Thursday Crit

Finally got enough spare time on a Thursday to head over and do the Thursday Night Crit...

Did the Cat 5 race. Managed to stay towards the front and get lots of work in... Next week (assuming I can get away) I think I'll upgrade to the Cat 4 race. It is a much bigger field (tonight 12 versus about 30) as they race Cat 3 and Cat 4 together. Tonight Bruce Denis got into a break away with another cat 3 rider...

According to google maps I'm 44 minutes away from the Thursday Crit, 43 from the Wednesday Crit (Mission) and 54 minutes from the Tuesday (UBC) Crit...

With the UBC number probably being optimistic as you get to crawl through Vancouver .... Going to Richmond I have to get through New West and onto the Queensborough Bridge, after that its 100+ the rest of the trip... Mission is farther, but depending on traffic across the Pitt River bridge and through Haney could be faster.

Riding to the venue is almost possible... UBC is 36.6km, Richmond 38.6km, Mission 46km.

Mass transit can help.... I can get about a 10km boost to either Richmond or UBC using Skytrain (Lougheed either West or South...) Or to Mission I can take the WestCoast Express, at least to get out there. Next year after the RAV line opens I would actually be able to get to within about 5km... (but its a bus to Lougheed, Skytrain to Commercial, another Syktrain to Cambie and then Rav to Richmond...)

In the end it means I have to be on the road or bike or bus by 4:30-5:00....

Anmore Tour - new PB

Skipped doing the Canada Day randeneur ride... Shoulders get too sore after 2-3 hours... 140km takes about 5+ hours... Hurts just thinking about it.

Did my Anmore Tour (Buntzen, Whitepine, Belcarra, Thermal Plant...) and managed a PB. Slow start, 50 seconds off my time at Buntzen (18:10 vs 17:20); almost 2 minutes at WhitePine (36:40 vs 34:40); but 20 seconds back at Belcarra (45:30 vs 45:10); and 40 seconds ahead by the Thermal Plant (57:30 vs 58:16). Then 25 seconds ahead at the finish (1:35:36 vs 1:36:00).

Probably could have done better with a proper warmup... Didn't actually go out with a plan to do a PB... Kind of clicked around WhitePine... Some of the speedup was due to the nice weather... But then the previous PB's where in June... so probably not too much.

I've been doing this route for years.... my spreadsheet goes back to 2002, although those where on a mountain bike. Back then times to the power plant where about 72 minutes.. I broke 60 minutes for the first time in 2006 (once) and then a couple of times in 2007. Getting down to 57:30 is pretty good. Although, some of that is nice weather and fast descents.