Ontario Cup 1 - Woodnewton

This weekend was the first Ontario Cup of the season – a very nervous time indeed! The course was amazing with just the right amount of double track to space out the amazing singletrack. The venue was at Woonewton, and elite category is 5 laps with added technical sections; it’s a good thing that I got my new bike! This is the best partner someone could ask for during a race; the new Trek Superfly Elite SL (more on that later).

It was super nice to be back with my buddies that I haven’t seen since last season, and to really flex my legs for the first time this season. After pre-riding the course with the local legend Kelsey Krushel and following team Ontario Coach Mike Garrigan I felt confident in my handling abilities and my new bike.

The race itself was unlike any regular Ontario Cup - stacked category of 52 people, and pretty much a Canada Cup full of Quebecois racers. The start was hairy, I was stuck at the back, and as you could imagine the back of 52 super fast guys flying off into the trails. 

The race started out with a sudden burst, and I tried my best to make up because I was frustrated about starting at the back of the pack. I wasn't feeling great, but I thought that was all just me trying to find my race pace again. Unfortunately I was a little wrong. The first lap I threw down the effort that I would have been able to put out on a good day in Arizona, which I paid for dearly. Laps 2 and 3 were rough, I seemed to have no punch to my pedalstroke, and it hurt! Half the way through my third lap I threw the hail Mary - a double espresso caffeinated gel with 50mg of caffeine, just enough to get me through the race! 

I had always known that caffeine is a performance enhancer, but man does it have a strong effect on me because I don't drink the stuff.  Being my first mountain bike race (and one of my first rides) of the season, I found difficulties handling my bike with the speeds that I had even the day before.

Big congratulations to all the brave riders that went out to the first Ocup, and thanks for the Quebec guys for coming and making our Ontario Cup series a bit more fierce! 

Also big ups for Jon Slaughter, who really rode well in his first Ontario Cup since his broken neck (you may remember this post).

Never, Ever sprint with your tongue out like this...However you will win sprints if you do...(Jim Cassel picture)

Barrelling into a rock garden in the lap area, thanks to Lori Bailey for posting online

Great photo thanks to Lori again for posting online.

Spectator section rock garden, this claimed some riders and wheels. (John Fisher photo)

It's always great to see my longtime buddy John cheering me up the hill,
thanks for the photo and giving me something to smile about!

Kelsey's section of the course, gnarly stuff! (John Fisher photo)

Roller coaster ride! (John Fisher photo)

The least interesting start to the mountain bike season ever.

No serious, this is the least interesting kickoff to anybody’s mountain bike race season. Ever. Though it did start out promising...

Ironically due to the ridiculous prolonged winter this year, the Homage to Ice (kickoff race of the Ontario Marathon Series) was put off, making it the same weekend as the kickoff to the Eastern OntarioCup series. Both of these race series are hosted by Dan Marshall, who runs very friendly, fun races at relatively cheap entry prices (and the Marathons include free food afterward!), this makes them perfect for early calendar events, or introduction to racing!

Though I am a mountain biker and not a roadie, I found myself in an interesting situation this year, in a bit of a line for my new bike, and I’m actually a mountain biker who doesn’t have a mountain bike year round. With race season coming quickly, I had to figure out a solution. Luckily my great buddy Dave always has my back, and hooked me up with this beaut.

Singlespeed (no gears), fully rigid (no shocks), 29er (big wheels). This would take all I’ve got to race...Let alone race back to back days, but I’m always up for the challenge (plus with the upcoming Ontario Cup, I’d better start practising my mountain bike skills!).

Saturday was the day of the infamous Homage to Ice, one of the tougher bike races, typically marred by bad weather, long climbs, and the typical difficulties of the first race of the season. The course format is two 25km laps with a feed zone mid way through and one at the lap area, so I did what any guy with a fantastic girlfriend would do – packed snacks and asked my girlfriend to feed me. The day itself looked like a nice day, until the snow came! As I said in the first sentence of this blog writeup though, these are the least interesting races ever – so I’d better stop embellishing the story. About 45 minutes into the race, I realized that the only possible thing to go wrong with a singlespeed fully rigid bike had – the seat was coming off. I glanced down at my cycling computer and determined that I wasn’t far from the mid lap feed zone, so I could stop, grab food/drink, and fix my bike with Tori (my girlfriend). This was a bad idea as it turns out because the feed zone was far enough away that my seat rattled right off the post before I could get there. Before this point I was actually holding my own, in 6^th position or so, jamming along some sweet trails, and feeling what it is to be on a mountain bike again! The seat however left me scrambling and searching through the leaves to find the pieces of the seat post that hold it on, and my hands quickly got numb. I kept calm and fixed myself up, but this pitstop cost me 15 minutes.

All smiles at the startline of the Homage to Ice!

No big deal, best 4/5 races wins the series, and I had another race to do the next day, so I set myself to joyride pace, and had a fantastic ride on the amazing course set out by Dan. As I worked my way back through the ranks (from dead last after the seat incident) I came across a lot of riders having a great time, including cycling’s proverbial rookie, and U of G favorite Rookie Dan (no really, look him up on Facebook – first name Rookie, last name Dan). Big props to Dan for taking such a huge race on (he rode full marathon length), it was a pleasure to hang and ride with him for a bit, but after some time with Dan I continued to work my way up through to the next friend in the race, who happened to be my old boss Dave. I love seeing Dave out at races because I feel partly responsible for his love with riding. I caught Dave, shared some food and we complained for a bit together, and then I was off up the trail once again. The next person I saw was my friend Lara, who is a total trooper! Lara broke her collarbone last year, and this was the first mountain bike ride since. When I came up on Lara she said she had gained a ton of confidence as the race progressed, but it was hurting a lot. We rode together and I was quite impressed with how well she could handle her bike downhill, but she needed a break after some time (I made sure to cheer her across the finish line though!).

Props on Guelph Teammates Alex Schmidt and Alex Lefebvre for 1^st and 3^rd place respectively!  I can’t wait for the next marathon!

Day two presented a technically challenging and shorter course, through the trails by Kingston. These trails are almost purely rock, roots, and small bridges over bits of swamp (with a couple of stream crossings). The terrain was fully of short steep uphills and was twisty enough that I had some serious trouble getting through on my singlespeed. Unfortunately, I had the wrong gearing for the race, which made each pedal stroke very slow, and felt as if I was lifting very heavy weights. Unfortunately, I was just not geared properly, and the only time that I made any ground was on straight sections of trail (which meant I only spent 10-15 minutes out of breath). Regardless, Tori had her first race of the season, and was looking strong! We had a super great time out at the East Ontario Cup and I can’t wait to do the rest of the races in the series (with my proper new bike...which I got today!).

Thanks do Dan Marshall for organizing such great races and fostering a super friendly environment, your race courses are amazing, and so are the volunteers that help out!

Inspired by http://www.abikeslife.com/

A buddy of mine has put an awesome website and video together here with a bike's life. Inspired by his photographs, here is a quick blip of my trip - from the bike's point of view. 

A hopeful departure from Canada

Left out on the roof

The afternoon off

Chased by shadows

Smuggling

Last Arizona sunset

Madera Canyon

We’ve moved places further south now to a new house in Green Valley (about 40km south of Tucson). Now we’re at the foot of Madera Canyon, which is a mountain state park, housing some of the tallest mountains in Arizona. The new house is pretty awesome; I have my own room (a study with a blow up mattress), the internet works in more than one room, and we aren’t in a rough neighbourhood – the only problem is that Green Valley is also full of seniors (not to be confused with señior which this close to the Mexican border would have meant it is full of just men) so we get run off the road on occasion – but it’s not their fault.

The Madera Canyon is a mountain range with a steep road that leads up to a parking lot and trailheads. Our first day here we rode up to the lot, and I was shocked at how different this place is than Tucson – snow was all the way to the base of the mountains, and because of the direction of the winds in the area, air is lifted and cooled which makes it a bit cool around here. The ride up the road was a bit surprising and icy, but if you watch out for the ice and the turkeys you’re good though.

Yesterday I took the day off the bike, and had the great idea to hike up the mountain in the backyard – Mount Wrightson which is the 8^th most prominent peak in Arizona (prominence is the vertical distance between a peak and the lowest contour line surrounding that peak). I thought it would be just a walk in the park for a few with some nice scenery and maybe a bit of snow. I was wrong for sure.

Wrightson Peak is just taunting me from the back window

On my way up the trail I saw some cool wildlife, like a coatimundi, and some really cool birds. Then there was the startling wildlife. The first time that I almost fell off the trail I became a victim of the leaping lizards! As I was minding my own business on the skinny little trail leading along the side of the mountain, I must have startled about 25 Yarrow Spiny Lizards.

Coatimundi was too quick for me to get a picture of, but here's one from the internet

Chillin like a lizard..

The most controversial of the things I saw had me pretty scared. When I saw the coatimundi, I knew it was just a small black animal that's completely harmless. It is unsettling knowing that something is in the bush watching me when I had been hiking and was a 2 hour hike out to help, but at least it was a small cute animal. As I went up the mountain further, the only sign of people were the tracks in the snow, or the towns way below. The trail got skinner and skinnier, and I passed through more patches of snow and barren land, so when I saw a large light brown thing move into some bushes right beside the trail I stopped dead in my tracks.

I was warned...

I stared at the bushes, and contemplated how to kill a cougar with nothing but a knife. Luckily this video came to mind quickly, and I remembered how to kick a cougar's butt:

I watched the bush carefully and convinced myself that I hadn't seen anything, luckily a cougar DID NOT jump on me. After the cougar scare, there were some seriously steep trails, and I realized that I was racing daylight. Snow got to be deeper than my knees, and Ice was coming off the rocks - but I was so close, I couldn't stop.

Can you even see the trail?

That snow was actually over my knee

I'm not too good at taking a picture of myself, but you can see the other small mountain tops
in the background

Looking down on the other mountains

After a couple of warnings from the last 2 people on the mountain, I had to book it down, it gets cold and dark quickly in the desert, and in the mountains. I decided that running was at least a calculated risk, whereas who knows what would happen once it's dark up in the snow on an exposed mountain (I had already passed a few memorials on the way up).

This is what the trail near the bottom looked like without snow.

Burnt down trees like this were all over the mountain

PS - Yes I did hike the whole mountain (about 4 hours up) without a shirt, and I do have a backpack tan.

Mt. Lemmon

Today I decided to take the challenge of going up the longest climb around; Mt. Lemmon. Lemmon is one of the more legendary climbs in the states, and has apparently been ranked 395^th globally (stats here). Once upon a time Lance Armstrong-you may have heard of him in the news lately as the celebrity who confessed it all -

 

  lived in a cabin at the top and spent his winter training there. As the first link says, the mountain climb itself is about 52km long, and the vertical gain is around 2km. It was a cloudy day here, but I didn`t realize what consequences that means for the top of the climb...

The climb was a long steady one, and the terrain was beyond what I even thought it could be. I started out in the desert, with a temperature of 23C, and as I climbed higher I passed through a pine forest, then back to a snowy scrubland. The whole way up rock formations were amazing, and watching the road swirl down the mountain behind me made me pretty excited to go downhill. I had never been on a mountain large enough    that I needed to put layers on while climbing! The climb got more and more interesting as I slowly ascended into the clouds from the desert below. I knew that I was getting pretty high in altitude when my glasses started fogging up for no reason, and snow became apparent along the sides of the road. Probably the most exciting part of the ascent was my discovery of where the saying “leaping lizards” came from. This is how it happened:

I was minding my own business thinking about how far it is till I hit the clouds when BAM! A lizard just jumped off a rock beside the road. Dumbfounded, i just said...leaping lizards? Because what else can you say?

Summerhaven at the top, because that's the only place of acceptable temperatures here in the summer!

notice the amazing wind erosion structure, and the rock climbing ties in

Looking back...

It was cold at the top of the mountain in the clouds

22 miles of downhill, the real test isn't the climb, it's the freezing descent!

Arizona update

Well the trip was long, and so have been the rides since I got here in the Desert. Life in Tucson is simple; we wake up, eat, play The Settlers of Catan, ride, eat, and play again. Every day. There are 6 of us total in a 3 bedroom 1 floor house; me and a bunch of pro road guys. Living with the guys has taught me several things about riding, training, and focus. Tucson is awesome, it’s a city right in between several mountain ranges, and surround in cactuses. Temperature here is pretty crazy – it’s arid so you don’t realize that you’re sweating, and the temperature fluctuates more than 20C between day and night. Riding temperatures are always beautiful, but the wind plays tricks on me and my jersey tan is getting bad. I’ve spent over 30 hours on the bike since last Tuesday (check out my new gadget on the right to see where I’ve been. I have seen a lot of interesting things here – cactuses, lizards, road runners, cactuses, eagles, quails, and of course Brandon Spencer.

Here are a few of my favourite pictures so far.

Snowstorm in New Mexico

Flying Dinosaurs in the State of Arizona

Made it!

Burrito place not 100m from the house, living pretty close to Mexico

Cactuses and mountains

Anton, always classy.

Brandon(white helmet) causing problems

Off days at the coffee shop

Real live picture of a road runner, I swear.

Dusting off the blog and my car!

Since I last blogged, I've finished my degree in Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph, I've acquired a vehicle, and Christmas has happened. Now that I've graduated, it's time for adventure! And what's adventure without a bike, and a far off destination? I've been lucky enough to procure an invite to a place in Arizona for a few months, so I'm loading up the car and heading out with some guys down south! I have two travel buddies - 

Anton the Manton...

Who loves the beach, 

Enjoys fine champagne,

Pizza Parties

Roll playing,

Helmets,

And, of course, winning. all of the time.

The second guy in the car is a bit of a mystery at the moment, his name is Yuri, but I'm sure he's going to be a good time. More to come of the trip soon!