Ok lets do this

Oh boy, lots to catch up on here. Didn't do any blogging in Quebec due to sketchy Internet/being busy/laziness. So I will attempt to condense the whole trip into this one post. Here it goes.



Trip to Baie St. Paul went well. We each had a whole seat to ourselves which made for a less cranky group of people. Condense...



Got to the motel in good time. Out pit stops were nice and short so we were able to get a bit of a ride in once we got all settled in.



Sat was pre-riding. Showed up in my sweet new white leg and arm warmers. They make me feel more legit. The course was sweet. I liked it better then last year, it seemed to be more broken up rather then just climbing forever and then going downhill really fast. It had some good punchy climbs which I like and had some tricky single track.



The race, well it went something like this. Start hard, barely avoid a crash, work my way up the field, have a mechanical, lose a bunch of spots, keep having said mechanical, deal with it, make up as many spot as I could, and finish in 31st. So, not what I wanted, but not terrible either.



We packed the van and left right after the race for Mont St. Anne. Not a long drive so that was good. Arrived at our sweet chalet and got settled in. The next morning me and Mr. Garrigan went for an endurance ride up and around the mountain. Also got some great practice with changing flats. Mike showed me a few tricks and I was able to shave 6mins off the time it takes me to fix a flat. Anyways, some great training and technical practice in Mont St Anne. And a lot of fun with the team. Condense...



After the few days in St. Anne we made the trip to Tremblant. Arrived there to find out that the place we were staying at was even nicer the the one before. On the lake, nice property, 2 kitchens, completely finished basement. Easily worth over 1 mill. Not too far from the village either. The day after we got there (Saturday) we pre-rode the course. Very dry and it had been smoothed out since last year. Not too upset about that as I'm riding a hard tail this year but I can see how some may be upset about it. Pasta dinner in the Village (which was very pricey but delicious) and then back to the house to chill and hit the bed early.



Race day again! Wow that week went by fast. Woke up at 7:30ish. Had a good breakfast and gave the bike a final look over. There was a good atmosphere in the house. Everyone was super pumped to race their bikes. Good vibes.



Rode to the course at 11:30. and got a good warm-up on the roads around the village...



Skipping ahead a bit. Got called up in a better spot than last week. Off the start I played it conservative and just held my position. I didn't want to get half way up the hill and not have anything left. And it paid off. Half way into the lap I was able to pick it up and was able to pass everyone who got to excited off the start. By the time I got to the downhill I had caught up to Tyson Wagler. But he was moving fast on the decent. I was riding a bit above my head trying to keep him close. Getting close to the bottom I hit a fast washed out corner with to much speed and without even a chance to try and save it I hit the ground with my ribs taking the brunt of the impact. Oh Man! That's the first time I've winded myself during a race. It was one of the worst feelings I can remember having. It took me a good 2min to get my breath back and that's when I noticed that my ribs didn't feel right. It was painful to breath. I sat beside the trail for a while and tried to find out what was wrong. As i watched the Juniors going by I started to think it was a lost cause. But i quickly shook that thought out of my head. I made a goal at the beginning of the season to finish every race and I knew if gave that up I would hate myself later. So I Got my bike all straitened out and got back on. The next lap was hard. My breathing was restricted and it was quite painful. Anyways long story short I finished the race and was able to pick my way up to 40th. Again not what I had in mind but it feels good to say I sucked it up and got it done. After a trip to the med tent I went back to the house got cleaned up and went out with the other Ontario riders (who had great races themselves) for some great food in the village.

Stayed for the red bull race to see Mike G. defend his title. I could write an entire post about that. Lets just say that I've never seen such an unorganized event before. And it ended up costing Mike (who was clearly the strongest rider on the xc side) the win and a hefty prize pack. 3 grand and some awesome swag including a sid world cup. A little frustrated thinking about that situation so lets move on.

So that just about sums up my trip to French land. Lots of good times had and good learning experience. Looking forward to hardwood and having a good race there. I feel I have good legs and good motivation so I'll see if I can make something happen. Good night.

Albion race report

Woke up and it was still cold and snowing. But it was supposed to get nicer for the 1:30 race so no worries. I have to say that I do not miss racing at 8:oo at all. Well done to all who toughed it out and raced at that time.

Pre race just tried to not get cold and figure out what the course was like. Verdict, looks like the course it perfect. Not to dry not to wet. They even threw the green monster back in for our race. Oh joy...

During my warm up I was feeling ok. But when I put in any hard effort I could feel my legs starting to ball up. Oh well best not worry about it. Got lined up. Front row beside Morka. Cool! Looked around and realized how much more clothes I was wearing than everyone else. Junior moment. Whistle went and we were off. Had a good start. Maybe to good as I could have taken the whole shot. But I decided that would be a mistake. So I eased up and fell in behind Adam Morka. Start loop was fast and everyone stayed together. Felt good and relaxed. Stayed with the leaders until we hit the green monster and I think Cam Jette attacked. I tried to react but I started get those knots in my legs again. So that was the end of my time in that group. Luckily I wasn't the only one who got dropped of the back. I could see a Trek Canada guy and Zack Winn up ahead. So I got into a good pace and kept them in my sight. Didn't lose or make any ground on them for the next lap and a half as Zack kept attacking the climbs.

Finished up the second lap and saw the Trek guy drop out. Turned out to be Peter. He was blown after a really tough world cup. So that just left Zack. 3rd lap I started to really feel the pain in my legs and struggled to keep it going. I was caught by Tyson Wagler and lost him when my bars moved on me and I had to stop and fix them. Only about 20sec lost there. And it gave my legs a chance to relax. Got back on the bike and found some motivation. I could see Tyson in the distance and he was riding strong. He was now with Zack and it looked like he was throwing down some more "Zack Attacks". I surged on the monster and closed it up a bit. I maintained the gap for the rest on the lap.

Lap 4. Not much happened the first half lap. When I hit the monster again I surged again and caught the tiring Zack and Tyson. At this point I was just ignoring the pain in my legs and pretending I was feeling good. I moved ahead of Tyson and shortly after was passed by the lead juniors. Ouch my pride. But I was able to grab there wheel to get a gap on the other 2. Followed them to the end of the lap.

Lap 5. Survive! I didn't know how much I had on the guys behind me and I was hurting pretty bad. So I spent the lap looking for speed wherever I could find it. One last grind up the monster and I knew I would be pretty safe after that. Rode it in for a solid 5th.

I'm happy with the race. I worked hard and that's always a good feeling. And I also made the project for the Canada Cups. That's the first goal of the season met so I'm stoked on that.

1 week to get the body, bike and mind ready for the first important race of the year. Can't wait.

Ok so just sitting in my favorite chair (ya I know I'm an old man) watching the snow fall. Wait WHAT!? It's snowing the night before O-cup#2 and I'm hoping this doesn't keep up for tomorrow. Kind of feel like I should be getting the cross bike ready.

Ok I'm done complaining. This week has gone ok... I had one bad workout that set me back a bit. On the hottest day I lost my water with my heed in it and for reasons I don't even know I didn't stop to buy something to replace it. I just kept on hammering and gradually started feeling worse and worse. Very drained from that the next day. So I've been taking it easy since then. Feeling pretty normal again after some time on the trainer today (it's snowing). So we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Good luck to all and good night!

So I haven't put up any post so far this week due to a busy schedule. On top of every thing I had to do this week I have also had to start counting my calorie intake by request of my parents. They have been pretty worried for a while now about me not eating enough. And I never liked the idea of counting cals but they got me to do it for a few days now. The result is I have not been eating nearly enough cals to support the amount of exercise I do. That would explain why I'm lighter now then I was when I was 15. So I'm putting in an effort to gradually work on eating more as I were to just start trying to make up for all the cals I've missed at once I would gain weight like crazy I think.

Today I had a great ride. Started the day off with a good breakfast. Really hard to get my head around how much food I should be eating for a 4hr ride. Got out at 11:00am and about 30min in it started pouring with some lightning in there as well. Just threw on my arm warmers and kept going. got to ravenshoe trails and they were soaked. Awesome! I love wet mtb rides like that. It's great for working on skills. Ripped around in there for 2hrs then headed home into a good head wind. Took longer to get home then I wanted but that's ok. I was feeling really good. Usually at the 3.5hr mark I start to feel weaker and go out of my zone more. But I felt just as good as the start of the ride. Guess food is important! Who knew?

Anyway, that was the best day of training I've had so far this year. Looking forward to more like it. Ok not the rain part but you get the idea.

O-Cup #1

There's a lot I could say about the race but I'll try to condense the best I can. I started the day of with 2 hard boiled eggs and some steel cut oats with banana dates and honey. Good energy food. Got the car all paced and headed out. Arrived at Mansfield at around 10:30 and chilled out for a while. Went around and talked to some people and checked out some of the early races. The course was still bone dry and dusty. I guess that rain didn't show up. 11:00 got dressed and started lightly spinning around. My legs were feeling pretty fresh despite the 3hr ride on Saturday. I was a bit worried about that but I've learned to trust Peter's training methods. 12:30 I got on the trainer and did a good warm up. Skipping ahead to the start line. Got a pretty bad spot but didn't let it bother me because I knew there would be time to make up some ground. But I also knew that I had no chance of riding with the lead group because of my start position. But with the Trek squad and Raph there I'm not sure i would have been in that group anyway.

Of the the start line and I was feeling good. But I wasn't able to move up at all on the first climb because the trail was just packed. Maybe I need to be more aggressive? Once we got to the top it opened up and I was able to move up a bit but I was still way back. Rode in a long line of guys through the single track. Long story short my first lap was spent passing guys in the double track and following in the single track. By the end of lap 1 I could see some familiar kits up ahead. Norco, Jet power and EMD. Got by Zack and he picked it up and got on my wheel to pass Mike G and Ryan Atkins. We got a gap on them and I was still feeling good. About half way into the lap a stick came up and knocked my front derailleur into my chain rings. A little frustrated but keeping calm I got off and pulled the out multi tool. Not a super fast fix but I got it working. Got back into chase mode. I had to chase down Mike, Ryan and Zack again. They were out of sight but I was able to get time gaps from different people around the course.

Lap 3 I started getting glimpses of Mike and that helped to get me going a bit. Caught him and could see the other 2 up ahead. Got up to Zack half way through the lap and Ryan next. I rode with Ryan for the next few laps and had a good battle with him and me trading the lead through different sections. We did that until the last lap were I made had a stupid crash and he got away again. It was getting close to the finish so I knew it would be hard to close the gap again. Especially after burning all those matches earlier. I ended up 7th 4 seconds behind Ryan.

All things considered I'm happy with my race. I have a few things I need to work on but I think it was a solid way to open the season. There's 2 weeks till the next race so I think I can improve on what I've learned by then. And hopefully it will be enough to get me on the Canada Cup project.

That's all for now. I'll keep updating on training and all that leading up to Albion.

Hidden gem

So P2A went well for me. Bridged some good gaps a couple times and was wondering if I was going to pay for the burnt matches later in the race. But I surprised myself. After getting popped of the back when someone (I think it was Mike) punched it on one of the rail trails I went into TT mode and road by myself for about an hour. I kept thinking to myself your going to pop but I was feeling really good. I caught Chown and decided to keep going because I don't think he had any plans to pull me. Came to the mud slides and dropped him on the first one. Came to the second one and got onto Box's wheel. But just as we hit the pavement again I noticed my front wheel getting softer. Ok quick decision. Do I stop and fix the flat or just give er for the last 2km? Give er! Needless to day I lost Eric but I still had a gap on Nathan so I just tried to ride it in as fast as I could. Which wasn't that fast. Especially on the last hill. But somehow I held Nathan off and came in 5th. I'm quite happy with how it went. I feel confident in my fitness for sustained effort and now I can build on top end speed.

Moving on to the past few days I been doing some interval work on my MTB. I'm making an effort to not touch the cross bike for while. It's time to give it a rest and focus on MTB. So I've been riding trails more this week and today I found some new (well for me) trails that are better than anything else in my area. There's a ton of awesome downhills and some good single track to sharpen the skills. I won't say where I went though because it may or may not have been off limits to bikes.

Looking forward to this weekend. O-cup #1! Looks like some more fast guys will be there due to the volcano. It will be good to see how fast the elite guys are and see where I stack up in the Under 23 division. I'll be going up there on Saturday to pre-ride with Peter who is offering to go over the course with people who are interested. I would encourage anyone to take advantage of this as it can really help come race day. For more info you can check out Peter's blog that I have a link to in the side bar.

See you at Mansfield!

I like what I see

Has anyone else noticed how many more cyclists there seem to be this year than before? I'm thinking that the bad economy is having a positive effect in some ways because I have been seeing a lot more commuters and parents riding with there kids. I think this is great. I think that we could be seeing a lot of new faces taking part in some races this year.

Anyway, the last few days of riding have been great. Weather has be awesome and the trails a prime! Tuesday I went and did some off road TT's. So hard! I think it's good to get those in before the racing starts though. Just so your not surprised at how much your hurting at the first race. Have I mentioned how fast the new bike feels? The bike climbs like nothing I've ridden before and is surprisingly smooth on the downhills. What more could you ask for in a bike!

Yesterday Me and my dad went to a meet and greet for a new family doctor. Sounds boring right? Well I surprised to find out that he is one of the very few non-bike racers that actually knows what cyclo-cross is (I don't even remember how we got on that topic). I think I like this doctor.

Well, I have officially retired my Sidi mtb shoes after 5 seasons. I have to say I'm a believer in the durability of these shoes seeing as I have been doing MTB and cross on them every season. There are being replaced by the new super hot Bontragers. Got out for a good ride on them yesterday and noticed an increase in power transfer right away. Comfy too.

ps. I'm thinking I need to rename the blog... and change the pic. Kinda out of date.