Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Race report

Well, Jess still hasn't squeezed the baby out yet, so we went to the race tonight. She wanted to come watch me race, so we brought Abby too.
It was a little hectic getting out to the park on time, I left work shortly after 4:00, and a couple of minutes into my ride home..... BANG! I had a blow-out, rear tire. So I fixed it quick, and continued to Lifesport to pick up my new tires. So, when I got there, I tried to top off the pressure in my tire, and tore the valve off. Oops. More time needed to fix that. Strapped the tires onto my backpack, and went home to a wife who was starting to wonder where the heck I was.

A quick dinner, (mmm.... Ludine's Chicken and Potato Salad) throw the bike stuff in the car and off to the races we go! Traffic was heavy due to Folk Fest at Birds hill, but we still got there with plenty of time to register and get the bike thrown together and throw the new tires on (http://www.geax.com/vedit/pagina.asp~pagina~2316 whick turned out to be some fantastic tires. They felt just as fast as my previous ones, but had more grip and were very light too).

Then, Jess noticed another racer getting ready, that was wearing a jersey I didn't expect to see in Winnipeg. It was for "Hub Cycle" which is a bike shop in Truro, NS (where my dad grew up). I went over and said I thought I was the only one in Winnipeg with that Jersey. Turns out he was on a cross-country trip with his family and he's doing a few races on the way. Seems like a nice kid.

Well, on to the race.
Start:
Right off the bat, I got in front of the people in my class, and stayed in front. Passing people throughout the race. My favorite pass was on a sand hill, 2 people in front of me went down (very gently in the sand), I hopped off the bike and ran it up the hill (passing another on the hill), and hopping back on in one nice smooth motion without stopping, it felt great. That's where I started to pull away more from my group.

To make the rest short. I won by a minute and a half with a time of 36:35 for 2 laps.

Picture of me after lap 1.

Abby pointing at something:

Next race is July 29th.

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Nice caption on that last picture... ;)

Looks like it was fun!

Spenny said...

Nice job, but you need to consider racing where hills and gail force winds occur with some frequency. I think I meet some every other day riding home from work.

:)