Race report X2

Well, I've been a touch busy lately and have been neglecting my blog of cycling escapades.
To catch up, we had our second child (July 17th at 2:22 a.m.), another beautiful girl. Mom was a machine in the hospital. Natalie Ann Smith has been a great little baby, and Abby has been an amazing big sister.

A few weeks ago was the 5th race for the Olympia Wednesday Night MTB race series. Weather leading up to the race were... how do you say.... wet. The sun came out and dried up some of the track. I went out to the race, and they shortened the course taking out the really rooty sections (very slippery when wet) and some areas where there was just too much standing water. So it was short laps. I was feeling great at the start, and right from the whistle I got away from my group and never looked back. 2 laps later, I took the win. 3rd in a row. This clinched the series for me as it is based on the points accumulated on your best 4 races (3rd, 1st, 1st, 1st for me). I also had my personal photographer at the race (thanks Dad), and cheering section (mom and sister). Jess decided to stay home.

Shortly after finishing, big, dark, ugly clouds started to roll in. I packed up the bike and started home. It was quite a downpour.





Race # 6
To start off with excuses... I was coming off a week of not really having an appetite for... well, any food so my energy was probably a bit on the low side. I hadn't ridden much at all since the last race (I think I was on the road once), since I finished my exam Monday. So, going into it, I wasn't feeling terrific. I did a warm up lap and was having troubles finding a nice rhythm through the technical sections. Jess, Abby and Natalie came with me to the race and Grandma came to help out too (thank you!).
I lined up at the start, and just wasn't feeling great. So, I just started at the back (sometimes if I follow people for a bit, I get into a groove.... that didn't happen). I passed a couple of the slower riders and was keeping up with the others in my category. I passed one of the other riders while going through a very muddy section (he tried to ride it, I just hopped off and ran through).
That didn't last too long though. I was hitting trees with my shoulders, over steering and hitting the brakes more than I should have. He caught back up to me, so I pulled aside to let him go by and try to catch the others ahead of me (part of MTB racing is yielding to faster riders even if you're racing against them). He was soon out of sight.
After getting out of the technical sections, I turned it up and made up some time to only finish a minute back. I was just glad to be done and not be injured.

There was an award ceremony, where the winners of each category received a nice black hooded sweatshirt. I have a nice new sweater.

Next year, I'll be participating in the sport class (more competition, faster speeds, more laps and... more suffering). I had a great time this year and look foreward to it again.

There is a Time Trial coming up (road race where it's just you against the clock). I think I'm going to give it a try. Should be fun.

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.

another cold...

Seems like I've had more colds than ever before this year. I came down with something again a couple of days ago. Lungs this time it seems. I wanted to go for a nice long ride today, but it started to rain a bit and I decided against it. Now it's sunny again so I might head out to get some pictures printed.
I was fooling around with photoshop a bit with some recent pictures. Here's the results.

Abby at the park, on her favorite slide (A park that I built! along with other friends/family members). It's a compilation of a few shots...


And this one of Ben (nephew) pitching.



I might head out in a bit for a short ride to get my legs moving, it has been a few days.
Next MTB race is Wednesday at 7:00pm. But, I may have something else to attend to...

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.