I'm a winner

Just thought I'd post a report from my MTB race this past Wednesday.

Started off as a beautiful hot day, got to the park (bird's hill) and there was a gentle breeze with plenty of sunshine.

There were more racers there than at my previous race, so that was cool. I recognized a few and said hi, exchanged pleasantries and wished each other good luck (while secretly wanting to crush them).

I decided to go and do a warm up lap and found myself holding back, not trusting the bike or myself. I slowly got through the lap and got back to the start area. Upon getting back, I noticed some dark clouds starting to roll in... not good. slippery roots are not fun.

Racing started, I was in the 4th group of riders to start (fastest start first), and right off the bat, I forgot about holding back and was just concentrating on keeping my speed up and smooth corners. First lap went off without any mishaps, passed a few guys, one guy went down in front of me and ended up pulling out after the first lap.

I was following one guy who was cruising pretty good until he clipped a pedal on a rock and broke it (there were some nice sparks from that one). He eventually pulled off to the side and let me by because he was having troubles with that pedal. So off I went.

The rain started falling shortly into the 2nd lap making some nice slippery mud and roots, making my tire choice for the race a bad one (relatively smooth for the fast sections). In the "root cellar" I ended up going down again, on the same knee, but it was a smooth landing this time and after a quick check to make sure I hadn't opened it up again, I was running through the rest of the section with my bike. I hopped on and kept going, I passed a couple more people from a different group and crossed the finish line.

I thought there was one other person from my group up the trail from me, but after checking the results yesterday, it turns out I won my class (which is where all the new people race, so I beat all the noobs).

The organizers supplied some hot dogs and marshmallows after the race and we all enjoyed them in the rain.

Just after getting my bike loaded back onto the car, the downpour hit and by the time I was home, I had a clean bike.

Another fun night of racing. Next race is July 8th.

Birds Hill ride

I've been starting to feel kinda lethargic since I banged my knee up last Wednesday at the MTB race, so I decided it was time to get back on the bike and see how my knee would do. It had been feeling pretty good the last couple of days. So, this morning I got up, got my bike ready, had a delicious waffle for breakfast (thanks Jess), and hit the road.
Weather forecasts were for sun all day and a high of ~20 deg, beautiful riding weather. However as I was leaving the driveway I looked west and saw quite a dark cloud. hmmm.... better ride faster. Off to Birds Hill park we go!
My knee felt pretty good the entire ride, no pain, just a slight discomfort on every pedal stroke. I hadn't ridden to birds hill before so this was a new trip for me, the roads were pretty good for the most part, but there were a lot of sections of pretty rough pavement. Nothing I that I couldn't handle though.
Time from our house to the park was just over an hour (1:01), once there, I did a lap of the park where there were a bunch of triathlon folks riding, and went home.
The roads on the way home seemed to be smoother than on the way out for the most part. and I was able to finish the 74.5km ride in 2h35min. It was good, I think I'll do it again.

race results...

DNS.... or did not start. I registered and all, but 1/3 of the way into my warm-up lap, my rear wheel caught a nasty root and it slid out from under me. My leg hit the bolt that holds my brake lever on and it made a nice hole just an inch below my knee. I took a quick look at it, and hopped out onto the road to get back to the starting area. Asked for the medic and got most of the mud out. He seemed kinda scared to touch it (probably because his kit didn't contain gloves), so I actually did most of the work. The adrenaline was still pumping at this point so there was no pain either. I asked him what he thought, and said to bandage it up and it'll be fine. I didn't believe him.

So, I withdrew from the race I had signed up for only 15 minutes earlier. Called a doctor (who shall remain nameless as he's not licenced to practice out of the hospital), went and watched the end of his sons baseball game, then went to his house to get it cleaned up properly (local anesthetic and everything). If he had the equipment he would have stuck a stitch in it, but all he had was medical grade crazy glue. That'll do.

So, so far I'm at 1/3 for races. Started three, finished 1. We'll see if we can improve that record.

roads are clearing up

Got out for a quick 50k ride out to St. Adolphe and met a nice guy named Dan, he's a teacher. We did pretty much the whole ride together. Just chatting about bikes, school, work, weather etc. It was good, I haven't been able to get in many rides with other people (let alone rides period). It was a nice brisk pace of around 32-34 km/h. enough to get the lungs working and heart pumping, which was all I was after since I'm still getting over a nasty little cold.

The roads were finally all opened up from the flood waters (the pic below is from the week before when a section of road was still under water). There was quite a large amount of debris scattered all over lawns, which showed just how high the water was at one point (picture 2).

I apologize for the crappy quality, my new cell phone has a terrible camera. My last one actually worked pretty well. I don't really like taking my real camera on the bike since I could drop it and it would be done.... then again, if that happened I'd have to go camera shopping ;)

I have another MTB race next Wednesday, should be fun again.

Birds Hill MTB race #1

Had my first mountain bike race back on the 29th, had a great time, lots of nice people there (all the more souls to crush). It was kinda chilly and threatening to rain so I was questioning my tire choice (I went with fast rolling lower grip tires as it's a pretty fast course). My group started last, and I was able to get into a pretty good position going into the first turn and passed the other 3 riders within the first 1/4 of the course, I then passed a couple of people from the class ahead of me (had 1 minute advantage) and was able to hold everyone off for 2 laps...

Which is where it gets interesting. I thought I was supposed to do 2 laps of the Bur Oak trail, but my category was only supposed to do 1. So when I checked the results after, they said it took me 46:21 (follow the link for official times, I'm at the bottom)for 1 lap... that's slow. So I contacted them and asked if they could add a note saying that I did 2 laps. So they did. I feel better.

Looking at the times, I would have been about 10th out of 14 in the sport category (where I'd like to be racing, but I bought the cheap license so I'm in the citizen class). Not too bad. I'm looking forward to the next one on June 3rd.



Oh, and I've fixed my wheel on my road bike so it's all ready to go again.

Well, It's been just under 3 weeks.

This morning I participated in my first ever road race, I havn't competed in bike racing since I lived in Lethbridge Alberta when I raced BMX. I decided with a friend of mine that we'd give racing a go this year. So early this week, I bought a "Civilian" racing licence, which allows me to compete in most races, but doesn't allow for accumulating points towards a the manitoba cup series or participate in the provincial championships.

The past few days I've been a little nervous, not knowing what to expect, how many people would be there, would my extreme lack of preparation result in me being dropped right away? Or would everyone else be equally unprepared? (Highly unlikely). The race started at 11:00 am, registration was from 9:00 to 10:30, after driving around the entire park looking for the sign in (Birds Hill Park), I found the sign-in place. There were lots of signs that there was a bike race on today, but nothing directing where to go to sign in. Jess and Abby got out and walked around as I searched for someone I recognized.... no dice.

At the sign in, there were a number of people there, and they kept coming after me too, I went to the table, signed in and picked my number. #245 (I picked the highest number available). Everyone seemed very pleasant and it was a nice atmosphere (despite the snow earlier in the morning and the chilly air). I pinned on my number, got my bike ready, and took off for a warm up ride to check out the finish line, and get the blood flowing (and get a good luck kiss from my two favorite girls). Being sure to arrive back at the parking lot. There were a few details missing as to where the race was starting, so Jess and Abby were at the "Start/finish" line, which wasn't actually the start line, so she missed us taking off.

The riders were divided into 3 groups, the Cat 3s, Cat 4s, and Cat 5s/civilians. I was in the latter of the groups which is where beginners go. The 3s were the first to go, then the 4s, then we were let go shortly after that.

We started pretty gently and worked the speed up a bit (I don't know how fast we were going because I had removed my computer, but it didn't feel fast or slow so it would guess we were going around 30-35 km/h. My legs were feeling good so I got up to the front of our group (about 12-15 people I think), and was testing myself a bit. I decided to go a bit harder on the hill, and as I came around a corner, the wind hit me like a brick wall... still trying to get up the hill.

Well, the small gap I had developed over the others, quickly disappeared. As we got up over the hill, I dropped back into the pack a bit, and as I was drafting the biggest guy I could find, he decided to hit the brakes for no apparent reason, so I had to hit the brakes as there was someone beside me. The kid behind me wasn't able to slow down in time and hit my rear wheel pretty hard. Neither of us went down, and I fell back to apologise and explain what happened to him (brakes are not good in groups, you only use them in an emergency), he said he was fine and got right back in there.

My rear wheel however, was not fine. I tried to continue, but the broken spoke meant the wheel was way out of true and rubbing the brakes alot, and wobbling so much that I could fell the back end was a bit loose. That was the end of my day, I turned around shortly after the start/finish line after the first of 3 laps, to let them know I was done. Found my family, hopped in the car and went to costco for a hot dog. (here's a picture of me pouting after my day was done.)


Fun? definately. Will I be back? Yes. Will I be more prepared? I plan to be.

Replacement spoke should be here this week so I'll be able to rebuild the rear wheel quick.

Next scheduled race is a wednesday night MTB race. Should be fun, the MTB crowd doesn't take themselves as serious as the road crowd does.

Just under 3 weeks

Well, I've made the decision. This is the year, and it all begins in just under 3 weeks. Boy I'd better get busy. Started tonight, 1 good hour. Stay tuned....