BCMCA Deep Cove RR

An absolutely beautiful day...

Up at 7:00, throw the bike in the 4-runner, off to the ferry... As always, get there with a half hour to spare... and discover while I had my Gatorade, no bottles...

Breakfast on the ferry, managed to borrow a water bottle.. Got to the race venue before 11:00. So lots of time to get around the course twice for a good warmup.

This course is short and fast. About 6.5km with 70m of climbing. With most of the climbing being in two climbs. The first (also the used as the finish sprint) about 500m long at 7%. The second about half that.

The over sixties group was quite large and started 4 minutes ahead of us. Our over fifty group was not very big. Mike Sevcov showing up with about 1 minute to spare...

We started out hard and worked hard to stay away from the forties and try and catch the sixties. The group was down to six after two times up the climb. With myself, Mike and Bill Yearwood from the 55+, Ray Wagner and another guy from the 50+ and a young women from the +30's to round out our group.

With about 3 laps to go, Ray Wagner (another diesel engine type guy) managed to get off the front after the two climbs and we couldn't quite get back to him. He managed to catch up to Dave Mercer and they took 1st and 2nd overall.

Just after that we caught up to the main group of +60's. As we went buy Gerry Goodleff managed to grab a wheel and hang on.

With two laps to go two young guys from the +40's caught us. Mike Sevcov, Bill Yearwood and I managed to grab their wheels (and I think Gerry did too). But by the end of the climb it was down to just Mike and I and the two young guys, with one lap to go.

They dragged us along for another half lap, then Mike and I dropped back so we could concentrate on sprinting against each other. We where pretty sure we wouldn't be able to match them on the hill. I ended up leading Mike into the sprint, pushed a little too hard for the first 300m hoping to break the string.. But he managed to stay right on my wheel, and with 200m to go he was able to stand up and get over me... Nothing I could do at that point.

The two hardest climbs of the day, 410 watts for one minute following the two young guys up. And 520 wats for 30 seconds leading out Mike.

In the end I was fairly satisfied with my results. We caught all but Dave Mercer in the 60+. Kept away from all but two of the 40+ group. I was only 2nd in my age group, but was 6th overall.. And 2nd against Mike is pretty good.

Campbell Heights RR and Tom Binnie Crit

Saturday was Campbell Heights RR... Mostly a fun and easy 9km circuit. With two short 30 second sprint climbs... The rest of the circuit was fast and easy... Had good position going into the last lap and the last climb. But about 8 guys leapt up it and got a 50-75m gap from the rest of us. And managed to stay off till the finish (another 3km).

Sunday was the Tom Binnie Crit... Flat and fast... Reminded me why I hate crits... Sprint, catch, sprint, catch, sprint, catch.... Ugh... I was off the back after about 10 minutes... Then did my own thing for another 30 minutes... Then I got lapped...

I found it easier to do 39-40km by myself than to stay at the back while the group did about 42km.. Mainly because of the surging..

Thanks to Ted Martin for the photo from the crit... Showing me suffering by myself :-)

Alibion L3 + Bonus Mtb

Two days of L2/L3 plus two days of Bonus mountain bike rides... over three days.

The weather on Sunday and Monday was iffy so I dragged out the mountain bike and did a couple of turns around our local bike trail...

Shows what a few years of road and track can do... A few of the small climbs that I used to be happy to get up in a middle cog and the small ring I was going up in the big ring... Fun. Unfortunately what I (may have) gained on the strength side I've definitely lost on the skills side :-)

Another boring week trying to rebuild CTL

Well not terribly boring... but...

Wednesday I was at the track. Some Take-A-Lap drill with Eric and Kelvin. Then Points-race drill with Anthony... Its amazing how doing 8 x two lap drills at max effort can kill you...

Tuesday was SFU via Barnet, climbed it from both sides. Friday was Anmore Tour as L3 workout. Today I was out to the Albion Ferry and then a bit farther along Lougheed at L4, then back at L3.

Assuming I can do another 100+ TSS ride tomorrow, this should start me back to CTL building. The last two month have been really strange, between work, climate, racing, climate (did I say the weather has been bad...) CTL has really sufferred. I had a great start to the year, 4-5 weeks ahead of things at the beginning of March.. At this point I'm well behind last year (and the year before that...)

Slow week

I had an off week... almost felt like a bit of a cold. I was supposed to do a hillrep workout on Thursday and just couldn't get started on it...

Anyway, felt a bit better yesterday. Did 4x6 minute TT's. Alternating 30s low RPM and 60s high RPM..

Today was LSHC... Long Slow Hill Climbs... SFU from both sides, then home and up to the top of Parklane on Heritage... Then home Mostly L2 pace... Except for the first SFU climb at L3.

I hurt my shoulder last week at the track. Really stupid, almost fell over while waiting to start a race on Sunday and pulled some muscles in my left arm and shoulder. Starting to feel a bit better, but it has made cycling fairly painful for the last week.

I'm hoping that the spring weather, which has finally started to get sunny, holds. I'd like to get out and build CTL up again...

BVC UCI Omnium

This was interesting... Five events scored as an Omnium, your placing in each event is the points you get. Overall winner is least number of points.

1. Flying 200 - 13:44
2. 2km ITT - 2:39
3. 20 Lap Scratch
4. 4x10 Points
5. 500m ITT - 43:??

I did well enough in two events, 1st in the 4x10 Points and 2nd in the 2km ITT..

But not so good (:-) ) in the others... so overall I was about mid-pack, I think 7th out of 13..

This was the 2km ITT (actually run as a pursuit, two riders starting on opposite sides of the track, but for individual times.)

At 2:39 I was second. Rob Muldur managed a 2:34. Best times at last years Canadian Nationals Masters C where about 2:38... So I'm definitely in the right area. I need to get more time on the aero bars so that I can hold my line a bit better. Measured distance I travelled was 2.077. I went almost 80m farther than a perfect ride of 2km (as measured on the black line.) Certainly it would be hard to do exactly 2.000, but probably can reduce that by 30-40m. And that would be 2-4 seconds (assuming no loss of speed etc.)

Also, I'm still trying things out with the new 170mm cranks. I did almost everything this weekend on 51x14 (except for the 500m ITT which was 50x14). But I think at least for this event I could move up to a 52x14.

I also need to fine tune the bike setup a bit. Anthony King ( TrainingFX ) is helping me with that using the Cyfac measuring system. The current suggestion is to shorten the stem to move the bars back and up. I recently did that on the road bike and it seemed to make the ride more comfortable there. I suspect it will do the same here. And for the pursuit open things up so I can generate a little more power.

This was a good day to measure up for the Canadian National Masters in August. I'll be trying for the Endurance Omnium which has three events, all of which we did.

1. 2km Pursuit
2. 5km Scracth
3. 10km Points

A lot of the competition I'll be facing this summer. E.g. local rider Andy George and from Ontario Lorne Falkenstein. Both of them are strong sprinters than I am. But I finished ahead of them in the 2km Pursuit and the Points Race. Andy won the Scratch... (And Lorne's 2k time was only a second off mine, and his time last year was 2:36 at the nationals...)

So my two goals between now and August are first to practice and improve the 2km Pursuit. It needs to be smooth and well executed. Second, I need to translate some of the endurance I have at the track into a little more power over the shorter races (e.g. 5km scratch.) Get out and get going harder faster. Getting going about lap 25 works great for a 50 lap points race, but puts you out of the money for a 25 lap scratch... This will (I think) also help with power over the two and a half minute 2km pursuit.

BVC Maydays - Well if they are going to let me do it...

Two races tonight. A 35 Lap Scratch Race and 5x10 Points Race. Not a big B group. Only 16 riders. But faaasssttt...

The first race was a 35 Lap Scratch Race. Pace was high and everyone was antsy with more than one sketchy move observed, luckily no harm no foul.... I was nicely positioned with 4 laps to go, high up near the front... But with three to go the pace picked up and there where too many people pushing into the front. Some riders peeling off the front pushed me up. So I ended up out of the running.

The second race was a 5x10 Points race... More my style. Long enough for me to get going and other people to get tired out ...

Things started at a nice pace, about 43-44kmh.

But then got going for the first sprint... and followed through at a new and improved 47-48 kmh pace... This resulted in a split in the group and unfortunately I was still at the back... I ended up having to bridge back to the front group (about 5-6 riders.) Took me 6 laps, at 47-48kmh. Tough... but kept getting closer with each lap.. And eventually was close enough to make one final kick and get on.

That was about lap 25 or 26. Just followed the group through the next sprint. Catching my breath and getting my heart rate down (hit 185 when bridging...) Then managed to get well positioned going into the second last sprint. With 3 to go, started from the back, went high, and just treated things like I was doing a flying 200... up up up... Then dived over a lapped rider and got an immediate big gap... Just carried that through to the sprint.

The group pushed hard to catch me, so I sat up and let them after the sprint... And then with 3 laps to go.. managed to get into a good position... Near the front this time. With 3 to go, moved up just a bit to the blue, and then jumped with 2 to go... Got a big gap, yadda, yadda, yadda.

This is my signature move... you would think that they wouldn't let me get away with it :-) But 2 for 3 in two races.. Good odds for me.

I figured that 2 firsts would get me about a 3rd, possibly a 2nd depending on how the points where distributed. Amazingly, there was a 3 way tie for points... And that means position is determined by the final sprint... which means I lucked out and got a 1st :-)

No idea what will happen tomorrow. The schedule allowed for B and B+ groups if more than 20 people signed up for B's... But there are only 16 of us. The original schedule called for 3 short races, Win and Out, 24 lap Snoball and Elimination to 25 lap scratch... And a B Madison... But hopefully they will switch the Madison to a long points race and add something with some length. I will be SOL otherwise :-)

Sunday we are doing a 5 event UCI Ominium. Flying 200, 3km Pursuit, Kilo, Scratch and Points. That should be interesting..

I'm still trying to figure out if the new 170mm cranks are working for me... I'm kind of feeling like I'm spinning out on my 51x14... feels too easy... But the bridge and sprints on the points race show that the legs can deliver... But I'm almost thinking that I should go up just a bit... Perhaps not quite to 52x14, but perhaps 48x13 (which is just about half way between 51x14 and 52x14..)