Toronto International CX Day 2

2009-10-19T20:48:00.002-04:00

Day 2 brings a totally different course, built in and around a valley on the other side of the ski hill from day 1. The course is rolling, with punchy climbs, some off camber and again lots of turning, but overall much faster than the hilly course.

Warm up was uneventful, and still cold, but I felt ok. I opted for the Rhinos after doing a lap with the FMBs. In reality it probably didn't matter but the frost/dew covered grass was a little slick in a few corners and there was not quite enough straight stuff to balance it out. I hadn't brought my green Swiss Stops along, so I had to run the yellow pads on aluminum rims. I was unsure how it would go, but I'd heard it worked pretty well and I can say now that it's actually a really nice feel for cross. Maybe not as much power, but still plenty of it and lots of modulation.

On the start line the crowd was mostly the same, but Noah looked a lot more awake and Dave Brown was not a DNS today. I asked him about Saturday and I guess he was/is sick, and said he was out of shape. The start was far slower for me and I immediately knew my legs did not have any snap left in them after Saturday. I hit the grass about 5th wheel, and a last minute barrier addition to the course took us by surprise and Dave (who was leading) took a trip over the bars on a botched dismount leaving us all to funnel tight to the inside of the 180.

I was struggling to make contact with the front group of 4 which became two groups of 2 by the time they hit the run/ride-up loop thing, and I was off the back. I spent most of the race chasing and never really gaining. The interesting parts were that with 2 to go as I came onto the start/finish straight I could see 4th place at the other end, so a good hot lap and I might catch him. That didn't happen. Similarly, when the course doubled back on itself on the dirt road by the pit I could see Dave slowly gaining time on me each lap. He was probably about 30 seconds back with 3 to go, but was closing about 10-15 seconds a lap.

I hit it pretty good on the bell lap to hold him off, but some masters bumbling their way up the up-down-up climb slowed me enough for him to just about make contact. He was a few bike lengths off me through the valley and just as I came on to the gravel I realized it was going to be a sprint finish. I tried to use the small gap I had to hold him off, but after two days of racing my legs were shot and Dave took it by less than a wheel with both of us throwing our bikes at the line. So much for sick/out of shape. That just goes to show how dead my legs were from Saturday. So kudos to Dave, and all in all I guess it was a good race. I paid for my efforts the day before, but such is life when racing 2 super tough courses in a row.

Here's a couple photos from Day 1 graciously poached from Scott at True North who was running around taking photos and providing updates on Saturday. He took some great photos of the True North racers and bikes that made appearances - check out the flickr set.

NACT Toronto International CX Day 1

2009-10-17T22:16:00.002-04:00

aka, the hilly course. This course set on the side of a ski hill and the surrounding terrain has more climbing than the vast majority of cross courses you'll find anywhere. The worst part is that instead of being spread out through the lap, it's all at once - up a bit, descend for 10 seconds, up a lot more, descend another 10 seeconds, up all they way to the top, and then up a bit more on the false flat on top. Then you finally get to come all the way down and do the flat section at the bottom. Of a 9 minute lap, I'd guess 3+ minutes of that is ascending the hill.

Going into this race, I knew there were some fast guys, so rather than go for the hole shot I was planning to aim for somewhere in the top 5 on the start and to see how things went. If I was feeling ok, I'd hit it halfway through and see what that did for me, and if not I'd just ride tempo and save it for Sunday.

Of course that plan went down the drain when I found myself out in front going into turn 1. I just can't not go fast at the start, and today I had a perfect clip in and everything went well. A front group of 3 came together at the barriers with Chris Ellefson, Codey May and myself, and Sean from True North not far behind. I was setting the pace, which I would rather have not done, but that was ok though I could tell they were feeling ready to go as we hit the stairs. At the base of the first steep climb we were together but Chris punched it pretty good and Codey was quick to follow. I knew there was no staying with these guys on the climbs, so I'd do my best to get up there quickly and try to use my skill in the corners to make up time. I was going to be happy if I managed to hold off the rest of the field, including Sean.

Coming into the pit-row straight on lap 2 I called out an inside pass on a 180 turn as I lapped through the M3 field, but this particular M3 decided he was not going to give it up and took us both out. He then proceeded to lay on top of my bike and make no effort to get up quickly. Needless to say I wasn't pleased and made this clear to him and anyone within earshot. Sean got by while this was going on, and I finally got rolling and started chasing. Of course in full chase mode my concentration suffered, and I tripped up on the barriers. No real harm, but it hurt a fair bit.

The rest of lap 3 and 4 was pretty uneventful. There were no lap cards and no bell, so someone just told me I was finished. Having not got the bell the lap before, I was kind of disappointed as I was getting ready to set out for a hard bell lap of chasing. I had a nice second wind that might have allowed me to catch Sean, who finished about 40 seconds up. I think without the crash it might have been a drag race at the end. Noah was 30 seconds behind me coming from a back row start, and I think he'll be a little more focused tomorrow.

Tomorrow's report should be more detailed and photo-filled. I just wanted to get this over with and up tonight.

Thanks for reading!

ZM Turkey Cross Race Report

2009-10-14T14:30:00.001-04:00

Every once and awhile I have a race I don't much feel like writing a report for, and this was one of them. I suppose in this case it was because it quickly became a non-race after 3/4 of a lap, and turned into a training ride on a fun course.

Keeping this short: I arrived with plenty of time for a warm up and pre-ride, but the cold conditions didn't leave me too motivated for either. Nonetheless, I got dressed and headed out for a lap and found a straightforward but good course, full of challenge. The ridable singletrack climb did not yet have the barrier at the bottom so I had planned to ride, but the decision was made to make it a run up with a forced dismount at the bottom. It was almost the sort of climb you could remount after the barrier, except the surface was so uneven it was a risky move. I decided to run and this seemed to suit my strengths.

Heading out for the start I settled into 3rd wheel comfortably following the pace Noah and Mark were setting. As we hit the off camber about 500m into the lap I noticed they were not taking it with much speed so I punched it and easily rode past though they matched my effort. Down the woodchip/mud path and up the runup I guess Noah and I got a small gap but half a lap later Mark was back with us as we headed up the run/ride-up on the backside of the course. I tried to ride and had to dismount halfway up, causing the others to do the same. Into the off camber switchbacks I was still leading, but slid out on the first one and hit the ground hard enough to prevent me from hopping back up in time to get back on their wheel. Noah and Mark were gone and I was chasing with about a 10 second gap.

With lap 1 down, this report might as well be over. I chased for the next lap and a half, and when I realized they were going as fast or faster than my chase effort I shut it down and cruised in for 3rd. It was a nice day and I enjoyed watching the later races, with singlespeed Jay coming out victorious in the M2 race over Hub teammates Andrew and James and an exciting Elite race in which Watson rode away from everyone, Box rode away from everyone else and Morse took advantage of some mishaps and fading efforts to claim 3rd.

Next up is the NACT Toronto International CX races, which should be a couple of super tough courses back to back. Saturday up the big ski hill, and Sunday we're in the valley which is often muddy but looks to be a drier year.

Another weekend of CX race reports

2009-10-05T19:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend was another double, the Hillbilly Hustle in Duntroon on Saturday and ZM Oktoberfest CX in Toronto on Sunday.

First off, Duntroon is in the middle of nowhere and despite being 10 minutes outside of Collingwood was not easy to find. I ended up going past it, in circles, and then coming back and asking someone for directions. This combined with oversleeping by 50 minutes was offset just enough by the quick drive to allow for me to get registered and such in time. Unfortunately, between my lateness and incompetency at the registration desk, I didn't have a lot of time to warm up. The course was pretty wet, but all of the fast turns were dry and most of the turns were slow and flat so I felt like I could get away with the SSCs rather than Rhinos. This would also give me the extra volume of 34s, which was nice on the bumpy and rocky bits. Even going up the very muddy climb I could get out of the saddle and not lose traction.

I lined up beside a very small field of 5, but this included Noah who has been able to challenge me all season, and a few unfamilliar faces. Taking the hole shot I led everyone up the climb and over the barriers but soon one of the unfamiliar faces would come around and turns out he's quick. I was not doing a good job of hanging on and Noah was on my wheel telling me to close the gap... oops. So I kind of ruined both of our races there as the fast guy, Matthew Farquharson as it turns out, would not be seen again. He'd likely be racing Elite but I guess he doesn't race cross much, or hasn't yet. Coming down the switchback the first time I caught my wheel in the rut trying to take a tight line and went over the bars in slow motion. This left my stem misaligned from the wheel, which I tried to correct on the spot but it wasn't moving. After losing time there, I rode it this way to the pit where Nick met me with a hex key after yelling to him. Thanks! Stopping to fix it, I lost one more spot leaving me in 4th with 3rd riding away at a good pace. I worked over the next 2 laps to catch him and managed to open a small gap on the last lap. Race over, I was 3rd and can't say it was one of my better ones. On the other hand I didn't kill myself to do it so I still had something for the next day. My lap times when I wasn't dealing with the mechanical were close to Noah's as well, so that was a good sign for races to come.

Sunday I headed into Toronto for the ZM Oktoberfest CX, which had a new course at a new park for this year. Arriving at the venue, it was a bit confusing where to find the registration and start/finish, but after that was sorted out I saw what looked to be a good course taped out in the small park. I got pinned up, changed and then hopped on the trainer for a good 30 minutes of spinning, something I'd planned to do the last few races but not allowed the time for. This was a great way to get my legs loosened up without the surging and grinding of riding the course. Following this I hit the course for a couple preview laps, and found a very fun course with long straights, 2 climbs in short succession and lots of greasy off camber turns. Everything a crosser could ask for. This would be a day for the Rhinos due to the off camber and potential for things to get slippery.

Being in Toronto the field was quite a bit larger than usual with about 15 starters in my race and nearly 40 M3s behind us. At the horn we were off and it was Noah taking the holeshot with his teammate Chat and then me right behind. Up the small runup Chat held me up a bit, and then again in the next corners. Was he blocking for Noah? It turns out no, he's just bad at cornering, but this left me chasing to get on Noah's wheel once I got by at the barriers. Catching up with him, we then rode the first lap together with me taking a turn at the front for the second half. Lap 2 and 3 were super fast as the two of us spent time pushing the pace. I had a little slide under the tape on an off camber corner but chased it back on to Noah's wheel. Lap 4 saw Noah go down in a corner and since I was right on his wheel I basically rode over top of him before ending up in a heap. Both of us had misaligned shifters, and made efforts to get going again. The lap time is noticeably 30 seconds longer for both of us, which is somewhat entertaining. Lap 5 was uneventful, but near the end of lap 6 I took a good spill in the same corner that got me on lap 2, only this time a lot harder. My leg was a bit scraped up from my bike and I was sore, but everything seemed ok so I pushed onward, though at this point Noah had 20 seconds. Heading out for the bell lap I knew that I couldn't close down another gap in my current state, so I backed it off a bit thinking I had a good margin over 3rd. Next thing I knew Phil Cates was calling out a pass and coming by - "oh crap! he's in my category isn't he?" I quickly got on the gas again, and passed him back taking a better line through the greasy corner that Noah had slid out in earlier. I was going, but Phil was right on my wheel. I knew he was a strong rider, so I'd have to drop him in a technical spot as he'd mark all of my efforts on the flats and hills. I did this successfully on the last few off camber twists and had enough of a gap to come across the line without needing to sprint it out. It was only a few seconds back to Phil though, as he was doing everything he could to catch me.

All in all, a good day but I need to stay upright a bit more if I want to have my chance at beating Noah. The one time I did, he lost half his pedal so that didn't really count. I'd love to have a straight up drag race with him, and I know it will happen one of these times.

First double weekend of cross in Guelph

2009-09-28T18:00:00.001-04:00

Race report time, this one for the two races held in Guelph this weekend. First up was the True North CX and Single-speed CX Nationals. Friday night I went out with the TN crew to hammer stakes for Saturday's course. We worked until dark and went out for food after, leaving me with a pretty short sleep before my race. Arriving at the venue, I got changed and signed in, and then hit the course for a couple laps. All the off-camber was quite ridable and overall it was a good course aside from being entirely too bumpy, and also containing too many 180° turns for most people's preference.

On the line they told us we were starting 20 seconds behind the M3s, not the usual minute. That didn't sound good to me, but it wasn't as bad as I thought, since both fields were small enough that the M3s didn't get in the way too much when lapping through (which did happen very quickly). The whistle blew, and as I went to clip in I kicked my rear brake, tried to go and found my wheel locked up. I hopped off and quickly pulled the brake out from under the rim as everyone rode away. With a long gravel start, I was able to catch the leaders right before the first turn, but I had put out a big effort to get them. There was a group of 4 of us, which I worked to the front of over the first half lap. Soon after, Mark Romeril and I would ride off the front and leave the others for the duration of the race. Mark and I were back and forth a lot, with gaps as big as 10 seconds or so opening up at times, but it was 2 to go when Mark re-caught me and dropped the hammer. I had nothing, so he went and put 30 seconds on me before I would finish 2nd for the day.

Later that evening, True North hosted the SSCX national championships back at the shop. They mowed about 1km of course through the bumpy field behind the shop, and we "raced" around that for awhile until the winners were decided. Of course racing was not the main attraction here. Instead, the best part was the free beer, pulled pork BBQ and live band. With draws for many great prizes including a True North frame, it was a great night.

Of course that night of fun left me pretty tired for the Speed River Guelph cross on Sunday. I lined up to see many more of the fast folks from my category out and knew it would be a tough day. I had hopes of doing well, and wanted to beat Mark and Noah, guys who are around my speed and can give me a good challenge as they have both beat me before. I took a couple swpes at my pedal off the start and again found myself chasing, but not nearly as bad as the mishap on Saturday. I was hanging off the back of a front group, but they were charging hard off the start and I knew I would not match their pace. Over the first lap I did catch Dave Brown and Geoff Hartley, who I would see more of later. I pushed hard but found my legs weren't there and it was a matter of survival. Geoff was never more than 10-20 seconds back and would get closer if I had a slow lap, but I held him off. With about a lap to go, I saw that Dave had caught up to Geoff and they were both close behind me. The last half of the lap had me pushing to hold them off, and I managed to keep a couple seconds between us so there was no sprint finish. I think those two sprinted it out with Geoff coming out on top. I finished one spot out of the money for the day in 5th, my worst for the season thus far though I'm not surprised. I'll chalk it up to the rough shape Friday/Saturday left me in, but the guys up front were really killing it and deserved their results for sure.

I must say, racing hard for 5th was way more fun than killing it on the front, but at the same time the result is not as satisfying. Hopefully I have my bad luck for starts out of the way, and I look forward to some of the faster competition showing up to some of the upcoming races.

Next weekend is the Hillbilly Hustle CX at Highlands Nordic near Collingwood on Saturday. For Sunday I'll make a morning of decision about the ZM Cycle Oktoberfest cross, depending how Saturday goes.

Product Review: Velo Orange Grand Cru cantilever brakes

2009-09-25T18:30:00.000-04:00

This post may be a bit out of order, as I've hardly mentioned my new cross bike on the blog except in race reports, but I'll review different aspects of it over the course of the season. I get a lot of people asking what the brakes are on my bike, because they're not one of the major cross brands (TRP, Spooky, Avid, Empella, etc.) - indeed they're sold by a company with very little connection to cross, Velo Orange

VO specs and imports bike parts, mostly from Asia, catering to the retro-French touring and randonneuring market. Quite specific. As a side benefit, technologies like cantilevers and square taper cranks are standard to this market and VO is providing some nice high-performance alternatives to the usual brands in this area.

The Grand Cru brakes are functionally similar to other wide profile cantis with a few key differences:

they only come in gold anodized (perfect for my bike, but probably clashes with 90% of yours!)
they include adjustable toe-in brake holders, generally only found on TRP's expensive Magnesium and Carbon models or as a $40+ upgrade
they include a straddle cable barrel adjuster, a common modification now becoming more standard on cross brakes
they're very inexpensive

Now toe-in of cantis is not nearly as hard as people make it out to be - it's easily accomplished permanently with some pliers, and the adjustable shoes on these and the high end TRPs don't really make them any quicker to set up. It is nice though, and once set they are easy to maintain given the road cartridge style pads. Performance is in line with the TRP EuroX brakes I used last year, with the key differences noted above. They're also very light. All that said, the main reason I got the VO brakes was the low price and gold look.

A few closing points:

if gold is not for you, VO offers a silver version for 1/3 less cost but those don't include the adjustable pad holders or the barrel adjuster, so you're back to adding those. That said, VO sells the adjustable shoes for much less than the TRP type.
if I was choosing a brake now, the 2009 improved version of the Kore Race+ cantilevers which use a road style shoe (not just pad shape, but the whole holder is road style) and also include the adjuster. The best feature of these is the setback pad position that allows the pads to clear your frame and fork for easy wheel removal (and no marking up your nice frame when the brakes are open). They come in black and white, and are reasonably fashionable. If I wasn't so set on the gold aesthetic, I'd consider switching to these.

Valley Park CX Race Report

2009-09-21T12:38:00.008-04:00

The HCC Valley Park cross was yesterday, and I was able to pull off my first win in the Senior 3/4 category.

After some light conversation on the line, we were off and I took the holeshot easily with a few key riders in tow. Through the course the first time I opened a gap to most of my category but Noah Rosen was with me and took advantage of my slide in one of the corners still wet with dew. He and a master 3 rider got by and I quickly set off in chase.

Noah and I would trade off a few times, and we both opened some small gaps that would then be closed down and we would be back to riding together. At one point, an M3 went down in a corner, leaving just enough room to get by on the inside. Noah rode through and just as I passed the rider got up, putting me into a bush which my bike promptly got tangled with. Showing the highest level of sportsmanship, Noah soft pedalled for a few seconds allowing me to chase back on, or at least regain a chance to. Later that lap his pedal would separate from the spindle unfortunately leaving him to DNF. It was an unfortunate result as I was looking forward to the final battle on the bell lap.

In any case, this left me to defend the lead we had built together over the other S3/4s, and I did so with Ryan following in 2nd and Dave Brown in 3rd. I passed the M3 leader on the last section of course, and had I not let cadet winner Brandon Etzl away earlier in the lap I might have contested the 10 am start overall. That can be the goal for next race.

This weekend we have a double in Guelph with the True North CX race Saturday and SRCC Guelph cross Sunday. Also TN is doing a singlespeed race Saturday evening with a BBQ and live music (The Monster Show). It should be a good one!

Long overdue update - Cyclocross is here!

2009-09-15T11:40:00.008-04:00

A lot has happened since my last post - lots of mtb-ing and a mediocre 17th was not good enough at provincials to make the jump to Expert next year. Not a big deal. I'll take the upgrade when it comes. Now that mtb season is over with, on to another overdue race report, this time from the first cyclocross race of the season, We Need More Cowbell Cyclocross presented by CXFever.com. This is what I had been waiting for all year, and after a brief concern about when I would have my cross bike ready, everything came into place.

I received the frame a little over a week before the race, and promptly built it up and set out to get used to the new fit. Right away I knew it was perfect, as it was based primarily on my road bike but with a few tweaks to suit cross racing. Particularly worth noting is the low BB, the same ~275 mm height as my road bike, when wearing cross tires. This is about 2 cm lower than most cross bikes and the feel is very noticeable. I have to be careful pedalling through tight corners, and I have taken myself out doing so, but the reward in sweeping turns is huge in the ability to plant the tires with a low COG and just rail through. More on the bike in another post, I suppose.

So coming up to the race, I went out for the St Catharines CX practice on the Thursday prior to preview some of the course and get some hot laps in with the fast guys. Lots of rubbing and sliding as everyone was testing their limits - good prep for the race. I found mine, and then pushed them a bit too far, sliding over top of the barriers in a somewhat painful heap. Better in practice than a race though.

On to the race, I didn't know how I was doing going into this cross season, but I knew I wanted to do well. Lining up I could see I had some competition, at the very least in the form of Ryan, an impressive rider on a mountian bike for sure but a relative newcomer to cross. I took the lead going into the first corners, and was leading over the barriers and watching to see who'd follow. It was Ryan and Chris Ellefson of Handlebars CC on my wheel. As we came back down the dog park fenceline, I miscalculated which stake represented the inside of the turn and ended up in the tape. Chris got by and probably put 30 seconds on me right there, but we'd established a gap on everyone else which I was able to hold and extend. It turns out Ryan had some encounters with the ground and his bike unfortunately - read about that here.

There was no reeling Chris in at this point so I just tried to go through the course smoothly and keep the power down. Lapping through the M3 field went fairly smoothly, and I was able to pass all but the top 3, with the last couple hopping on my wheel. I brought the pace down for my last lap, but we still worked to reel in one last M3, Neil Armstrong who would eventually challenge me to a bit of a sprint at the end. Knowing he wasn't in my category it was an easy enough decision to let him go in the last couple corners, and I cruised in comfortably with a small gap over the nearest S3/4 behind.

All in all I'm fairly pleased with the race, and only see things getting better from there. Next up is the Valley Park Cyclocross put on by the Hamilton CC.

runup photo

Looking focused (or is that gassed?)

Race Report: Mountainview 9 hour relay

2009-08-16T17:39:00.003-04:00

Alright, another race report - again at Mountainview, but this time a different format: 9h relay, tag team and finally a dry mtb race.

I woke at around 5:30, opting to consume breakfast during the long drive rather than loose sleep. I picked up my teammate for the day, followed by a coffee and breakfast sandwich at Tim Hortons and we were off. 2.5 hours later, we arrived at the race venue with plenty of time to get signed in and casually prepared for the start.

Ryan started off the day with a fast couple of laps, which I followed with two of my own. Our plan was to do this until we came up with a reason not to. More on that to come. 6 laps and a few hours into the race and the first results posted had us in first place with Lapdogs charging fast behind. It turns out they weren't slowing down much, and we were. That left us in second, but on the same lap and a lap up on third.

About 7 hours into the race, the heat and hours on the tough course got to me, and on the second lap of my double I had a terrible leg cramp about 2/3 of the way up the switchback ski hill climb. I pushed the rest of the way up with a mix of running (walking) and riding, but on reaching the top I realized it wasn't going away, and I coasted down the service road to get Ryan out on the course in my place. So with a wasted 10 minute partial lap, and a cramping leg I was a bit worried about the remaining 2 hours left in the race. Not wanting to leave the rest of it up to Ryan, and not wanting to concede our 2nd place standing I knew I had to get back on the bike so I set to work on refueling and nursing the leg. This took the form of a pepsi, a clif bar and a handful of bacon, as well as much massaging of the muscles in question. Ryan came by after one lap and I told him I'd be good to go next time around.

Back it came to my turn and I was actually feeling good. I told Ryan I'd try to do a double, but we'll see. After 1 lap at a pace much slower than the day had started, it looked like we had time for just one more. Both of us quite tired, we used rock paper scissors to decide who would go, and it was me for one more. Off I went.

It wasn't too far into my lap and I noticed a woman coming up on me quite fast... hmm, is she on that 3rd place tag team? I'd better get moving in case. This turned out to be a good thing, as I arrived back at the finish with about 2 minutes to spare, and just under 2 minutes over our competitor. Ryan had time to do one more. As it turned out so did the woman on our rival team, as she came in about 10 seconds before the clock ran out. Ryan's last lap was a repeat of mine, realizing that the rider on his tail was our competition, and picking it up to finish ahead.

We concluded the day with less than a minute over 2nd place, before bonus time. Bonus time you say? Oh yes, this event, in addition to 9 hours of riding includes four bonus events. This year that consisted of a bike limbo:

pie eating contest:

as well as a slingshot game and feedzone competition (collecting numerous bottles while riding without dropping any). The bonus events netted us 15 minutes off our time, while our rivals in third only got 3 bonus minutes. Our result would stand, after some good racing against the teams in front of and behind us.

Photos care of Ryan, except for that last one which is stolen from Matt's blog (congrats on winning the solo race!). Ryan's race report can be found here, along with more photos.

Mountainview O-Cup Race Report

2009-08-11T15:50:00.002-04:00

So, again with a delayed report... some copy and paste from mtbr as well as new comments:

Preriding Friday was good, though I would have liked a bit more time to spend on a 3rd or more laps. I like the topography of the hill, and all the climbs are nice except the opener (that's going to hurt). Some of those descents are steep and fast - know your line and stick to it, more or less. The locals are indeed going to have an advantage, but I'm hoping to get around the course in a relatively quick manner on Sunday, if I can.

It's super dusty, maybe even powdery right now so some rain will do wonders. If it gets a bunch Saturday and then the skies are friendly on race day, I'll be super pleased. Even with lots of rain I don't see much potential for a slop fest.

Boy was I wrong! My post following the race:

That was "fun"

Really, I enjoyed myself... but it hurt a little, like a good race should, and I definitely got some mud in my eyes (and every other possible location) A giant 1 metre stick in my derailleur toward the end of lap 1 definitely cost me a few spots, and most definitely the last 1.6 upgrade points I needed... alas, I will seek them at Kelso.

Back to Mountainview for the 9h, and as long as it doesn't rain I couldn't be looking forward to it more - such a great venue that I really only got to experience dry in a couple preride laps Friday.

I'm really looking forward to going back on Saturday, and so far the forecast couldn't be better. Of course that means it's going to be terrible... oh well!

As for that 1.6 upgrade points... well I just feel it's really stupid that a stick held me back for enough time to make the difference. Oh well, with this race in the mix my performance at Kelso doesn't really need to be any faster - another race like I had at Boler or Mountainview will get me well over 260 - hurray for hilly courses!

SCCC club rides - a good way to spend a weekend indeed

2009-07-27T14:45:00.005-04:00

This past weekend, I went home to Niagara to catch up with family and take in the great riding there. I think this post will clarify why I find it worthwhile to be a part of the St. Catharines Cycling Club despite not living in the area for most of the year. Their training rides, and the depth of riders available to learn from makes them by far one of the best cycling clubs around. Lots of old-school road racing dogma, but also lots of current talent and champions from the past.

Every weekend and holiday rides depart in the morning from a small fish and chip shop in St Catharines. From there, each day has a traditional route:
Saturday passes first through Jordan to pick up riders who may not live in St. Catharines or Niagara Falls, and then weaves itself along the escarpment taking in 1 to 3 climbs for the majority of the day's workout. After a town sign sprint at Smithville, the club takes in coffee at Tim Hortons, and heads home via a few common routes, but usually a fairly straight and flat one.
Sunday's ride has a different character, heading first to Fenwick with just one climb en route usually taken fairly easy. In Fenwick the group grows quite a bit, as many riders live in Welland, Fonthill, Pelham and the surrounding areas. From there the ride is flat, taken moderately in a double paceline to Attercliffe, where the group splits up and echelons into Smithville at a high pace. The same coffee stop as Saturday occurs, and the trip home is much the same with riders peeling off toward their homes along the way.

I often ride in to the start from Niagara Falls, which adds 15-20 km on each end of the ride and provides a nice warmup, but makes for an early start. I generally leave the house around 7.

This Saturday, I was not climbing well so I did not descend all the way down for the second climb, choosing instead to meet the group halfway with a couple other riders who were doing the same.

Sunday I started off feeling very lazy, feeling like I should not go too hard but also noticing a nice low heart rate on the ride in. The ride went as it normally does, but as we were passing south of Wellandport the ride was pretty stale and a couple riders had drifted off the front. Next thing I knew a couple guys in front of me mentioned bridging, and I heard them shift, so off I went on their wheel. Little did I know I was in for a fantastic effort, first bridging up and then working in a break of 5 for about 35 km to beat the group by about 5 minutes to Smithville. Once we got organized, the break was quite efficient, battling quite a nasty wind. After the turn on to Smithville road the wind was coming across our backs at an angle and the pace went up. Overall, we averaged just over 40 km/h for 52 minutes, and my legs were pretty spent. I kept things reasonable though, and didn't let my effort spike up too much. I rolled in just behind my companions who gapped me by a few seconds when they ramped up for the sprint into town, feeling great. This was definitely one of the more memorable rides I've had with the club.

Maps and data below (click for larger)!

Saturday:

Sunday - the break is from "Lap 4" to "Lap 5":

data from the break:

Buckwallow O-Cup Race Report

2009-07-21T14:28:00.003-04:00

A long overdue blog update! Life has been pretty crazy, and as a result there has been little time for blogging, or training for that matter.

Having done significantly less riding than usual lately, and also given the nature of the course I knew Buckwallow would not be my best race this season but I was nevertheless excited to check it out.

After terrible forecasts which threatened the possibility of pre-riding and could have led to a "rain-course" being used, things cleared up in the end. I arrived Saturday to put in a couple laps, and found myself surprised by just how rough and slow some spots were, while being overall an extremely fast course. I knew my race strategy had to balance hammering on the doubletrack to make up time (my strength) vs. leaving power in the legs when it came to certain obstacles requiring finesse and bursts of anaerobic power. It's definitely not a course for my diesel engine style.

In the race, things went largely as planned, with enough energy to tackle the obstacles I wanted to clear each lap, and a few more dismounts than I may have liked forced by other riders and occasionally myself. The result - mediocre, but acceptable with a large side order of back pain. Good times though. Very good technical practice too. I will look forward to coming back there each season, but it is unlikely to ever be one of my better races.

Jay (mcgyver29er) was there with his cowbell and camera, and captured me in both photo and video form. Check the clip just after 3 minutes to see me go by.

Race Report: Boler Mountain O-Cup

2009-06-07T20:07:00.004-04:00

...and what a mountain it is. Any of you who have been to Boler know that I'm being extremely sarcastic. Gotta love the ski bump in the middle of suburbia. Actually, I was thinking after Saturday's preride that I don't really care for Boler as much as I thought I did, but what I found out today is that it's much better at race pace.

The race went well - had a great start hanging on to the back of a front group of 10 until the first singletrack climb where I lost a couple spots. More passed, but the front group was within sight for most of lap 1 on any open sections.

Lap 2 slowed down, but not too many people went by, and I was riding smoothly. Lap 3 saw a bit of a mishap with a saddle tilt issue, but even though I pulled over to tighten it I did not lose any spots this lap. I was back and forth with one guy and decided once we got up top for the final time that I needed to drop him on the open doubletrack section - turns out I put 40 seconds on him in the last ~2km :) I chased a couple of Juniors for the last km, and though I didn't catch them finished up strong.

19th place, and 87.6 upgrade points. This is in the range of points needed on a per/race basis to make the cutoff for an upgrade to Expert. If I can keep this trend going, I will have the option to start next year in Senior Ex. Another great thing about the race today is that I don't have another planned until the next XC O-Cup. After 9 consecutive weekends of racing, I finally get a break. Time for the mid-season transition period and the start of the build cycles leading up to a peak for cross season.

Hardwood Canada Cup Race Report

2009-05-31T22:35:00.002-04:00

Yeah, so I kind of missed a couple of race reports... I'll get to those (or a brief summary thereof) shortly, but I figure I will write about Hardwood while the thoughts are fresh.

This weekend I headed up to Hardwood with Soigneur Race Services and some Hub teammates in the big van (Dorothy) and her trailer (Toto) loaded with our bikes and gear. The setup was awesome, with tons of space for all our stuff and a secure place for the bikes to travel. We stayed at the Georgian Suites in Barrie, but first priority on Saturday was a stop at Hardwood Hills to preride the course. 2 laps taken pretty easy except for a few tempo sections in the singletrack made for a good preview. This was a "real mountain bike course" as some would say, and it was good to get some of the lines dialed in to avoid the roughest parts, and take the most speed possible. It also allowed for some practice hitting some of the more intimidating bits such as the giant rock/wood pallet ramp thingy (this won't mean much to those of you who haven't seen it). After the preride, we headed to our rooms to unpack and clean up. Dinner was at East Side Marios, and was suitably filling for a pre-race meal.

Sunday started off with a 07:00 wake up, and some oats that I had cooked in advance for breakfast. Way too much, really. I felt a bit heavy on the start line, but not so much that I couldn't keep breakfast down.

So off to Hardwood in the van, which again was great to have for changing and general gear chaos. I got a good warm up on the roads around Hardwood, hooking up with Nick from True North for a bit and then headed to the start line. I was about 10 minutes early for the start, but many people were already lined up so I was about 3rd row. Not a big deal.

As for the race itself - there isn't much to say except that I'm quite pleased. Started strong gaining on the group over the initial climb but still letting about 15 riders away. I caught up to Ryan, who was feeling the climb in his legs but he would soon catch back up to me and pass in some singletrack where he is a much more skilled rider. I kept a steady pace for my 3 laps, rode cleanly and the bike functioned well.

Did everyone get that? No mechanicals, no crashes and no excuses for my performance. I rode a solid race, and got the finish I deserved. It isn't stellar, but it met my expectations and I like where things are going. Hardwood is far from my ideal course and I still felt like I was faster than previous races, so the training on the mtb seems to be helping. I need to focus on riding singletrack as clean and fast as possible. Doubletrack and climbs are not where I'm losing my time. So... mtb season pushes forward in a good way. My head is already looking forward to cross, but I have a few more races yet so I will continue to improve the bike handling on the mtb. I am not sure about Boler next week - if my back is feeling well I will race, but we'll see. Knowing me I'll race anyway. After that I'm done racing for a few weeks - a much needed break.

Albion Hills O-Cup Race Report

2009-05-10T16:11:00.003-04:00

Well, I met all of my goals except one: I didn't beat Ryan (he had a great race) - no chain issues, and a pretty steady pace save a few moments of slowness out in the back end of the course. In fact, considering the conditions (which were downright sloppy in places) my drivetrain functioned superbly.

The course was changed due to excessive rain between Friday and Saturday evening, leaving us with a bit of an odd one: bone dry singletrack and doubletrack on the near side of the course combined with a few ridiculously sloppy doubletrack sections. Some of the mud pits reached up to your hub if you attempted to ride it. Luckily a course report from the 9:30 race had me running them which turned out to be a good place to make up time. Unfortunately a couple of the doubletrack climbs were also very wet and turned out to be long uphill walking sections in mud up to your ankles.

All told, I had a pretty good race, though my result is not that great. ~~They're not up yet, but I expect somewhere in the bottom half of the Sr. Sport field. I will update here when they are.~~ 26th of 50 starters - just in the bottom half. I would have liked to hang with some of the folks I was around on lap 1, who finished far better (12th-ish) but it was not to be. I am comfortable with the effort I put out, anyway.

For those of you wondering about my tire choice on the rear which was no doubt looking like a bad idea at the start line, it actually worked out very well. The sections of the course that I could not ride were those that nobody was riding, and the rest of it was very dry and manageable. That came as a bit of a surprise, but it only gives me more confidence for the Raven in future use.

XC O-Cup #2 tomorrow

2009-05-09T20:58:00.003-04:00

The second XC race of the season is tomorrow at Albion Hills, and I really don't know what to expect. On one hand, I rode the course Wednesday and know exactly what to expect, but since then we've seen tons of rain so I really don't know which sections will be muddy and which will have held up.

Also, racing at 11:30 the course could change a lot over the course of the earlier races. I am not going to worry about it too much, but I am running a somewhat questionable tire choice on the rear: my notubes Raven 2.2, arguably a semi-slick race tire. As long as I'm not spinning out on the climbs I am fine with the limitations it will provide in the corners, and feel that I will not be much slower for it. The preride gave me a pretty good idea of what areas will be important, and where it will simply be a battle of fitness. In typical Albion fashion I think the fastest racer will be someone with top fitness but also the ability to turn the bike well. No real tech stuff, but lots and lots of corners :)

The main thing tomorrow is to race smart - no stupid shifts so I can hopefully keep my chain on, and I will do my best not to go out so hard as to blow up later on. I want to ride consistently and have some ideas about who I'd like behind me and who I can deal with being in front. How I really stack up this year remains to be seen!

Equipment Review: Hope Pro 3 hubs, Velocity Escape Rims, Vittoria Rubino Pro Tubulars

2009-05-07T11:03:00.002-04:00

As promised, here's a review of the tubular wheels and tires I have been using for racing and some more "spirited" road rides.

So first, the build:

Hubs: Hope Pro 3
Rims: Velocity Escape
Spokes: DT Revolution (2.0/1.5)
Nipples: DT alloy front and non-drive rear, DT brass drive-side rear
Lacing pattern: 28h 2x front, 32h 3x rear

I built these up for cyclocross use later this season, so light weight and strength were greater priorities than aerodynamics for sure. I will be building a second identical set so that I can switch wheels with different cross tubulars and not have to have clinchers as my backup all the time. Since I had everything I needed early in the season, I decided to get some road tubulars to glue up to take advantage of these being my lightest wheelset by far.

After much thought, and not wanting to spend much on road tubs, I got what are possibly some of the first Vittoria Rubino Pro Tubulars to hit North America. They were relatively inexpensive, and though heavy still decrease the weight of the bike quite a bit compared to using my heavier clincher wheels.

I will cover the tires first - the clinchers I've been riding are the Vittoria Open Pave CG 24c with a 290 tpi casing, arguably one of the most supple and plush road tires out there and with some durability as well. They have been fantastic, so I was a bit hesitant to go to a 23c 120 tpi tire designed for training, but at the same time I did not want to deal with the fragility of lighter tubulars like the Corsa which are not known for durability in any sense. I was pleasantly surprised to find the Rubinos ride quite nicely, and while they do not maintain the plush characteristic over rough pavement they do grip and conform well to the road, likely due in part to being a tubular tire. They definitely ride nicer than the Rubino clinchers I have used (which are certainly great training tires as intended). I find myself running them at higher pressures by 10-20 psi than my 24c clinchers which works out well for racing: fast but still very good grip.

Now on to the wheels - the Hope Pro 3 hubs were selected due to the combination of well sealed bearings, good weight, good price, availability in 28h for the front wheel and of course the nice anodized colours. This set used red hubs, and the second one will have gold hubs to make telling them apart in the pits a bit easier. Velocity Escape rims were chosen for similar reasons: a good price/weight/quality point, and available in 28h which the Mavic Reflex for example is not. The 28h front was probably unnecessary, but I committed to it and it worked out fine.

I was initially a bit concerned about building with the DT Revolution spokes, but they turned out to make for a very stiff wheel. The only trouble was getting them tight enough and keeping the Velocity rims round. These rims are not as round out of the box as say a DT Swiss and they're not quite as forgiving. I ended up with a reasonable balance and I'm very happy with how the wheels ride. I have not noticed any lack of stiffness in hard cornering and they spin up very quickly due to the 1460g weight of the pair. That's on par with Ksyrium SL Premium wheels, which are in many ways the standard in low profile crit/cross/training wheels. It doesn't hurt that my wheels cost half as much as the MSRP of most comparable wheelsets purchased complete. I can also replace spokes easily or rebuild these with new rims down the road. Much easier than dealing with a proprietary wheelset with aluminum spokes, etc.

I can't say I have any complaints for this gear, except perhaps the ease of building with the Velocity rims. If I was not quite as focussed on performance/aesthetics, or if I wanted to make life easier I certainly would have gone with a 32h 3x build front and rear and used Reflexes. Either way, these wheels will do the trick for cross and get me into the tubular world, which is key for cyclocross.

Springbank Race Report

2009-05-04T21:53:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday I did my first criterium, the Springbank Road Races in London, ON. I had pretty good expectations hitting it with good legs, and thinking that this type of race suited me. I was also told/warned of the very sketchy course with curbs, traffic islands and narrow sections.

I got a ride with my teammate Joel from the Hub Race Team, arriving early enough to sign-in and warm up in a relaxed manner. We hit the course with some of the Ciclo Werks/BMC guys and did a few laps of the course. It starts with a sharp 90° left after the start into a narrow downhill left hand sweeper. The course continues by the water with curbs and all to an S-shaped uphill that given your speed on this section is nothing at all to be concerned about. Another hard left brings you to the top of the course where there is a chicane around a traffic island before the course opens up to the wide start finish. It's definitely a good one to do a few laps on before the race so you don't get pinched into a curb due to not knowing where they are.

The race started pretty fast and furious, coming through the start finish in the high 30s and picking up speed every lap. This would continue for the duration (20 laps) without too much incedent. The fast pace meant you were either working to get to the front or stay there, or you were drifting back in the pack for a rest. The problem with this is position going into the tight corners where the pack gets strung out, and then for the final sprint. As we read 6 to go I started thinking about conserving energy, and I sat in for a couple laps. With 3 to go I was at the back and realizing this was not a good place to be. I started trying to move up, but I only got midway through the pack by the time we were on the back half of the bell lap.

Time to light it up, and... 3 guys pile into the traffic island! How?! You've gone by it 19 times already! So I was on the brakes, and then sprinting to get back on a wheel for the final 300 m. I caught the tail end of the pack with 200 m to go but it was too late. I gave it a final push only to see one of the Ciclo Werks guys on the road just after the finish line. Weaved around him... later I heard he won the race but was crashed at the line. In the end I was 7th for the S4 division. Not what I was looking for in terms of upgrade points, but a decent finish and great experience.

I really enjoyed practicing some hard cornering and speed skills, and can definitely see how crits are good training for a cross race. They are similar in many ways - unrelenting, short (~1h) and demanding of good bike handling. Unfortunately the M3/S4 pack is a bit sketchy for my liking and I end up riding conservatively to preserve my safety. So speaking of cornering and cyclocross, I will do some equipment reviews now that I have raced the tubular wheels I built up for cross. In a few words, light wheels feel nice and fast, and the tubulars at least on the road handle great at higher pressures than I run clinchers. Of course for cross it's just the opposite, but the point is that tubulars have a ride quality that is unmatched by all but the best clincher tires.

Moving weekend, more racing

2009-05-01T14:01:00.002-04:00

This weekend is when I move back to Waterloo and head back to school on Monday. Only a minor interruption to cycling, really, since I am racing Sunday and can use today off to pack.

Racing Sunday – yes, I’ve decided to do the Springbank Road Race (actually a crit?) so that means I’m in the middle of a long stretch of racing pretty much every weekend from Good Friday to June. They’re not all top priority though, so it fits into my training well. The point of my summer is to gain experience with mtb and road racing and maybe get some upgrade points along the way. The real focus for results is going to be cyclocross, and my season has a nice light period in late summer to recover and prepare.

Expectations for Springbank are good – there are only 11 S4 riders pre-reg’d and 3 are unlicensed. The pack should be a manageable size and I should be able to give it my best in the sprint. Some upgrade points would be nice, as I really don’t want to start another season in S4.

The next few weeks are more mtb and road races:

10 May – XC O-Cup #2: Albion
16/17 May – Life$tyle$ of the Rich and Famou$ 24h
24 May – Road O-Cup #4: Bike the Bruce
31 May – XC Canada Cup/O-Cup #3: Hardwood
7 Jun – XC O-Cup #4: Boler
14 Jun - Road O-Cup #5: K/W Classic

That’s the plan, anyway. Subject to change, as always.

Chainsuck

2009-04-27T10:49:00.004-04:00

Reflecting on what led to my DNF yesterday, it is pretty clear that the chain was damaged when I had some chainsuck and had to un-jam the chain from between the chainring and my frame. The reason I am posting this is to seek opinions on what I should have done differently to avoid this situation.

I’ve always had pretty bad experiences with chainsuck in muddy conditions regardless of the chain, lube and chainrings used. I’ve used the cheapest of chains at times, but in this case was using a Dura-Ace chain in the middle of its lifespan with brand new TA Specialties chainrings. By all rights this should be a failproof setup. In my experience, however, new chainrings seem to be the most problematic and chainsuck becomes much less of an issue after they have been worn in a bit. I don’t let my chainrings get so worn that they are hooked, but I imagine that this would be even worse than a new chainring. I have had some success in the past with simulating the wear in period on chainrings by filing down any excessively sharp corners, burrs, etc. so I may try that on my new rings.

In any case, chainsuck is not uncommon, especially for people who ride in mud a lot (why would you do this?) and has prompted the writing of extensive articles such as this one. I tend not to ride in the mud, but occasionally I am forced to race in the rain. I think that riders who ride in wet conditions are better prepared either with their shifting technique, choice of or application style of chain lube or with the accelerated wear on their drivetrain, and probably experience these problems less.

So should I have used a heavy, sloppy chain lube to try to keep the mud off my chain? Would I have had better luck had my chainrings had half a season of gentle wear on them? I’d like to hear your experiences so please post if you have any.

Race report backlog: Paris-Ancaster and Mansfield O-Cup

2009-04-26T15:08:00.003-04:00

Paris to Ancaster really deserves a proper race report, but a week later with another race already done it seems silly to write one. As everyone who was there knows, it was cold and windy. Very windy - in our faces for most of the race. I also had a pretty bad cold, which left my lungs a bit lacking. Aside from that I had a decent race, with no mechanicals or crashes, and what is in retrospect not a terrible finish time given the conditions (weather and health).

On to today, the first mtb O-Cup at Mansfield. I got to preride the course yesterday, and confirmed my love for Mansfield as a race venue. I thought the course was great, and offered a lot of flow with all the challenging climbing coming in the first half leaving the rest for fun. It became obvious in the afternoon that the weather forecast was going to be correct, and we would see rain on Sunday. After driving to Mansfield in the rain, I mostly hid in the car whenever it began to rain hard and about an hour before my race decided to get changed and try to warm up. Just as I did, it rained quite hard, leaving me soaked and cold.

I rolled up to the start time feeling pretty cold and not too snappy, but optimistic for the race. The start was not too bad, taking an easy pace up the hill so as not to blow up. About 10-15 minutes into the race on a doubletrack climb I got some bad chainsuck, and had to pull over to rectify that. I knew my chain was probably damaged, but kept going... at the top of the hill, I must have broken my chain when I pushed over the top, and left it behind. At the bottom of the hill I had no chain, and I knew my race was over. I notified the marshall to radio in my mechanical, and ran/coasted back to the car.

It's a crappy way to start my mtb season, but these things happen... I will just want to try that much harder for Albion in 2 weeks.

Race Report: Good Friday Road Races

2009-04-10T17:45:00.004-04:00

I'll keep this one pretty brief.

My first (real) road race - I was not sure what I could expect in terms of results, but I knew my training has been pretty good this spring. The mixed M3/S4 field was huge with 149 starters. The sketch factor was out in full force and the smell of brakes was in the air in the first minutes of the race. I narrowly avoided a crash on Middletown road, and got into the drumlins with the peloton.

From there I was able to stay sheltered and close enough to the front to avoid any excitement and stay connected on the drumlins. On lap 3 I was feeling good so I moved up on the final climb to find myself leading the race for the descent and a short while after. I sat up not wanting to do too much work, and grabbed a wheel after a few people passed.

As we came down Brock road to the finish the pace was increasing and I was sitting maybe 10th wheel, and suddenly there were people and bikes all over the road. I was able to stop more or less in time, but got run into and involved in a pile. After getting up, putting my chain back on and opening up my brakes I spun in for a mediocre 17th place, 2m40s down from the winner.

Casualties:

1 3T handlebar
1 fresh roll of fi:zi'k bar:tape (installed last night)
20 minutes of wheel truing time
my chance at seeing how I'd do in the sprint finish

Race season is here!

2009-04-07T13:39:00.004-04:00

Last weekend saw what most would call the start to the race season in Southern Ontario with the Tour of Pelham, Uxbridge Icebreaker and WOW Hilton Falls All Weather Challenge. I chose to sit out these events in favour of some spectating at the ToP and a training ride on Sunday with a group made up mostly of people affiliated with my new club/team. This is I suppose the first I’ve mentioned it explicitly on this blog – I will be racing with The Hub Race Team (formerly The Hub Bicycle Club). They’re a very cool bunch of people, and I felt that they were a better fit than racing for my home club (SCCC) due to their appreciation for various disciplines (road, mtb, cross) and the fact that I will be in the K/W area much more than I will be in Niagara to train with the SCCC. Look for a Hub Race Team website release later this month, and some new team kit in May.

For me the racing season will start with the Good Friday Road Races put on by the Hamilton Cycling Club this Friday on the Westover-Strabane loop near Flamborough. Our ride on Sunday took us from Cambridge out to the race course to check it out. The terrain was rolling for the entire ride and the pace quick, which made for a good effort. The course itself surprised me with the grade of some of the hills, but they’re short enough that they should not be a huge detriment to my race. The course will definitely favour a rider who can get up the hills with some big power and then put the hammer down for a flat finish. We’ll see how I do in what is essentially my debut to road racing. Training is coming along well, if not a bit behind schedule. I feel my endurance is good, there's still room for more power development and I have yet to test out the tech skills on the mtb at all this season. Hopefully there will be enough time before the first race to dust off the mtb skills and test some equipment changes. Weight loss is also a bit behind, but my strength is up so my climbing has not suffered. I'd really like to get down to my low weight from last season early this year and keep going to a good race weight though. We'll see.

I'm excited to start the race season, as I'm sure everyone is at this time of year. It will be interested to see how things go as I develop in what is my second season of really racing, and my first hitting up the O-Cup circuits in a serious way.

Sickness (mostly) gone, getting ready to race

2009-04-01T15:53:00.002-04:00

My cold seems to have passed, except I'm still coughing a bit, and my nose is still running. I feel great though (especially in comparison) and there was really only a couple days interruption to my training.

I've been getting in lots of ride time, and for the most part it has been quality riding. I feel that my aerobic endurance is where it needs to be for any of the races I have planned, and my power is good. Top end may be a bit lacking, and my ability to sustain at threshold is not as good as it will be at peak. For this early in the season though, I think I am good. I have no idea how I will do in the first few races, but I would love to see some good results on Good Friday and at Paris-Ancaster.

I will be out spectating at the Tour of Pelham this weekend and then heading to K/W for some socializing and a hammer ride out of Cambridge on Sunday with the Hub guys and others. It's supposed to be a long hard ride, and should be a good test - worth missing the usual SCCC ride for which says a lot. Next week I will back off on the volume a bit and focus on some power workouts and getting quality rest and recovery. Hopefully my legs are there when the Westover-Strabane drumlins call.

Sickness

2009-03-27T07:59:00.000-04:00

I seem to have caught a cold – not uncommon for this time of year. Thankfully it comes now and not in the middle of my busy April of racing. I’ve been off the bike since Tuesday, but should be riding today and this weekend, and will hopefully be back to normal by mid-next week. I should not be set back much as far as Good Friday goes, and probably not at all for Paris-Ancaster.

I’m eager to do some off-road riding again, but seemingly not as eager as most people I talk to. That probably has something to do with the new road bike that has kept me happy on the pavement these days. Mostly I am concerned about the limited amount of mtb time I will have before the first O-Cup at Mansfield. As long as I can do a few rides to get my handling skills back up to par I should be alright.

Meet the bikes, Spring '09 edition

2009-03-20T18:24:00.002-04:00

I took some nice photos of the bikes finally, tonight, and thought I'd take this opportunity to post up what I've got in the basement these days. Click each photo to view it in larger sizes on flickr.

I'll give a brief spec rundown on each. For complete details see the "New Bike" posts for the 29er and road bike. Expect an update on the 29er after Paris-Ancaster when it gets back into its XC race clothes.

First up, the oldest of the bunch, my Trek 8000. When I got my 29er last year, the Trek took a secondary role as my winter/beater mtb. It was singlespeed for most of that time, but this year I decided to put gears on: 1x9 with 32t front and 11-32 out back, using a Tiagra rear derailleur and Dura-Ace barend shifter. On-One midge bars, Zion rigid fork and Nokian studded tires round out the equipment making this bike suited to icy singletrack. Needless to say, its time of year is on the way out, but I may throw some non-studded tires on and ride it from time to time.

Next up is the 29er, my main mtb rig. Right now, however, it's set up in gravel grinder mode for the Paris-Ancaster 60km race, with semi-slick touring tires (Continental Travel Contact) and a triple/12-27 drivetrain (I normally run 2x9 with 24/38t rings for mtb). I won't be seeing the 22t for P-A, but it's on there so I can do some mtb riding with my other wheels if desired. The tires may be heavy, but they will not flat. Catastrophic tire failure took me out of the race just before halfway last year, so I decided that finishing slightly slower on account of heavy tires was better than not finishing at all. The best part is that they are totally bulletproof and I can ride through all the road debris I want and not even think about flatting.

Finally, more pictures of the new road bike. See my last post for full specs. The rest speaks for itself.

New Bike: True North Cycles custom road bike

2009-03-16T07:45:00.010-04:00

With some serious fit issues on my cross bike (Kona Major Jake) I knew some changes would have to be made. After looking at the geometry of just about every cross frame on the market I found that none have enough headtube height for my position at a top tube length I could work with. It was clear I needed to talk to True North, as they set me up with an awesome mountain bike last year and I really think Hugh's work is the best around.

The thought came to me to get a road bike this spring, and then swap parts from it to the cross frame in the fall. I again went in search of a stock bike and found none that fit. The best would have been a Specialized Roubaix Expert and in the end I decided I'd prefer a custom steel frame to the Roubaix. The result is this:

(click for larger)

Not the best picture, but it gives you the general idea. The finish is clear powdercoat over the raw steel, and it looks great. Better pictures or a close view in person reveals lots of colour in the HAZ around each weld. Hugh welded on stops that he normally brazes only doing the derailleur tab and bottle cage nuts with brass. The full build is below:

Tubeset: Columbus Spirit
Fork: Alpha Q CS20

Headset: Chris King nothreadset
Stem: Race Face Revolution 100mm/8°
Bar: 3T Ergosum Pro 44cm
Tape: SRAM Supercork (white)
Seatpost: Race Face Revolution
Saddle: fi'zi:k Antares k:ium
Pedals: Look KeO Sprint
Bottle Cages: Arundel Dave-O matte carbon

Crankset: Ultegra SL 53/39 175mm
Bottom Bracket: Chris King
Front Derailleur: SRAM Rival
Rear Derailleur: SRAM Rival
Shifters: SRAM Rival (updated '09 version)
Cassette: SRAM OG1070 11-26
Chain: KMC X10-SL
Cable housing: Jagwire 4mm LEX der. housing/5mm CEX brake housing (white)

Brakes: SRAM Rival

Hubs: Dura-Ace 7403 rear/Suntour Superbe Pro front
Rims: Velocity Aerohead
Spokes: DT Swiss Competition
Skewers: KCNC Ti
Tires: Vittoria Open Pave CG 290TPI 24c
Tubes: Continental Supersonic (sub 50g)

It comes in around 8.3 kg as configured, and could be a lot lighter with some more race worthy wheels.

Of course to go with a new road bike I needed shoes and pedals, and the bike show this weekend was a perfect opportunity to find those:

(click for larger)

(click for larger)

I took it out for a quick ride last night, and the initial impression is that it rides nicer than I could have imagined. The components (notably the 290 TPI tires) certainly contribute to this, but I can't discount the ride quality of steel and the feel that can only come from a custom frame that fits perfectly. I'll be doing some component reviews throughout the spring as I get used to the new gear.

2009 Race Plans

2009-03-10T21:55:00.004-04:00

You will notice that the 'tentative' label for my race schedule to the right is gone, so I'm calling this schedule somewhat firm. Registration is complete for Paris-Ancaster and the O-Cup XC series. The road season I will let unfold as it goes, but I am looking forward to Westover and K/W will be a local race when I'm in Waterloo for the summer. I might get talked into doing some more road races; we'll see.

Following all that will be cross, which is what I am putting my focus on as far as goals this season. Road and mtb will just be preparation, though I do have some side-goals that I'd like to attain but would not be too bummed if I didn't. What matters is getting some results in cross. Winning a race at least. Just when I start seeing said results is likely when I'll upgrade to hang with the big guys, and once again work just to hang on the back. I'm stoked about this challenge, and about seeing if I can really make it happen.

Training feels like it's way behind schedule, but I keep telling myself everyone feels that way at this time of year. Then I get on the bike and ride... some days. Hopefully soon I can start putting the volume in to build up to race condition. I feel good on the bike these days which is good, but I have to be careful to avoid injury as I have a few weaknesses which have a tendency to make themselves obvious at the beginning of the season.

I will talk a bit more about goals and training in later posts. For now - the bike show is this weekend, and my new machine is all ready to be shown there before I get to ride it. I will post about it after the show, so for the first look at it you'll have to go to the show and check out the True North booth.

Custom fabrication bits for the mtb

2009-02-26T20:42:00.011-05:00

One of the nice things about being mechanically inclined, and also working with some talented machinists is that some options open up for fixing and customizing parts on the bike.

First, the background: my FSA Afterburner crank has been a bit of a sore issue since I got my 29er, as it did not turn out to be what I'd hoped for. It was priced similarly to the new XT cranks at the time, and since I was not running the stock triple rings on either I figured I'd give up the nice Shimano shift quality for the slightly narrower Q-factor that the Afterburners have (169mm, like XTR).

I installed some Middleburn 26t/36t rings with a Salsa ring-dinger outer guard and happily rode for the '08 season... mostly. The 26t had very little clearance with my chainstay and some occasional chainsuck was really doing some damage there. To prevent this from worsening I put a cheap Vuelta 24t ring on which solved that problem and turned out to be a very nice ring (shifted nicely, ran smooth), albeit a bit heavy.

The next problem was crunchy bearings. Typical of OEM outboard bearings. I popped the seals, cleaned them and regreased well, and have been running on those to this date. They're ok, but I feel that the plastic dust caps prevent a nice adjustment from being possible. Also, the preload bolt on these cranks is made of very soft aluminum and uses a 5 mm hex key instead of the splined tool that Shimano uses. The result is that even at the very low torque used, it feels like it will round out at any moment.

This brings us to the current situation ---> not really wanting to buy a new crank, and being fairly enginuitive, I have come up with solutions to the above problems:

Preload bolt - solution: make the tool size larger so it is less prone to rounding out. I got some help opening the 5 mm hex to an 8 mm. A side benefit is a minor weight savings of a couple grams. Not bad for increased functionality and no cost.
Bearings - there are a couple options here:
a) buy new FSA cups (un-necessarily expensive, still crappy bearings)
b) buy replacement bearings (the trouble here, is that Enduro only makes ceramic bearings to fit the FSA cranks because FSA decided to be silly and oversize their spindle by 0.05 mm or so compared to the Shimano/Race Face standard. This does not present interchangability issues with the plastic caps on the OEM cups, but with the larger Enduro bearings that fit directly on the spindle it won't work)
c) the solution to (b): make the spindle fit Shimano spec bearings. Some 320 grit sandpaper then 1200 wet sanding, lots of elbow grease and a couple hours later I have a spindle that takes regular outboard bearings which I can get from Enduro for $12.
a) Chainrings: I have decided I was not totally happy with the shift quality of the Middleburn 36t and the weight of the Vuelta 24t. I was going to get the 26/36 rings from the XT FC-M771 touring crank since they are matched and would shift best, but the 26t would have clearance issues, and they are not very light. Instead I will get 24t and 38t rings from Spécialités TA which are very nice, and though they are not matched 14t gap combined with my Shimano SLX compact (M667) front derailleur should shift well. (as a side note, though heavier than XT or XTR the M667 derailleur solves a tire clearance issue that regular derailleurs have with larger tires on my bike - it's convenient that I like to run a double ring setup). To account for the 24t ring, I will be buying 11-32 cassettes when I wear out my 11-34s, which will also save a bit of weight.

Side note: in case it is not apparent, my reason for using this chainring setup is the inherently higher gearing of 29" wheels. My 29x2.25" rear tire diameter increases development by 1.115 versus a 26x2.0" tire, so 38t and 24t rings are equivalent to 42.4t and 26.8t respectively.

b) Outer guard: to go with the TA rings, I did not want to use an outer guard because it will obscure the nice chainrings from view, and is not necessary with a front derailleur to retain the chain. I also did not want to use shorter chainring bolts alone because this would leave an ugly portion of the crank spider showing. The solution is to fabricate some very light and nice looking spacers for the spider tabs:

I will update when these are done, probably in April when I am switching the bike over from winter training/Paris-Ancaster mode to the regular mtb mode with the new rings and custom bits.

So along with a nice looking crankset that should result from the new rings and spacers, I should also save quite a bit of weight in a few places, which along with some other initiatives (new grips, lighter chain and some bolt tuning) should make the bike over 1.1 lbs lighter than last year.

Stuff for sale

2009-02-26T11:53:00.007-05:00

I will use this post as a resource for selling some cycling related items. That way I can direct people here for pictures and info to avoid typing it often. Items will be removed when they sell, and more may be added later. If you're reading and find yourself interested in something, drop me a line at jeff.moote@gmail.com

Pictures will be added for most of the below items when I get around to it...

Item: FSA OS-115 stem
Price: $60

110 mm length, 0°, weight: 153g
Used <1 season (mtb)

Item: Easton EA90 top-lock stem
Price: $60

90 mm length, ±10°, weight: 132g
Lightly used, about 1 month

Item: FSA Pro chainring
Price: $35

50t, 110 BCD (compact), weight: 101g
Lightly used <1 season

Item: Salsa chainring (silver)
Price: $35

39t, 110 BCD (compact), weight: 66g
Lightly used, about 1 month

Item: BBG cyclocross chainguard
Price: $14

42t max, 110 BCD (compact), weight: 52g
Used about 1 month, looks new

Item: FSA mountain bike triple chainrings
Price: $50

44/32/22t, 104/64 BCD, weight: 136g
Outer & middle used <6 months, 22t used for a couple rides only
These look great and shift well.

Item: Rennen Rollenlager singlespeed tensioner
Price: $40

the best tensioner available - bolts in place with derailleur hanger (no springs)

(another) new blog template

2009-02-26T11:17:00.001-05:00

I was not totally pleased with the last template I implemented as of this post, so I had been searching for something better. The look you now see is what resulted - basically a free template from the web with a bunch of tweaking to make certain things appear in english and to tweak the layout a bit.

I may make subtle changes to the layout over time, but I think this template is ultimately what I will leave in place for the blog, as long as it exists in its current form.

Falling into place

2009-02-23T13:09:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I took the day off work (since I had worked on Monday – Family Day in Ontario) and headed up to a friend’s place to train all weekend. It’s a lot easier to put in the hours with nobody to distract you and with the motivation of someone else to train with. Over three days we put in about 12 hours of training, with about 8 on the bikes plus a hike and ample stretching. Mission accomplished as far as getting lots of base in a short period of time. Entertainment was in the form of the ’09 Cross Worlds and Star Wars Episodes VI, I and II. The legs are doing pretty well and I’m able to crank out the same wattage at a lower heart rate than two weeks ago, which is good.

My focus right now is shifting to force development and muscular endurance, as I feel those are probably my biggest limiters and will take the longest to develop. Tempo rides and slow seated hill repeats will make up many of the workouts, with some easy spinning in between for endurance and recovery.

Racing plans are coming together and soon I will solidify my calendar a bit more. I’ll be sure to post here when I do.

Checking in

2009-02-14T18:58:00.002-05:00

It's been awhile since a post, so I felt I should write something.

Not too much is going on right now, but I can feel the upcoming season looming. The new road machine is in the works and should be ready just in time for some better weather. In the mean time I'm riding the 29er with 38c touring tires for some road time, the same setup I plan to race for Paris-Ancaster.

The training plan kind of fell apart when some returning injuries had me off the bike when I didn't plan to be, so I'm back to getting ride time in when I can, but I'm trying to be smart with it. I have to be very careful at this time of year to avoid injury, as my body isn't as strong as my will to ride hard. That will come later, so I have to tell myself to back off and put in the miles right now. I got out for a great ride today on the roads which have pretty much dried up. I'm debating between another road ride, trails or rest tomorrow - the road is sounding pretty good at this point.

I'm very much looking forward to another year of mtb and especially cyclocross racing, and I will definitely be doing a couple road races also for the experience and training. I'm looking for some consistency through the mtb season and some good results in cross before I move up to the 1 pm race and again experience some humility. All in the name of improvement!

That's all for now. More to come around the bike show when the new ride is done, and after that it won't be long before the race reports start flowing...

New look for the blog

2009-01-26T21:13:00.001-05:00

I decided it was time for some change. I think this template suits my personality more - that is, it's more direct, purposeful and to the point.

Enjoy.

Rivendell Bicycles Tips for Happy Riding - agreement and criticism

2009-01-01T22:20:00.005-05:00

I'll start off by saying that I really like what Rivendell Bicycles is about, and if you don't know about them, go check them out for yourself at rivbike.com On their site is this list entitled "Tips for Happy Riding" and while I understand that from the perspective of the writer the whole list seems sensible, I'm going to add my thoughts since I found myself strongly agreeing with some points while taking great disagreement with others. My comments in green.

Learn right away that the front brake is the most effective one, and to never lock the front wheel in dirt (or on the road, but it's more likely in dirt.
- sure, that's a good start
Learn how far you can lean over without scraping a pedal.
- yup
Learn to keep the inside pedal UP when you corner, and learn to ride safely in all conditions. Be the master and commander of your own bicycle.
- yes, but I'd argue that this is more important from the perspective of good bike handling (which lets you go faster) than with respect to safety
Signal your approach to pedestrians, especially if they're old, and a bell is better than "On your left!" If no bell, try clacking your brake levers. If all you got is "On your left!" that's fine, but if you ride a lot on paths, get a bell.
- Strongly disagree! Given I don't ride a lot of "paths" but the racer in me thinks "On your left!" is far more useful than any noisemaker. It's louder than 90% of bicycle "safety" noise devices, and it specifies which side you are passing on so you don't both go the same way.
At least one ride in 10, go without your sunglasses and gloves. Sometime next month, put some double-sided cheap-style pedals on a good bike and ride in non-cycling garb. It works shockingly well, and sends a good message to would-be bicycle riders.
- nice idea, but I don't think it sends any message at all (who would notice?) and it doesn't seem worth it. Sunglasses are a good idea on or off the bike. I like my eyes intact.
Carry an extra tube you can give to somebody with a flat tire and just a repair kit.
- on long road rides, for sure. I wouldn't go to the trouble of carrying 2 tubes all the time, but a good group will share enough that if I've given my tube away I'm sure someone could give me theirs if needed
If you're a guy, don't try to be a mentor to every female cyclist you meet.
- yeah, I think a lot of guys are guilty of this
Don't ride in shoes you can't walk through an antique shop in.
- when is the last time your ride stopped at an antique shop? I'll ride in shoes that make riding more enjoyable, thanks.
Don't - yup clothing that makes your sweat stink even more.
- this is a reference to their endorsement of wool over synthetics, and I agree to some extent. Wool is very nice, but not all synthetics are created equally. At some point performance garments are just not readily available enough in wool, and you have to wear a synthetic garment if you want the right tool for the job.
Don't think you'll go faster in a significant way if you and your bike become more aerodynamic.
- unless you're doing a TT... over 40km/h an aero helmet alone saves something like 30 W - that's not insignificant at all
Put a $20 bill - yup your seat post or handlebar and hold it there, somehow.
- I agree with the notion that you should always carry money to be prepared for an emergency food stop when you are bonking or something, but why inside the seatpost or handlebar? Just so you don't forget it? When I head out for a ride I'm filling my pockets with all sorts of "be prepared" items, and money is just one of them along with a tool, inflator, etc.
Don't ride until you're confident you can fix a flat.
- agree
If you ride more than one bike, have a set of bring-along tools for each one.
- why?! most bikes use sufficiently similar tools that aside from appropriate tube size (road, mtb, etc.) the same things go with you on more or less every ride
Learn how to remove your rear wheel (put the chain onto the small cog, etc.).
- indeed, most beginners do not know this and it's very helpful
If you ride in a group, bring food for you and somebody who forgot to.
- again, reasonable to a point... don't let your friends bonk if you can help, but don't weigh yourself down with 10 lbs of bars just so nobody goes hungry
Go for a one-hour ride underdressed sometime, because it's good to be really cold on a bike every now and then.
- really? I don't see the point in chilling yourself in an unhealthy way for thrills. A fresh winter ride is one thing, but riding underdressed is not smart.
Never blame your bike or your health or anything else if you're the last one up the hill or in to the rest stop.
- agree, it's the motor that counts
If your brake hoods are black, wrap your bars with a different color tape.
- preferably white, but white gets dirty quick. My favourite is white hoods (easier to clean than white tape) with black or coloured tape.
Never let your chain squeak.
- yeah, I guess this is their way of saying you should lubricate your chain?
If you pass another rider going up a hill, say more than "Hi," but if it's a woman and you aren't, don't assume she wants to chit-chat. Treat her as you'd have a generic guy-rider treat your wife/daughter/girlfriend.
- why do I have to say anything? If I can pass them safely without, I will do so.
If you're a woman and it's a guy, you can chit-chat all you like, they won't mind.
- except for the fact that they're getting passed by a woman. I don't have an issue with it personally, but I don't have the same ego as many male athletes...
If you see another rider approaching you from the rear, trying to catch you, let it happen. Fun is more important than fast.
- how is trying not to get caught not fun? I'm assuming it's a training ride we're talking about, otherwise, well, I don't get passed much on any other sort of ride.
Don't put any cyclist up on a pedestal, except Lon and Freddie.
- not even Jens Voigt?
Sometimes, bring normal food on your ride. Sometimes bring none. If you're reasonably well-rested and have eaten anything at all in the last eighteen hours (and are not diabetic), you should be able to pedal your bike for two to three hours without supercharging your system with carbohydrates.
- pedal for 2-3 hours at a leisurely pace, sure. At race effort glycogen stores last 60-90 minutes in the average person, and less for some. I think saying to eat when you are hungry would be better advice.
Shoot photos on your rides and give them away.
- yes, but I'm not much of a photographer
Feel comfortable mixing high tech and low tech, old and new parts and technologies, and don't apologize to anybody for it.
- I race a rigid mountain bike with brand new XTR shifters, so I don't need convincing here.
Compliment other people's bikes, especially if they're new.
- absolutely! It feels great to have a new bike, and better to know that other people think it's as cool as you do.
Buy the cheapest helmet that fits well.
- terrible advice. Buy the helmet that you will want to wear every time you ride. They're all safety approved, so get one that fits, but also one that is sufficiently light to be comfortable and one you like the look of so you feel happy wearing it. A safety device is no good if you leave it behind for fear of how you look, and we all know that the cheapest helmets look absolutely aweful.
Try seersucker shirts for hot weather riding, and long-sleeved ones are best.
- I'm hoping to do this when I get around to buying one
Don't underestimate fig bars.
- though nutritious, I don't like figs
If you get a new widget and like it, don't "swear by it."
- I agree, if I am taking this correctly: you can't really endorse a product wholeheartedly until you've used it for a significant amount of time. You can state that you are liking a new purchase so far, and later decide it's the best you've used, but when it's brand new you don't really know yet how you'll feel in the long run.
Don't always shop by price and never ask for discounts at your local bike shop. Every time you go into a bike shop, spend at least $2, and if you ask a question and get good advice, spend $5 (get a cable).
- most people can't afford not to shop by price. I have loyalties, and I do try to support my LBS and buy things there when I can, I will not pay significantly more than I have to, especially on major purchases. One should not however discount the value that a shop provides in fitting and recommending a product, but if I know what I want and the LBS cannot compete, I will buy where I can save money.
If you buy a rack, don't ask for free installation.
- I'd install it myself, as with any job I'm capable of
Don't assume your bike shop is making money.
- unfortunately too true in these times
Ride only when you feel like it.
- agree to some extent - as Friel says in his training bible, a skipped workout is better than one of poor quality. Sometimes "not feeling like it" is simply a lack of motivation though, and one needs to differentiate between knowing when to call off a ride for poor legs that day and just blowing off a workout to sit around and be lazy. Nobody said training was easy.
If you know a fast new rider, don't say, "You really ought to race."
- why not? Maybe not the first thing you say, but I think everyone should race - there is so much to be gained from it. Fitness, competition, humility, mental toughness... I could go on.
If you see a stocky woman rider, don't suggest she race track.
- yes, I'll give them this one; that's just rude.
Have at least one bike you feel comfortable riding in a downpour.
- we'd all like a bike for every situation, but there are limits to how many we can afford and also how many we have space for at home. The "rain bike" or "beater" is certainly not a big investment, but it does factor in somewhere. I don't have one, really, but I'll put all my bikes through hell if I have to, though I'll be home cleaning it thoroughly right after.
Ride in weather that keeps other cyclers indoors.
- I like this one: the hardman concept. Today's snowy mtb ride was great.
Never keep track of your pedaling cadence.
- these ones are starting to get to me. I agree that tracking your cadence throughout every ride is useless, but drills at specific cadences go a long way to developing technique and strength.
If you have a normal loop or ride, count the number of times you shift on it; then the next time you ride it, cut that in half and see if it makes any difference.
- it will make a difference. Not necessarily a big one, and not necessarily a negative one, but it will be different. Singlespeeding is great, but not shifting your geared bike at sensible times is just stupid.
Learn to ride no-hands and to hop over obstacles, but not simultaneously.
- yup, useful skills I will agree
Never hit a pedestrian. In traffic, be visible and predictable.
- does anyone try to hit a pedestrian? I agree with the latter bit of course.
If you have several bikes, set them up with different equipment but always ride the saddle you like best.
- very good advice
Don't try to keep up with faster descenders if you're not comfortable descending.
- yes, there is a difference between confidence and recklessness.
Never apologize for buying something that's not quite pro quality by saying, "I'm not going to race or anything."
- I don't apologize for anything I purchase at all
If you buy a stock bike, do something to it that makes it the only one exactly like it in the world.
- I'm not one to have a stock bike, so I'll agree with this
Don't think it's important to match front and rear hubs or rims.
- I don't think it's necessary to have the very same model - in fact sometimes it is best to mix, but I think they should match aesthetically, with each other and the rest of the bike.
If you borrow somebody else's bike, for a short test or a long ride, say something nice about it.
- I wouldn't go insulting someone's ride needlessly, yes, but it's ok to be honest about how it rode for you
Always bring a pump.
- or CO2 inflator. Exception: racing on closed courses.
Build at least one wheel.
- definitely
Wear out something.
- I do!
Don't ever describe any bike, no matter how inexpensive or dilapidated, as "a piece of crap."
- some bikes really are "a piece of crap" and I think being honest is perfectly acceptable
If you get a fancy bike assembled by somebody else, allow them a scrape or two, especially if the bike is really expensive.
- saving the best for the end, I do agree with this. When assembling my 29er, the fork got a paint chip which they touched up sufficiently to prevent corrosion, but it could still be seen upclose. I was offered a repaint on the fork when I had some downtime for the bike, but I'm not sure I'll bother taking them up on that. The whole bike will need a refinish after a few seasons use anyway, as it's a mountain bike with wet paint.

I found this list quite polarizing, though obviously both the original text and my responses are just opinions on the internet (and we all know how much those are worth).

Best of 2008

2009-01-01T19:55:00.004-05:00

This post was inspired by this one on Jeff Kerkove's blog.

Best bike used in '08: the True North Cycles 29er, of course. I loved my cross bike too, but the True North was most excellent, living up to everything I wanted it to.

Best new bike component: this is a tough one since I used so much new stuff this season, but I think it has to go to my Chris King/Stans Arch 29er wheelset. This is kind of cheating since the rims and hubs were both special in their own way (and I have another set of the Stan's rims on other wheels) but in combination they're a fantastic set of wheels. The King hubs are not the lightest, but they are solid performers, easy to service and look great. The Arch 29er rims are sufficiently light, and provide a solid platform to mount a tubeless setup on. I may even cheat a bit further and plug the Schwalbe Racing Ralphs in this one, as this wheel/tire combination was about as perfect as I can imagine with light weight, low rolling resistance and good grip.

Best new cycling apparel: another tough call, but it goes to the Sidi Dominator 5 shoes. I won't go into whether or not Sidi shoes are as good as they're made out to be, or whether they're worth the price tag - for me the point is that I have a wide foot, and the Sidi Megas are one of the few shoes that fit them properly. They're very comfortable, stiff enough, and the fit alone is worth the price to me. It doesn't hurt that they're among the most stylish cycling footwear available. I only wish they'd make the Mega width in white...

Best online retailer: though my order was barely inside '08 just a week ago, I'll give this one to Total Cycling in the UK for their combination of good prices, reasonable postage and fast delivery. I had to make a change in my order after it was placed, and with a quick phone call it was done and without any problems. A mentionable 2nd place goes to Universal Cycles in Portland, OR for consistently good service on many orders, and a great web interface. Their prices are average, but with coupon codes which are readily available, they offer competitive pricing while having the best web store for letting you know what is in stock, when it will ship and how much postage will be.

Best race attended: I think this has to go to the Life$tyle$ of the Rich and Famou$ 24h race. Though it's a little more money than the big events, it's hard to argue with a 24h race that provides warm accommodations and meals. The small number of participants keeps things casual, and this race is about as fun as they get while remaining competitive.

Best race performance: both in placing and in the way I felt, definitely the Subway 'Cross event that ended the (official) season for 'cross in Southern Ontario. I had a good race and after a good start with the lead group, dropped back into 3rd wheel and held it to the end. Runner up would be Paul's Dirty Enduro (3okm version). I went into this with no expectations (I was actually just going to hang out until a decision 30 minutes before the start) and ended up 5th in my age group. I'll definitely consider going back for the 60k next year.

Best race watched on TV/internet: 2008 CX worlds, I guess. There were a lot of good races, but this one was very exciting with Boom's dominant performance, and it was one that helped build my interest in 'cross when I was just getting into the idea of trying it.

Best "I don't think I'm going to make it" moment: probably on the Hamilton Endurance Ride (Round 2) undertaken by some MTBR Eastern Ontario forum people, led by our good friend Jeff. It was one of the toughest rides I've done with all the climbing (1250m), and just the sheer distance covered offroad (~95km). It was pretty warm that day too, and I was having trouble keeping enough food down to fuel myself. A near bonk experience bailed out by a bottle of Coke topped off the day. I don't think I would have finished a ride like that without the good company of the folks I was with.

Best all around ride: this one, based on the fact that it was blogworthy on its own, and all the reasons I gave in that post.

That's all I've got for now. I think it sums up the year pretty well; hopefully 2009 will bring more good experiences.

2009, here I come

2008-12-28T20:05:00.006-05:00

The holiday lifestyle that has set in over the past 2 weeks has taken quite a toll on my body. I feel tight, sore and generally lazy. Tomorrow is the beginning of my 2009 season plan. We'll see how far I make it before real life gets in the way of a couple workouts and I have to break the plan. Tonight I will try an easy spin on the trainer and some stretching to try to loosen up a bit. I'll need to work off the holiday dinners and then some to hit the weight goal for this season, but as I already found during '08 the whole W/kg thing makes a difference when the parcours turns vertical.

On an unrelated note, Chris King hubs are really a dream to work on mechanically. I did an overhaul on mine last night and it was so nice to follow the simple instructions and end up with a hub that works better than new. I will be making a point to pick up the new BB sometime in the future, since its bearings are serviced the same way and the length of the warranty suggests that it should be much better than the OEM crap from Shimano, FSA, et al.

2008 CX Finale, conclusions

2008-12-03T21:35:00.003-05:00

After not touching my bike since provincials, I decided mid-week that I'd attend the final race of the Southern Ontario CX series. The conditions were looking alright, and I could not resist another cross race before the season came to an end. That didn't mean I was going to train or even spin my legs beforehand... I just made sure the bike was in working order, did some extra stretching, and packed up to race.

The final race colloquially dubbed the Subway Cross was held in King's Mill Park below the subway station of the same name in Toronto. After some confusion about where to park and where the course was, we registered and set about putting on lots of clothes and previewing the course. The first thing that stood out about the course was tape. Lots of it. Like those mazes with cheese at the end for mice that you see in cartoons. I was not sure if I'd made a mistake and doubled back or if it all just looked the same. After that, a short section through tall grass and a bit of a muddy rise, there was a bit of paved road. The road led to gravel road, which turned to rutted mud, and then to a gravelly climb. After descending, there was more tape maze, a short grassy power section and a bit more pavement for the start/finish straight. All in all, a pretty fun course with no forced dismounts, and one significant climb to speak of.

The 10 am start saw a pretty large group, with maybe a little less than usual in the S3/4 field including some non-series regulars. I was happy to line up beside nspace (Tom) who I've had the pleasure of racing with/against this year in both mtb and cross. Off the start there were 4 of us up front into the tape section, and I worked to move up to 3rd wheel. A small crash split the group and I found myself sitting 2nd wheel and watching the leader slowly gap me. I wasn't going to be able to hang, so I worked as hard as I could not to get passed. On the first road section some cat and mouse led to one more getting away from me, leaving only Tom chasing me and no real progress to be made in front. This is how things would remain for the subsequent 3.5 laps, and I'd finish 3rd after a long hard effort to hold him off. By a quick calculation that was enough to take 3rd in the series too. Full series results can be found at the Ontario Cycling Association website.

With the final race behind me, I can reflect upon my cross season and say that it was certainly successful both in learning the sport and finding out that I enjoy it more than mtb or road racing. Next year will see a more focussed training plan, a healthy (but reduced and more focussed) amount of mtb racing, and will conclude with a full cross season. As of right now I think I will start in S3/4 again next year, and hopefully can grab some top finishes before upgrading mid-season to the 1/2/3 race. If they do not enforce upgrades, I will loosely follow the road point system and thus upgrade at 10 points. On the mtb front I'll be trying my hand at the Senior Sport category in the Ontario Cups - a very competitive, but probably appropriate level for me to race at. You'll see to the right a preview of what my '09 season will look like, but that is subject to much change at this point. For now, much R&R and some non-structured cross training is in order. Full-on base training begins after Christmas!

FOR SALE: Kona Major Jake

2008-11-23T22:44:00.009-05:00

SOLD

More CX race reports

2008-11-11T21:28:00.003-05:00

Seems I don't have much time for blogging these days, so these come in the way of multi-race posts. I'll try to keep them brief.

Speed River Halloween Stage Race Day 2 - October 26, 2008

I had non-cycling commitments for Day 1, which is really unfortunate because SRCC puts on some great races and I would have liked to come with a costume. That said, not having to come up with a CX friendly costume did suit my lazy tendencies.

The Sunday course proved to be much dryer than what I had seen in reports from Saturday, which made for some fast racing. As we pulled up for the day, I noticed a run-up and some switchback turns down the same slope - very nice. This would prove to be my favourite part of the course by far. I hit this runup with increasing speed each time, and actually ran, unlike the "hike" up from the beach on the other side of the course. Yeah, beach. The sand was fun. I rode it every lap in warmup and race, except my last when I decided I had better legs for running at that point.

My race started really well, opening up a gap with Nick and Peter off the start and actually holding their wheel. That felt good because they're normally a lot faster than me. About halfway through the lap I slid out in an off camber corner and lost their wheel, but nobody passed me. Over the next lap or two I let a couple people go hoping to reel them in later. Unfortunately I tripped on the barriers Sven Nys style lap 3 and went down hard. I got back up alright, and finished without losing any more spots, in 5th. My crash was apparently more spectacular from a spectating POV - some folks thought I'd have broken my collarbone. Luckily all I took from it was a scrape below my eye.

Barrie Cyclocross - November 2, 2008

This year the Barrie race was held at Hardwood Hills due to being unable to secure last year's venue. This was fine by me, as I knew that the terrain at Hardwood should provide ample features for a good course. I was not disappointed - lots of fast grass and doubletrack was offset by some tight sandy switchbacks, a ridable but tough sandy hill, a cruel run-up (or ride, if you're Mike Garrigan) and some quick but tight hairpins on flat ground. This was the first course of the year other than bits of the Kingston race where I could hammer in the big ring and not kill myself doing so. If I had any complaints it would be the slow approach to the barriers.

The race was off to a quick start, strung out and I was sitting about 5th wheel. Strung out up the sandy climb, I lost some ground but was riding well. In subsequent laps I found running the hill better due to traffic with the M3s, but in hindsight riding would have been a bit faster. As the race progressed, a battle developed between myself and Jamie who is usually a little quicker than me. We went back and forth, and unfortunately it was a mechanical (a rolled tire) that took him out of contention. I would go on to finish 7th, with Brusso riding strong for the win over Peter and Dave. Hm, when are those guys going to upgrade...

Toronto UCI C1 weekend, Day 1 - November 8, 2008

This was a weekend I looked forward to as much for spectating as for racing. Tim Johnson and Jeremy Powers among others were confirmed for the Elite race which was sure to be a good one to watch.

Sticking to my own race for the purpose of this blog, however... I had a pretty bad race on Saturday. Finished for enough points to put me in 4th for the S3/4 standings, but I just didn't feel good. The course was nicely laid out with plenty of tech, but the long power sections between did not suit me and the field just rode away. A quick consultation with the coaching staff after my race, and yup, lots of TT workouts will be in the plan for next year.

This was my first race on the new tubulars (which are actually some grungy old Grifos) and the impression was good. I will get used to them more in the coming races, but the ride quality and traction at low pressures was great. I rode the nasty hill at least once in the race, but other times did not find the traction. More on this in the Day 2 report.

Toronto UCI C1 weekend, Day 2 - November 9, 2008

Heading back to Centennial Park for day 2, some drier weather greeted us on course and the pre-ride left me optimistic that maybe this was a better course for me. They really used the ski hill well, and it made for some nasty climbs and fun off camber descents. I was able to ride all of it in pre-ride, but this fell apart quickly as the course got torn up. By race time I could not ride either big climb, and was reduced to running (or walking, as would be the case by lap 4).

I started strong, letting Peter by in the first corner as he had a crappy 2nd row callup (hmm, UCI Commissaires doing callups at a 3/4 race... yeah...). He chopped my lines through the wet section going into the barriers, but I held his wheel until we started going up. Right off the first punchy climb I dropped a couple spots. More on the big hill. Still, I was riding well, and started to gain some momentum through the technical section at the base of the hill.

I continued to let riders go on the subsequent ascent, but come lap 3 I found myself with Mark Brusso coming into the start/finish and he was right on my wheel. He wanted around, so I let him and quickly hopped on to take advantage of the draft on the fast straight, and held it right until the hill again... off he went. He did come by and say that I was riding strong afterward, which made me feel good. I would finish in 11th, largely due to the bigger than usual field (some US riders from Rochester and many 1-day racers came out). This would however maintain my spot in 4th overall, and I hear Peter is moving up leaving me in 3rd going into Provincials... I'll write about that another day.

Race Reports: ZM Turkey Cross & Southern/Eastern CX Challenge

2008-10-21T18:27:00.005-04:00

Time to catch up on my race reports from the last couple cross races.

ZM Turkey Cross - October 12, 2008

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I was home in Niagara, so I headed up to this race at Cedarvale Park in Toronto with Shawn from the SCCC. We rolled in nice and early and checked in. Getting changed to head out for the preride I realize something is not right - I don't have my shoes. They're definitely at home in NF. The feeling that followed was just terrible. I was so upset with myself.

I asked around, and the best I could come up with for shoes were some that fit great, but belonged to someone who races at the same time. I asked the organizers if I could race the 11:30 race, but they were not going to let me - the only option would be to race the 1/2/3 at 1:00. Some more asking about, and I came up with an offer of some shoes from our singlespeeding M2 friend Jason, but in size 44. I tried them on, and though I just about tore them apart it worked. Well, if I was going to race, this is how I would have to do it.

To keep the racing part brief, it went alright settling in mid-pack off the start and fading to an eventual 15th place. Not great, but it was a lot of fun as usual, and I got an interesting story out of it.

Southern and Eastern Cross Series Challenge - October 19, 2008

This past weekend, I headed to Kingston for the big showdown between Southern and Eastern Ontario. The numbers lived up to the name - it was a big event by Ontario standards, which was great. Accommodations for the weekend were care of the Bishops in Bath, ON as I was traveling with Nick and Mel for the weekend. I must say, their hospitality was fantastic.

Upon arriving at the park on Sunday, we took our time getting changed and registered since we had plenty of time and it was rather cold. Out for a pre-ride in many layers, we explored the course. Very technical, but with enough speed sections to satisfy the roadies too. I loved the runups and off camber bits. I did not love the somewhat sketchy concrete dismount (at least it was after a corner) or the awful right hand downhill barrier approach. I definitely never did that cleanly and whacked my knee on it somewhere around lap 2 ("hmm, where is that blood coming from").

The race had only two start times with most of the categories in the morning, and just Elite Men, Master A/1 men and Elite Women in the afternoon. This was my chance to race Brandon for the season, and his first cross race. We got set up for the mass start, as all the categories went off together rather than in 1 minute intervals as in the Southern series. I thought this was nuts, but with a right hand second row position it was actually quite good. All categories did 60 minutes too, which was not nearly as bad as I thought. In fact, I think I preferred it.

The pace was quick off the line, and I think I did 90% of the first lap in my 46t ring, though I did have to back it off after that. I found I was quick over the double and single barriers with straight approaches, and good on the plateau/switchback section that forced some people to run and many others to fall. I did have a bit of a slip myself on lap 1 mostly due to eagerness and speed, but it was not bad at all.

The downside to the mass field was not having any clue who you were racing against. It didn't help that it wasn't the same guys you line up against every other week, so it was pretty much a mystery until the results came in. On the topic of results - the timing system was great with lap cards that you could actually see and prompt results after the race. It turns out I finished 3rd in the Novice category, or so I thought! They had me up on the podium and everything (next to Nick, who rode very strong for the win) but when the results were posted on the OCA site I was 5th, as apparently they must have missed a couple riders. Southerners too - so I got 4th place points for the Southern series.

All told, it was a very good race for me, and an enjoyable weekend.

Some evening thoughts

2008-10-20T19:40:00.006-04:00

I was feeling inspired to post a few thoughts here..

List A: things that add to my happiness

- coffee

- cyclocross

- tasty food

List B: things that detract from my happiness

- sleep deprivation

- studying for midterms

- studying for midterms in subjects that will never be used again

Right now I'm using things from List A to make me feel better about the inevitability of those in List B. It's sort of working...

U-Cup 2008 Report

2008-10-19T20:29:00.003-04:00

Yes, I'm way behind on race reports and really posts of any sort on this blog. It's a busy term, but I'll recap the U-Cups for now.

So, University Cup racing is always fun. For those who are not familiar, they are basically O-Cup style XC races designed to allow some inter-school competition for College and University students, with a big focus on introducing people to racing and just having fun.

The A division spans a wide ability range from top Expert and sometimes Elite racers down to about the top of Sport class (in O-Cup terms). The B division, which I raced in this year has a bit of overlap including some top Sport class riders down to folks who have never raced before and who may have just started mountain biking. It's all great fun, and there's a place for everyone.

My goal was to do well in B this year, hoping for a top-5 finish. Though I think it was within reach, it did not happen. I'll get that out of the way now. I was competitive though, and was able to finish 9th and 10th at my better races (Mansfield and Boler). At Ganaraska I had a bad start and blew up a bit after hitting traffic and trying to make up time. Hardwood, I was expecting a good race, but ended up not lining up after an injury from Paul's Dirty Enduro the day before. That was a good race though - I got 5th in my age group for the 30k. I felt unsure of my knee for Hardwood, and though the pre-ride went pretty well I did not feel confident about racing.

The B field this year was very strong, with some consistent folks from both UofT and Guelph. I think I really wasn't fit enough to hang with the top 3 or 4, but I should have been able to do a little better. I did take notes from those races though, and gained more useful experience, which is a lot of what this year has been about for me. Next year there's a good chance I'll line up in A and get stomped, but all in the spirit of getting faster and suffering more.

So just a bit more on that note - this year has been all about experimenting for me: racing short events, long events, different courses, etc. to try to get a feel for my ability. All the while I've been training, and I definitely have seen the results of that. Going into next year I should be more focussed, and far wiser, and that alone will help me to be more successful. I will pick some reasonable challenges, and work hard to train for a proper season. More on that later in the fall. For now, I've been racing cyclocross (more useful experience) and having a blast. I'll post some reports on that when I get a chance.

As always, thanks for reading.

Welcome to the pain cave

2008-09-16T20:47:00.003-04:00

AKA, my much delayed race report from the We Need More Cowbells Cyclocross race, which took place on 13 September. Actually, Nathan does a great job covering how the race went down at the above link, so I'll stick to impressions on my day, and my intro to CX racing.

I started this year off thinking I'd like to give cross racing a try, so I sold my road bike and bought the Major Jake, and then spent all year upgrading and swapping components... yes, I'm a junkie. I think it's nearly done :P Cross bike in hand, I tried the Paris-Ancaster, but mechanical issues would have me not finishing. Too bad, as I was really enjoying myself. So a summer goes by with much road riding, a good helping of mountain biking and lots of mtb races. Around the beginning of August I thought I'd best start thinking about cross skills, so I swapped the 50T for the 46T, removed the bottle cages and headed off to a local park. Not so good at first, but in a week or so I could get on and off the bike at a moderate pace. A couple interval sessions with the St. Catharines guys, and off I went to Waterloo for the Fall. One quick barrier session, and I was as ready to race as I'd ever be... time for more COWBELL

Nathan sent me on an allen key errand right before my race, which had me riding up to the line frantically, but luckily he staged me up front and as an added bonus my HR was halfway to race level already. Off the start I was sitting about 3rd or 4th wheel into the corner. Knowing the course, I gained a couple spots in the bend and was sitting second wheel, but slid out in a corner. Over the barriers with the group, HR is pegged. This is going to be fun.

As the first lap went on, I continued to go backwards through the pack until I settled in with a fellow from D'Ornellas. We would continue to race each other for about 2 laps before he pulled away in the power section after the mud pit, after which I wouldn't see him again. My pace continued to drop as my back was giving complaints and the HR was still at threshold. I was loving every bit of it. I would cross the line 6th in my category. Not DFL, and not lapped, so what can I say. Good enough for a first attempt, especially considering the competition. A couple of the guys on the podium probably should have raced Elite, but it's not like it would have changed my race much anyway.

Cross is hard. Cross hurts. Cross is also the most fun I've had on a bike ever. I will be training, and racing mtb, and training some more, and come October I will hit the CX circuit again to see how I fare.

The perfect ride

2008-08-31T21:41:00.004-04:00

Today's was definitely one of the better mountain bike rides I've ever done. It wasn't the longest, fastest nor hardest. The conditions were not "epic" and no new areas were explored. It was simply a great ride - equipment functioned well, the pace was just right, the route was as good as any around this area and the company was good and well matched.

We hit all my favourite spots through Decew, Shorthills and the 12 mile creek trail system. I was back on the Racing Ralph 2.4/2.25" setup, which is super fast and light for how big and grippy those tires are. Tons of fun bombing descents, launching off of roots and grunting up the hills. It was a true mountain bike ride, unlike many this summer which have lacked one thing or another that would have made it more ideal. Today definitely has me feeling positive about the upcoming University Cup races, and about riding general.

Having covered much of the Squeezer course today, I am rather undecided whether I will skip a U-Cup to race it or not. That will likely be covered in another post soon...

Here is the route and profile for the day (click for full size versions):

on junk miles and cyclocross

2008-08-22T13:17:00.005-04:00

This post was inspired by the latest over at BKW, which I will say is prerequisite reading for what I am about to write. Here is the paragraph which is especially relevant:

“[T]here comes a point in the season when you’ve accomplished what you set out to do. Wins, upgrade points, epic rides, by late summer only the most dedicated riders still have unfinished business. The resulting mix is a once-a-year bouillabaisse of sustained fitness, great weather and waning motivation. So what is there to do?”

That sounds all too relatable right now. I have struggled a lot in the late season accomplishing the proper contrast between hard and easy, and all my rides are just sort of... medium.

So what to do about this? Well, I'm pretty excited for cyclocross season, so cross workouts should help motivate me to train again. On that note, I'm struggling with learning some of the technique - especially dismounts. My mounts are not especially clean, but at least I can do them; shouldering the bike is no problem; dismounts, though, just aren't clicking for me. It's getting the right leg around and through while maintaining balance that I can't seem to do. I know, however, that I just need to practice lots, but it's very discouraging when something that seems so simple holds you up. It's a mental thing for sure - once I get past this I will at least be able to passably navigate a cross course.

Here's what the agenda holds for the rest of 2008:

lots of junk miles on dirt/country roads
university cup mtb racing: hopefully CX intervals keep me in shape enough that these don't turn into more junk miles
cyclocross racing: we'll see how it goes, but it is sure to be fun anyway

After that, it's all about base training and maintenance for 2009. That will consist of sloppy road rides on the cross bike, winter mtb rides when the snow is appropriate and of course the dreaded hours on the trainer in a dark basement.

Race Report: Duke’s Cycle Summer Epic 8h

2008-07-28T10:54:00.001-04:00

My weekend in point form:

Friday preride – great conditions despite the rain all week, indicating how well it would deal with the rain that was to come. The course was fun and gave me the impression that it would be easy and fast at first, but would become tougher as fatigue set in.
Camping overnight – I forgot a sleeping bag, so it was a cold and fairly restless night. One would have thought the end of July would be warmer, but it was really a silly mistake.
Race morning – it had rained a bit early in the morning, and the skys were very uncertain looking. For me the worst part of riding in the rain is the havoc it plays on the bike – Eva’s comment about wet sand and my non-singlespeed drivetrain would return to mind later on in the day when I had a dropped chain and some chain suck.
The race – overall it was good, putting out a very average 12 laps in the duo category. I’d hoped to ride 7, but 6 was fine with me, especially after a little encounter with a tree on my last lap.
Post race – a trip to the highly recommended (by Evan) Barrie Burger. I will say it lived up to the hype, and was indeed a great post race stop. Too bad they’re closed on Sundays (i.e. most race days).

I’ll likely be taking a bit of a break from racing now, and look forward to seeing everyone at the U-Cups in September.

Just another Sunday club ride

2008-06-29T21:14:00.002-04:00

Out to Smithville with the club today, via a slightly non-typical route due to road work, etc.

Solstice Race Report 2008

2008-06-24T12:45:00.004-04:00

With the 36 Hours of Hope cancelled, my summer racing plans opened up considerably, and since a team who had asked me earlier in the year if I wanted to race Solstice with them was still looking with less than a week to go I figured I’d do it. We were to be a casual 7-8 person team where the main goal was to keep going and put out personal best times regardless of what these were. A fun group to race with.

Ryan started us off but had an encounter with a tree that would leave him a bit shaken up, his front wheel wrecked and what would have been a very fast lap a bit slower than planned. We’re very glad he is ok and not concussed – he was able to keep turning out decent laps in fact. Sitting 4th in the order, my first lap would be my fastest though also the toughest since not knowing the course meant I was not riding efficiently. All of my four laps sat between 60 and 70 minutes, which I am pleased with considering I didn’t put too much focus on this event in the weeks prior.

My second lap which began around 11 pm started slightly damp but the rain turned heavy about 5 minutes in and would continue for the duration of the lap. Traction and visibility became scarce, but I managed to keep the bike upright in the slick bits unlike many others on course at the time. When I returned I was soaked, and the bike was pretty trashed with mud. I used the bike-wash knowing I may need to do some bearing overhaul at the end of the weekend, and this worked out alright since my sprayed down and freshly lubed drivetrain was fine on subsequent laps. I’ve yet to deal with the aftermath but it doesn’t look too bad – that’s tonight’s job.

The bike handled extremely well through all the conditions the course had to offer. Some new bits were on test, and others I’ve now used enough to make judgements on:

New wheels: ZTR Arch 29er rims on Chris King Pretty and Strong ISO hubs built up by Bike29 - absolutely the best wheels I could imagine for my use. These are my first King hubs and they are meeting and exceeding all of my expectations. The bearing drag during wear in is diminishing as the manual says it will, and the engagement is fantastic in the technical sections. The ZTR rims are not new to me, and these work as nicely as the Flows with a slightly lower weight and narrower size. Tires sealed up very well as expected, and I can’t burp them as much as I might try.
Tires: I ran a Kenda Karma 1.9 out back which was new to me, with the familiar Schwalbe Racing Ralph up front in 2.25. I previously had the Ralphs on front and rear (2.4/2.25 respectively) and they are definitely grippy, fast racing tires. The Karma out back being a bit narrower rolled even faster at the expense of some grip, but worked well even in the greasy course at night. The frame clearance in the rear is much more comforting than the 5mm or so the 2.25 RR had.
Formula ORO brakes – I am really impressed with these, and with the Goodridge hoses I feel they will be a very serviceable component for a long time. Bleeding was very easy, power is good for 160mm rotors and the modulation is fantastic with the organic pads. The only trouble is I've gone through my first set of those, and I'm not sure whether to replace them with more organics or the sintered version - I've got both as I'm interested in comparing.
XTR/Dura-Ace chain - it's perhaps the best compromise of light weight and shifting performance for my use. It will probably wear out faster than my Wipperman 908, but the quiet, smooth operation is nice while it lasts.

Mistakes at the Gear Grinder

2008-06-23T14:18:00.002-04:00

As those of you who I’ve talked to will know, my Gear Grinder result was a near repeat of the Icebreaker (stopped after 1 lap of the long course) though for completely unrelated reasons. While the Icebreaker offered a snowy, muddy slog that I did not want to see for a second time, the Grinder was a very nice course through the very large network of trails in the Ganaraska forest. More singletrack than your average XC race in Ontario, and lots of twisty loamy turns mixed with some fast descents and a couple long fire-road climbs.

Two laps of 27 km each should not have been a problem for me, but it was and with much analysis I have speculated what the causes could be. One I am sure of, and the one that probably caused the need to stop completely was nutrition. I was dehydrated and bonking after 1 lap, when I can usually ride many times this without nutrition being a problem. I can only guess it was not enough food the morning of the race (real whole food, that is) and a stomach that did not want to let me drink, on a hot day that resulted in serious hydration requirements. All of my concerns about certain products not working for me (namely eLoad and Clif Shot Bloks) have been ruled out as I have tested these enough to know that they are not a problem when I am having a normal day.

My other mistake was pacing, which is entirely one of those experiences you only gain from racing. I come away from this experience much wiser with respect to this topic. Given that I didn’t have my HRM (the Garmin Edge was off to be replaced for the second time under warranty) I should have paid a little closer attention to my body, but instead I had my eyes on the other racers who were largely a speedy bunch. I went hard off the start and got a good position about 10-12 racers from the front. Instead of settling into a good pace, I tried to hold my spot and this would combine with the nutrition issue to put me in bad shape by halfway through lap 1.

The climbs became unreasonably hard, and my stomach only got worse. I finished with an avg. speed of over 14 km/h, which considering how much time I spent struggling and even leaned over my bike feeling like I would throw up, means if I’d not gone so hard at first I might have done a reasonable time in addition to finishing both laps.

Since this was not a priority race for me, I can say it was not disappointing and I learned a lot from it. The course was good and would have been a blast to ride had I been feeling better.

Transitioning into Summer

2008-06-03T19:46:00.005-04:00

With some of the early season events behind me I am finding myself in a period of transition. The weather is allowing more time on the mountain bike and handling is coming along - that said I am looking forward to more time working on base and climbing on the road. Many of the events recently have been about intensity - the Life$tyle$ 24h, Duke's 8h and local bi-weekly series have all been hard efforts due to short lap times and low overall demand on endurance. My priority event for the mid-season being the 36 HOURS OF HOPE means I need to seriously build endurance at this point, and for me it is specifically muscular endurance that is needed. The base aerobic fitness I developed over the winter and spring has served me well and I rarely find it limiting at this point, but I often find myself with "heavy" legs partway into my sub-threshold endurance rides. As best I can tell the way to work on this will be more long steady distance at this power output with a focus on recovery between sessions.

This past Sunday I'd decided to skip the club ride in favour of a more reasonable paced century, but the wind and some extra enthusiasm soon had me pushing it too hard and I decided to shorten my ride to 100k and add some hills. With no particular route in mind I headed out through Virgil then St. Catharines to get to the usual riding grounds around the Pelham/Lincoln area. It was a good feeling to ride and only sort of know where I was going. The ride looked something like this:

(click for full size)

Note the sharp peak at 45 km - that would be Saylor's hill, familiar to the locals here but also to anyone who has raced the Niagara Classic. I dragged myself up for the first time, but it will take many more before I can hang with the club on that grade. Yesterday was recovery with the youth mtb ride, and today will be a day off to clean the bikes and rest. Unfortunately getting much training in at all this week does not look good:

Hopefully the weather does indeed clear by next weekend and I can get some more saddle time in. Sunday I am supposed to be joining a century ride that will take us over the Canada-USA border for a trip along the Niagara River and lake Ontario and a good climb up the escarpment.

The next week is the Ganaraska Gear Grinder which I am really looking forward to. Two 26km laps on the great singletrack there will be a nice alternative to the more local Lake to Lake Classic which features mainly gravel road and rutted, muddy ATV trails. Following this race will be some more base building toward the endurance required for the 36h. It seems to be shaping up for a good summer :)

Life$tyle$ of the Rich and Famou$ 24h

2008-05-20T12:09:00.001-04:00

As mountain bike events go in Ontario, this would be just about as different as one could be from the usual sort put on by Chico Racing. W.O.W puts on smaller scale events that focus on a more relaxed atmosphere, but still attract some very fast riders and are able to satisfy both those who come to race and those who come to drink beer and put a lap or two in while they’re at it. Participants in this race are encouraged to come back each year, having about a month to decide before the remaining few spots are opened up to the public. I was lucky to get one of about 4 teams that opened up this year, and I’m very glad I did.

The field was a very comfortable size: 23 teams (of 5 officially, though a few were running only 4) and 19 solos. Taking advantage of the accommodations at the Mansfield Outdoor Centre, about half of us were housed in the Field Centre with each team in a room with 6 bunks, and a large common room with a wood stove, couches, kitchen, etc. The rest of the teams were in individual cabins near the chalet, and solos shared space in the Chalet again with their own wood stove, etc. Needless to say, everyone was comfortable. Meals were provided, and for the most part were delicious except for the sausages at breakfast. Eating those 1h before heading out for my morning lap was a big mistake and I nearly lost them before I even got going. Lunch after the race was especially good with some very tasty chicken, potatoes, vegetables and salad.

In the end, our team (which included a few UWCC members) finished 4th of the mens teams, a result we were quite pleased with. Some friendly rivalries developed around midnight when the teams set to contend for 4th-6th place began to switch around with every lap or so. By morning we’d secured our place and were able to finish our last few laps at an easy pace, which was good considering they turned out to be the only ones in the rain. 1st and 2nd place were just flying on every lap, but 3rd does not seem an unreasonable goal for next year.

One last notable part of the race was the solo rider who was only 8 years old – he completed 4 laps! I love seeing kids off to such a great start in our sport at that age.