A whole new level of competition at the Elite Canada Cup

This past weekend I had the privilege of racing with some truly dedicated riders in what I am told is always the most aggressive Canada Cup race of the year. I actually got to stand on the starting line with Olympians, who apparently keep 5-7 YEAR training plans (I train for a peak every couple of months).
The Elite Men field was stacked with the world cup racing crowd, including former Olympian who will be representing us this year in London Geoff Kabush, as well other hopefuls. Conditions were dismal for the race, including a constant rain, which got pretty serious at points. There were 71 of us at the start line; all elite men who have fitness, years of racing experience, and an aggressive desire to win. Within the first 100m of the course there were already two pile ups, which is apparently expected with Hardwood Hills as the venue, because of wood chips flying up from the trail and getting into riders' drivetrains.

CREDITS: TITLE: COPYRIGHT: Rob Jones/www.canadiancyclist.com 2012

CREDITS: TITLE: COPYRIGHT: Rob Jones/www.canadiancyclist.com 2012

Coach Eric Batty avoids the chaos calmly, a couple panicked faces in the crowd, and you can see my red shoulder right no top of Eric's helmet!
CREDITS: TITLE: COPYRIGHT: Rob Jones/www.canadiancyclist.com 2012

Luckily, I did not get tangled up in this chaos, but the next kilometer of the race was a staged climb with gradual and steep sections, and much jostling for position. When we finally reached the first piece of singletrack (tight, technical trail), I had to get off my bike and wait my turn to get into the trail. . . An absolute traffic jam! I could just feel the womens category closing in on us, and the guys who were in and moving on their bikes were just getting time on us, and there was simply nothing that I could do about it. This was also the first time that I noticed an unusual amount of aggression. There was some swearing (mostly in french), and pushing, which turned me off a little bit. 

Race photos from Canadian Cyclist

Once clear of the first traffic jam, I was riding among the constant train of riders, unable to govern my speed, and each of us having trouble controlling our bikes; this was possibly the most rain affected course that I have ever been on. It was as though the trails had a trench dug through them, and that trench was filled with gumballs, roots, and peanut butter. Except there were definitely not pleasant things like gumballs and peanut butter on that course. At one point as I was passing one of the women elite riders, she was on the brink of tears, and I got off my bike and showed her that it made sense to just walk some sections, because it could be faster, and less risky. There were men all over the side of the course, just sitting down, with a look of resignation on their faces. 

Coming through one of the spectators favorite sections, thanks Meagan Broughton for the photo!

Personally, I found it to be an eye opening experience. My bike was working acceptably well for the first couple of laps (the race is 6 laps of 6km, and for the elite men we were either climbing a hill, or navigating through an insanely technical and ripped trail). By the third lap, I had blood flowing down my knees, elbow, and wrist; I also had a bike that couldn't stay in gear and wasn't pedalling properly due to the mud (I found out later that guys were spraying their drivetrains in the feed zone to keep them working - this caused me to miss a feed). I had begun to let people by, because I couldn't handle the out of control and aggressive racers that were all over the course. I decided at that point that I should keep riding, and observe the way that the others were handling the race style, and trails.

A collection of photos of me going through the "boneshaker", you can see on my face how impressed I am in some of these.

I am embarrassed and a bit ashamed that I was outdone this race, and that I really only kept my race pace together for two laps. I have realized that I am not some fearless aggressive racer, and that I need to work on racing in large groups in the trails. This was nothing like any race I had ever experienced, and I need an other shot. I'll be trying my best to get out to nationals on the 16th in St. Felicien, Quebec. Just because I wasn't great once, doesn't mean that I'll be giving up, it just gives me another area to improve!

My first race ever with Trek!

As far as I could tell, everything was lined up well for the first race, I had even filled my water bottles up the night before leaving (I get a fresh bottle every lap). I know that I got to bed late, and I woke up about four times the night before thinking “TODAY’S THE DAY.” and realized it would be 2am or something and I just had to pee. Morning came and I fueled myself with my favourite pre race meal (a giant bowl of oatmeal and eggs mixed into a big paste), and I even had my stuff together when Alex and his Dad came to pick me up. This would have to be my day, no excuses, right? My Mom, brother, aunt, cousin, and girlfriend would be there to support me, as well as the Trek Bicycles tents, and Barry who brought me a few things from the store. I was resolute to try my best, and most importantly not to be disappointed with myself. I’m new to the Elite racing game anyways so this race is a learning experience!

The elite men's startline, photo stolen from my buddy James 

Once the race started, I took my spot where I thought that I belonged; dead last. We proceeded to climb straight up the hill (a daunting task in a five lap race), and by the top I was second last, riding in a long train of riders. This was the plan; move up if I can, and finish the race – after all, I’m not really a pro. 

Hanging off the back, where I thought I belonged - didn't want to get in the real pro's way!

While riding at the back of a train of riders I quickly realized something; I was not in control of my own riding, I was riding slower than I would normally, and with much less efficiency. Obviously it would be advantageous to not be the “caboose”.  Throughout the first lap I made my passes here and there, and was ecstatic to pass any elite rider. By the end of the first lap, getting ready to head up the big hill at the start of every lap I was happy with my position, but could see a big group of riders further up with some notably fast boys in it, how was I still so close to them?

I always wanted an excuse to wear my mom's pink Trek cycling hat from the 70s, unfortunately
I forgot to take it off before the race, and raced looking like a bit of a clown!
(Photo by Carly Wilson)

By the end of that giant uphill I had passed every single guy that I could see on the hill, and a few had dropped off the group. I did get pretty breathless on the way up, but now it was my turn to lead the train, which proved advantageous indeed. Throughout the second lap, I was riding my pace in the singletrack, and hauling through the doubletrack. I learned to control the train of riders behind me, and spit a few “cabooses” off the back too. 

Leading the train, sticking out my tongue or something, and controlling my race.
(Photo by Carly Wilson)

The only thing that I was unsure of (which became highly evident in the third lap) was that I had clearly not hydrated properly! Every time that I would stand up and bend my knees to absorb the bumps jumping or the terrain beneath me, the tops of my quads would lock up (it felt like a paralyzing foot cramp searing up my quads). Though I finished off the water in my remaining bottles every lap, I could not shake the phenomenon; at one point, the guy riding behind me said

“I’m afraid of cramping..”

To which I replied

“I am cramping!”

“What?”

“Uhhh. I’m afraid of cramping too”

I figured it would be a pretty bad idea to tell competitors of a weakness like that!

Quick little action shot, can you see where the trail comes from?

By midway through the third lap I was a couple turns ahead of the next guys back, and there was nobody in my sights ahead of me. At the pace I was going, I would possibly widen the gap between me and the guys behind, but I thought that as long as they could still see me ahead, they would keep their attack and likely reel me back in.

The turning point of the race was one quick instant! As a tactic to get far out of sight from the guys behind me, went full speed on a downhill with a very tight, loose corner and lost it. I fell pretty hard, and at the bottom of a steep hill too. By the time that I had remounted my bike, I was being passed by the guys behind me. By the time I had myself moving at a respectable pace again, they were far away up the trail. I did not chase. I was in a better position than I thought I would be capable of, and I was sure that I could beat one of the riders at least anyway (which I did); it was not worth risking my race, or taking the risk of another head injury because I got too caught up and started riding poorly. So I dialled back my effort 5-7% and sat in to ride my own race out. I certainly missed having guys to pace with, but catching them back would burn too much of my energy!

Red is my heart rate (a good indication of my effort) and green shows course profile

I'm totally happy with my results; 22nd in the race overall, counting the out of province guys. I had a great time, and am totally amped for my second season back on the bike! Thanks to all of the readers of my blog, my friends and family that come out to my races, Barry and Trek, and every single person that cheers me on during races, YOU ARE THE BEST!!

Getting to the finish line, in no apparent rush, and with a blissful grin on my face
a good day's work, and job well done!

A winter's worth of preparation, and my first race with Trek!

So here it comes, time to see how hard I’ve really been working and how will I stack up against the rest of the elite category for Sunday’s Ontario Cup. The race will be at Mansfield outdoor center, and this year I’m lining up with the big boys; the elite division. It’s crazy to think that two nights from now it will all be over and racing season will have officially started, but until then that’s all that I can think about…Of course I’m nervous!

I got my bike all cleaned, tuned and ready for the race on Friday, and today (Saturday) I went to ride the course. I was ecstatic with the weight of my bike (I know it seems like a petty thing to worry about, but it’s nice to have a light bike!). The only change I did from the stock build on the bike was to add bar ends, and white bar tape as grips, then put my old super light race wheels on the bike.

According to my housemate's luggage scale, my bike is just over 22 lbs!

My bike is ready, it’s clean, works well, and likes to go fast. Now, time to check out the course! Mansfield is an outdoor center on the side of a massive hill, so naturally there is a lot of climbing in the course. I have to say I love it (the course, not the uphills!) though! The course caters to speed demons, and there are almost no sections that are very technical. The hardest thing to do on this course is decide exactly how fast you want to throw your bike into the corners (and my new Trek Superfly Elite is a fast bike, it likes to go fast, and it takes me through those corners at alarming speeds). Last year I somehow managed to top out at 66 km/h during the race (if cycling computers are to be believed).

If computers are to be believed, I was going VERY fast in those trails

An alarmingly hilly profile with (unbelievable?) speeds

You can see from the course profile that I did 3 laps today and there are some monster up and downhills! I did the math, and we will be climbing more than 900m over 5 laps…Not bad at all for an Ontario Cup!

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow, I’m sure it will be a great race to build up from, and I look forward to the challenge! 

Two weeks till race season!

I went to the big city the on the weekend to finish getting ready for the season and get my bike fitted to me at the Trek Store. I got down to the store and set up with the bike fitting center that’s right in the Trek Store. Barry (the store owner, and pretty much Santa Claus) set me up on a bike trainer and proceeded to take out levels and allen keys and got me pedalling. Within about 2 seconds he declared that my left leg was shorter than my right, and I still don’t know what to think about that! Next he raised my seat and moved it around and made sure that the angle of the seat no more or no less than 2 degrees (nose down). After seeing the gargantuan length of my arms Barry disappeared downstairs for a minute and came back up with a sweet white full carbon Bontrager XXX stem (12 degree, 110mm for the bike nerds), which was the coolest part that they had in the store for sure! It turns out that I’ve been riding with my seat way lower than I should (probably about 3 inches); which means I’ll put down more power and be more efficient now, but manoeuvrability is a little compromised. After setting me all up on the bike Barry had one more thing for me: my 2012 Trek kits! (which is really just technical jargon for spandex suits) I’m so happy about the colours and designs. They look AWESOME!

Tuesday was my first opportunity to show off the sweet new kit at the Speed River Cycling Club weekly hammerfest! I showed up at the meeting spot where there were about 10 of us grouped up. There were one or two comments on my new kit, but mostly the guys just thought I looked dumb because I didn’t bring any warmers with me. Apparently the temperature would drop to 3 degrees by 8...oops! The first Tuesday ride with the Speed River Cycling Club was...unreal.

Naive of the pace of the ride and the temperatures that were about to happen
BUT I LOVE THIS KIT!

I’m pretty sure that I cried the entire time. The group may have started out as a 10 person group, but there were only 5 survivors, and that’s all that I could do to end with them; survive. There were solid chunks of that ride that were greater than 50km/hr speeds (and I’m not talking about just downhills).

"Superfly Elite" my partner for the year!

My first ride on the newly fitted (and now personalized) Superfly (I know, best name ever for a bike, right?) was much more pleasant. When getting a new bike, there is a learning curve involved (so if you’re not feeling confident on your bike yet – don’t worry about it, just practise!), but I think that curve is far behind me! I can say that I will confidently ride that bike as fast as my legs will take me (which I hope is pretty fast!), and with confidence on the trails. I love my new bike, and things like the tapered head tube and front thru axel make that a notably stiffer bike than one would expect! I know that the bike nerds will judge the photos of my “customized” rig, so I’ll address that now. Bar ends are meant for gaining more leverage on your bike while sprinting and hill climbing, and yes, those bars are 680mm (really wide). I realize those are the most hipster bars that will likely be on the race course with the 12 degree sweep, bar ends, bar tape, and mega wide stance – but I had the bar ends so I threw them on! It was only after the fact that I realized I have a redundantly huge amount of leverage over my bike with the wide/bar ends combo. Maybe I’ll retape mid season, but I think it looks great and is comfy so I’m not messing with it now!

My other Trek kit, and newly fitted bike!

Footage of some awesome trails in South Carolina!

While I was down south travelling and riding my bikes, I had one epic 4 hour day of riding out in South Carolina. The day started out with what was supposed to be a 30km ride to the trail system, with the intent of meeting my friend Ben (the guy who rents the place in SC) at the trails in an hour after he drove there. Unfortunately the directions weren't quite spot on...

I spent more than an hour before I located the Lake Issaqueena State Park where the trails were, then spent another hour and a half looking for the right parking lot to find Benno. By this time it was getting late enough that I would have to leave to go to back to the lake house that we had set up basecamp (but were leaving to go back to Canada that night) or it would be dark. After finally giving up on finding Ben, I decided that there was no way that I would go to the park without getting some trail riding time in, so off I went! I quickly found myself loving my new Trek Superfly Elite, and gaining my "sea legs" so to speak pretty quickly! On my last check through the parking lots as I was about to head home I a group of university students and decided to introduce myself and see if they knew where I could find Ben.

Of course I got some funny looks because nobdoy was really expecting to find a guy from Canada with a funny accent lost in the bushes. One of them (Cliff) said he would take me to a parking lot we figured Ben would be at, and he took me the most fun way possible! Clff also happened to have a GoPro camera, which he set up on his bars and caught some great stuff of me riding the trails on my new bike!

The first 4 or so minutes is me riding a downhill track, with wall rides and everything! So awesome, though I was sure to be careful doing these things on my new carbon fiber cross country race bike! Around 5:20 we are riding up by a gully and just before 6:00 we turn into the sunset along some beautiful trails beside a lake, which is absolutely worth checking out! (12 minutes in is pretty funny too)

Thanks to Cliff for throwing the footage together, and saving the day by driving me home! Those southerners are just the greatest bunch of people, and will treat anybody like their best friend! Every person we passed we greeted, and people actually cared to hear that you were having a great time on the trails! I know I certainly want to find myself back in the city of Clemson, SC one day!

End of the year rock climbing relief!

Last weekend I happened to hear about a pretty fantastic thing that happens every semester here at the University of Guelph; the climbing competition! Fourth year is an awful time full of labwork, projects, and tests, and PROJECTS with very little time for bikes, or climbing, or other fun things that I enjoy, but I got warning on Monday that Saturday is the day of the climbing competition.Climbing competitions take place in the climbing gyms, and there are certain "routes" where you climb up the whole wall, or "boulders" where you aren't tied in and you only climb so high that are ranked based on their difficulty. The objective is to complete 5 bouldering problems and 5 routes that add up to the highest total number of points out of the other competitors.
 Having climbed a grand total of about 4 times this semester, I figured this would be a great way to relieve some school tension and make up for lost time! I entered the competition in the top-ranked division (didn't want to be a sand-bagger again, my friends still wont let it go that the last time I did that I won), showed up dressed as a dinosaur with a tye-dye shirt, and I climbed well! Though I had the T-Rex hat on, and sunglasses on top of him to intimidate the competition (I can't grow a manly beard like the rest of the climbers seem to be able to), I was nowhere near even half as good as the other guys in my category, but I am quite happy with the way that I performed and had the best time ever!
The climbing gym is full of great, supportive, and incredibly nice people! Fellow competitors cheer each other on and give beta (the climbing word for info on how to conquer a problem properly). There are no harsh people or harsh feelings at these competitions, and I totally suggest that anybody who hasn't found this gem on campus get there right away!
Check out the stop motion video here, picture taken from a GoPro camera every two seconds, starting from the setup of the gym. This is probably the coolest thing that I've seen in a while! I pop in around 3:50, climb up a spot near the camera at 4:30, 6:49 (for a little while), 7:55, and a few more spots so check it out!
 stop-motion of the climbing comp

Reading week training camp 2012

In the middle of every winter semester, a magical thing happens; reading week. This year was no exception. Being a fourth year student is tough, and it’s easy to drown in all of the work and forget to do things like have fun, live healthy, and live in the moment.

A long awaited reprieve from the drone of 4th year university

Since my first year of University, I’ve been planning and going on trips to the United States where it’s warm, sunny, the food is cheap and the people are nice. There is a beautiful “Hostel” up in the Appalachian mountains in Georgia that we like to stay at called the Hiker Hostel. The Hiker Hostel is about 10km up the mountain away from the small town of Dalhonega, which is about an hour north of Atlanta, Georgia. The mountains there are beautiful, and punchy. In this area, the only flat roads are the ones that wind along the valleys, but they never last long anyways. The Appalachian mountains are an ancient mountain range that run basically north-south along the eastern states, so once you get to the middle of the mountains (east-west middle) you’re stuck right in them! And nothing puts hair on your chest like being forced to ride mountains, right?

A view from the highest moutain in Georgia; Brasstown Bald

We had a great group of guys going this year; Andrew, Alex L, Alex S (Schmidty), and myself. After class on Friday before reading week we packed the car (7 bikes and 4 guys in one car) and drove all the way down to Georgia in one straight shot (except for a stop at Schmidter’s parents place to pick up his road bike and a bike rack). Alex L had an interesting driving shift (you’ll have to as him about it), Andrew jacked himself up on Red Bull and drove like a fiend, and I got the fortunate shift as the sun was coming up and we were hitting the mountains.

4 Guys, 7 Bikes, and some seriously good tetris

Both Alex’s were in awe at our accommodations at this hostel (which is basically a lodge), but I told them the real best part of the hostel is breakfast – the subject of conversation on many of our rides. The hostel is a fun place, designed as a refuge for hikers who are starting their hike along the Appalachian Mountain Trail, which goes from Georgia to Maine. Surprisingly, there were two more Canadians staying at the hostel while we were there; Evan Mundy (who’s kind of a big deal on the road bike in Canada) and his father. We even got a good ride in with him up Brasstown Bald, the highest (and probably steepest) mountain in Georgia – Evan champed it up to the top with his superman gearing (my knees hurt just looking at him!).

Evan front left, me front right, Andrew back left, Alex L back right, riding int he valleys  between mountains

The week was filled with tons of training, food, and good times. I even got to do my homework! We crossed the state line and got to spend our last two days in South Carolina chez Benno. Ben Dawson rents out an amazing 7 bedroom beach house near Clemson, SC every year for 9 weeks (let me know if you want to spend some time training there, I’ll hook you up with his info.).

We stayed up late that night with all of the toys, even the giant chess game!

SC may have been my favourite state; we were on the edge of the Appalachians, so still very hilly, but not mountainous. In two days in SC I got to ride up the famous mountain Caesar’s head, and ride my sweet new Trek Superfly Elite on some pretty gnarly trails! I think that bike and I will make a famous team, and am so excited to be working with Trek this year!

Schmidty and I at  the top of Caesar's Head, what a Day!