General Summer Cycling

Pump Track
On the peninsula there is a private pump track on a farm. I've been up to it a couple of times. It is a lot of fun and uses completely different muscles than the types of cycling that you have to pedal for.

scotty


mitch


me

MTB

I did the OBB thursday night mtb ride tonight, it is fast for a group ride, has quite a lot of road sections but was good. My technical skills were definitely a bit rusty but practice is a sure way to get better. i think i'll do the ride again, just not sure when i'll get the chance, it overlaps with the Russ Hayes road ride which i like and it starts pretty early. I'll get the garmin link up soon.

Road

I've managed to get the points to move up to Category 3. This opens up the possibility of entering the Vancouver to Whistler race in September, very tempting if a little expensive.

Tom and I have also been working on getting sprints right, it worked particularly well last wednesday when Tom managed to get a 1st at the VCL race.

Yaletown GP photos

yaletown photos link

Tour De Delta, Brenco criterium

This Saturday we traveled across to the mainland to take part in the Criterium that is a part of the Tour De Delta. Also i hadn't realised that is was the Canadian National Criterium.

It was a flat and fast course with no crazy corners and my race plan was to start at the front and stay there. After a disappointing Yaletown GP race, where i got dropped and all the other people that traveled over from Victoria also either got dropped or crashed out, I decided the extra effort involved in being at the front was worth the risk.

It almost panned out perfectly. The one major crash, that Steve dislocated his thumb and a load of others went down or dropped back, i was in front of all that. I almost got the $100 Prim lap. Coming into the final straight things were looking good for a top ten or maybe even top 5 spot but i'd run out of energy so took a bit of a hammering in the sprint.

Afterwards when the results were posted it turns out i finished 1st category 4 rider, so maybe the plan was just right.



Alex chasing


Me in the pack


Tom leading the pack


Some fast Category 1/2 riders


Ladies race


Our bikes


The view from the ferry on the way home

12 Hours of Cumberland 2010

This was my first go at an endurance race since 2008 so i was intrigued as to how it would go.

There were a few things on my mind,

the courses here in Canada seem to be more technically demanding than the races in the UK were so how sore would my arms get,

I was going to be trying out my 29er which is a hardtail, most of the longer races i've done solo were on my SantaCruz SuperLight,

and i've not done any really long rides recently, so no specific preparation.


I ended up starting a little too fast, but after 3 laps i settled into a sustainable pace. The course was heavy going and a large portion of each lap was narrow rooty singletrack, great fun but tiring. At about laps 5 or 6 i felt what turned out to be the worst i felt all day, i think it might have been a mixture of recovering from the three fast laps at the start and not drinking enough. The sun was out and it was warm so staying hydrated important. i ended up drinking 20 water bottles worth of water and sports drink.

Once i was in a rhythm things steadied out, lap times were consistent and my legs felt good, for the 12 hours i didn't stop for more than about 30 second at any one time. I couldn't quite match the pace of the guy who won but i think i gave him a hard enough time. 2nd felt good enough though.

Lots of rest now, the next race is a road criteruim in Vancouver on Canada day, that'll be quite different from Cumberland for sure.



clean clothes at the start


happy to be finished


tiring day for everyone


tan/mud line

2010 TNA Westside Cycling Classic

official race website

Victoria Cycling Weekend

Bear Mountian Hill climb



Sooke Classic Road race



Bastion Square Criterium


video pt1


video pt2


part three would have been the last few laps and the finish if the memory card hadn't run out of space...

oops

Pivot Mach 5 Cross Country BC Cup #2

Round number 2 of the BC cup MTB series was on the island this weekend. I traveled up to take part in the Masters category.

It was a tough course, climbing up a long steep fire road straight from the start line. It was a 15 minute loose and steep enough that is was just ridable. Once the climb was done we came back down the down hill course, through a nice flowy technical single track which wound back to the start/finish area.



jumping


In the Trees


Almost finished

Cobble Hill XC #5

Island cup series #5 was at Cobble hill, just south of Duncan on Sunday.

The course was mostly one massive up hill:



The plus side is that the decent on the other side more than made up for effort!

these are the results here

It was my best MTB race yet this year and i managed a 6th place. The first lap was a good battle with Melanie McQuaid, who eventually ended up 1st in the ladies category.

Pro City Racing had a good day:
I was 6th expert,
Craig Gillet was 8th,
Mel was 1st lady,
Scotty won the intermediate category,
Dee won the beginner ladies after a coaching session from Chrys!

The bad news however is that Jamie Emery fell and broke his collarbone and hand, only got out of surgery today, not so good.

Capital City Cycles Summer Race Series 2010

Down by the ShipYard we had some sprinting practice. It turned out to be fixed bike and jeans v's road bike and lycra. This week the fixies came out on top!

Here are a few shots

nice simple fixie


good sprinting form


the sun going down


there is a link to the facebook page here

Burnside Ride Saturday morning

Went out for a nice ride this morning. This is one of the first days this year that it has felt like a summery ride in Canada. Nearly as warm as Capetown was i reckon.



the burnside ride leaves from Straight Up Cycles and does around 100km round the peninsula. Plenty of hard pulls, so probably pretty good practice for racing.

I've entered all 3 events in the Victoria Cycling series.

Website link here

and a nice little video:

Caleb Pike VCL

Had a better race today. I finally managed to get some points! i think i came in 6th.

The pace generally was not too high, Marcel managed to break clear from the group with 5 laps or so remaining and stayed clear till the end with a gap of 30 seconds.

Coming into the final hill we were still in a massive bunch gunning for second so there was lots of potential for a disaster. Raf hit a traffic cone, flew into the middle of the pack, sideways. I'm not sure how no one went down.

I'll try and find some pictures to post later, these pictures are from the following race. Same course though so they'll do!

Tom cornering hard.


simon leading the pack


me hanging in, note how close the pedal is to the ground!

Island Cup MTB #4 Hammerfest

Parksville today for an MTB race.

It was a short course today, only 16.5km and only 1 lap. That would be good you might think but it just means you have to ride faster.

I got off to a good start, managed to miss any hold ups funneling into the first single track section, so enjoyed the narrow sections through the trees. This was the one part of the course that we'd had time to pre-ride.

After about 15 minutes of nice windy, and slightly down hill narrow stuff we came out onto the logging road ready for the big climb (by reputation tough enough to justify the single lap format). Wat a climb it is too, from 150m up to over 400m in about 1km of riding.

The rather unfortunate reward for such a climb was a rough and loose logging road decent. This however, about half way down, was replaced by a freshly cut and fairly old school portion of the course. It was difficult to ride smoothly but felt good when you did get sections right. It was down by the Englishman river, lots of twists and turn with some steep little ups thrown in. Once i was over the leg pain of the pace we were trying to keep up it made me smile.

Here are some graphs and a map of what was going on. I'm still waiting to find out what the results were, it think they are okay though.



As an extra note, Halldor had a storming race and came 2nd in his category, superb!

Bring on the next one at Duncan.

Newton Heights race

Newton Heights tonight was hard work. I managed to stay sheltered for the majority of the ride and worked as hard as i could. That hill gets pretty hard after 12 times or so. Strength wise i felt good but in the last few laps i was suffering from cramp in my calves.

We had a nice little group of 4 of us but in ended up rolling in at the end of that group. Getting faster though, i think...

results up to 10th spot here (i was 12th A)



On a GPS note, i managed to figure out the auto lap count, and it worked perfectly.

Google earth of the course

Pro City Racing Monday ride

Went up Prospect Lake road and then up to the observatory this week. As we were coming down the hill we met up with the Riders Cycles group. The rid eback home along interurban was more fun with more people. Good times.

Hartland commute

I have finally done the MTB route up into the Harland area with my GPS. Although i'm not sure exactly how representative of actual timings this one is, we were up there for a 4 hour trail building session.

In any case the maps shows from the car park at the trail heads back to the Trek Victoria bike store.

Caleb Pike #2

LAP SUMMARY
Lap #1
Total Distance 2.34 km
Time Taken: 00:03:45
Speed: 26.18 (km/hr) (min) 37.34 (km/hr) (avg) 77.52 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #2
Total Distance 2.31 km.
Time Taken: 00:03:25
Speed: 26.32 (km/hr) (min) 40.53 (km/hr) (avg) 67.99 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #3
Total Distance 2.56 km.
Time Taken: 00:04:04
Speed: 24.52 (km/hr) (min) 37.82 (km/hr) (avg) 64.98 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #4
Total Distance 2.53 km.
Time Taken: 00:04:08
Speed: 20.71 (km/hr) (min) 36.76 (km/hr) (avg) 65.99 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #5
Total Distance 2.54 km.
Time Taken: 00:03:55
Speed: 24.32 (km/hr) (min) 38.99 (km/hr) (avg) 75.3 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #6
Total Distance 2.55 km.
Time Taken: 00:04:09
Speed: 21.59 (km/hr) (min) 36.86 (km/hr) (avg) 63.71 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #7
Total Distance 2.54 km.
Time Taken: 00:04:05
Speed: 27.9 (km/hr) (min) 37.34 (km/hr) (avg) 64.24 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #8
Total Distance 2.56 km.
Time Taken: 00:03:59
Speed: 23.19 (km/hr) (min) 38.58 (km/hr) (avg) 68.3 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #9
Total Distance 2.54 km.
Time Taken: 00:04:05
Speed: 26.15 (km/hr) (min) 37.34 (km/hr) (avg) 66.34 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #10
Total Distance 2.54 km.
Time Taken: 00:04:07
Speed: 25.87 (km/hr) (min) 36.88 (km/hr) (avg) 64.29 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #11
Total Distance 2.56 km.
Time Taken: 00:03:56
Speed: 27.66 (km/hr) (min) 39.07 (km/hr) (avg) 71.72 (km/hr) (max)

Lap #12
Total Distance 2.54 km.
Time Taken: 00:03:59
Speed: 23.46 (km/hr) (min) 38.22 (km/hr) (avg) 71.24 (km/hr) (max)

#3 Cumberland MTB race

Here is a map of the course. The technical single track, which was probably around 75% of the course kept the average speeds down.



We went up to pre ride the lap on saturday, I had fancied racing my 29er but half way up the climb on the second lap the freehub body gave up. With 29" wheels still not being that common i didn't manage to get a replacement in time so used the more conventional Santa Cruz Superlight.

Raceday was fun, the weather was perfect, the first summers day in about 6 months. There were still plenty of puddles and mud in the shade of the trees.

As a group we were mostly successful.
I finished 18th in expert,
Scotty was 2nd in intermediate,
Regan was 3rd in intermediate,
Chrys was 4th in Beginner,
and Dee had a big crash.

Me nearing the end


Scotty holding Second


Regan chasing


Chrys


Dee's leg


full results listing

photos from Tom

Figuring out how the Garmin works

50k elk lake loop

Rode this loop tonight, the only difference is cutting onto the Goose trail at the end of Interurban, highway #1 crossing. Google maps doesn't seem to know you can do that! Also it's possible to do this route after work now without needing lights, all good.


View Larger Map

Monday Night Pro City Ride

Only Dee, Tom and I tonight so we figured out a route that could make a fun ride. We reckon 2 laps could be good, it'd be about 50k ish and would have a ouple of sprints and some nice little hills!


View Larger Map

back in victoria and racing

After a super long journey back to Canada i decided to do one of the local road races, the format was a hilly criterium. Jetlag is still making my legs feel like lead so we decided to ride in the B class, the Triple Shot guys had teamed up against Tom last week so there was some revenge to be had. Aaron, Alex, Tom and I managed 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th so all in all it went well.

The short hilly course was pretty tough by the last few laps.

results

Tom and I at the front


me catching my breath at the end


I think we need some more Pro City team mates for the next race...

Mountain Biking in Botswana

Paul and I went out on the MTB's today for a couple of hours in the Botswanan bush. Lots of sand (some early season cross practice!) and some pretty crazy thorn bushes. I have managed to get some good cuts on my arms and legs.



We found some super nice singletrack. It had been marked out for a local race and there were plenty of mtb tracks on it.

here is the bike i had the honor of riding


thorns like this lined the route. As the single track was almost all sand, mistakes were easy to make and resulted in big scratches!


some interesting trail landmarks, a large termite mound


Almost the whole ride was this sand

Argus Race Results

There are a couple of different ways to look at the results, the one I've decided suits me best is how i did in my start group, 3rd out of 479, however...

Over all i was 1874th that is still ok i think though out of 28817 finishers, and over 30,000 starters.

results

Cape Argus race day

Here is the route


What an amazing ride/race. Definitely an inspiration to try some more exotic races. There were thousands of locals all along the 109km route shouting encouragement, made me feel like a proper racer.

As it was my first time at this race my seeding was low so we started way back, i have definitely never overtaken so many people in one ride! It turned out to be pretty much a time trial with very little sharing of work at the front of any of the groups we caught up to or created.

Here are a few pictures of the route, the wind and the riders.

taken from the route when we pre-drove it, on the day it was perfect sunshine.


View on to the finish


Race day, there was certainly a lot of wind


Lance racing


Paul and I, too quick for the camera!


tan lines


Sunset, Cape Town trip over

Signing on day

We had an early start today so we could do a ride before the weather got too warm. We rode up along some of the route we'll be doing on Sunday, up to a place called Chapman's peak. It was the most amazing route, loads of spectacular views. Afterwards we went into town to sign onto the race and have a browse around the expo, lots of goodies to be had, i escaped lightly, only buying some Oakleys a cycling top and a water bottle cage.

After that we had some lunch, while we were ordering our food we saw Lance ride by, very cool.

some of the Argus route


at the top


the Expo


and i couldn't help but take some shots at the beach and of the sunset

waves


some of the Twelve Apostles


down goes the sun


we made it out on two rides today, one in the morning, up to Chapman's peak:


and one into town to take a look at the seafront and the new football stadium: