Sunday, November 29, 2009

Rocky Mountain Sweeps CX Provincials

Today Alison Sydor and myself were able to take the wins in elite men and women, to take the provincial crowns. Our Rocky Mountain Solo CX Team Bikes ran smooth like butter today! Pretty stoked on that, never won an elite provincial championship before.

The day started out at 5 am in old Guthrie log home in Peachland BC. My brother, father and myself got in the ballin' mini-van and were Vancouver bound. It happend to rain the whole way to Vancouver, but once we hit Langley it stopped. I was excited because the night before I prayed for a muddy muddy race but not rain. That dream came true, and it came along with the best cx course I've ever raced, along with the best organized race of the season. Big shout out to Kevin Calhoun for cooking up and memorable Provincial Cyclo-cross weekend.

Today I decided to do an actual warm up unlike the last few races. I rode a couple laps. Next thing I did was eat one of my Dr Vie Sports bars, the GO bar to be specific and man did it make me go! Then I dedicated myself to 30 min on the trainer. Which really paid off. I was called up first which was nice, because I've been in like the 3rd row for every cross race this year. Apparently it was in order of registration and I didn't register until the morning off. Wicked. Then of course I had miss clipping into my pedal like 3 times in a row at the start, but then I sprinted right back to the front and had more speed than anyone and was able to just float through a mud bog section and then jumped up the 3 set of stairs which opened up a considerable gap, and from that point on I just put my head down and thought about getting a whopper in Chiliwack on the way home. I made a few mistakes throughout the race, like trying to ride the run-ups. So once the gap shrunk I was hit it dam hard for two laps to open it up again, and then I had a buffer to play with incase some problems occurred. Which in the last two laps my gears were dying out me and slowly stopping the nice crisp shifts and turned to ugly jumping shifts, had to be careful. Didn't want to snap a chain. So I played it safe and rode the last couple laps as smooth as possible. Came through the hands high and 5 pounds of mud on my body. Today was not the day for a cool down. So I just stayed in my dirty shamois for another half hour until the awards were done. Which I won a wicked Lezyne pump, $125 bones, provincial champ jersey, gold medal, a pound of beans and best of all a gallon of beer. And since I'm of age...they still gave me the beer. And of course I won't drink it because I will give it to my dad..





Photos: John Irvine





Photos: Bicycle Radio

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Awesome Friday in prep for CX Provincials.

Was out with some good buddies last night in Penticton BC watching a Junior hockey game. Three of us wore wife beaters and wrote on them in a sharpie, I think we were the only three guys in the 3000 person arena cheering for the out of town team. We were right behind the bench and cheering pretty hard. At half time the kiss cam came on and they went to all the couples and then the camera came on us, and my one friend went to pretend to kiss the other, and the stadium went crazy, then they just had a good boys hug! As I was sitting beside laughing my behind off. We were scared when we left that we might all get jumped when heading out to ours cars, lucky my two friends and 200 lbs. Not that I'm a small cyclist or anything...Tonight is round two, game happening in our home town, we will be the only three guys cheering again for the out of town team. Should make for another interesting night. Then up early tomorrow morning and heading down to Vancouver for Cyclo-Cross Provincials.

Giddy Up!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

18 lbs hardtail mtb!

Just got my beautiful Rocky Mountain Vertex Team RSL down to a lovely and satisfying 18 lbs today. She is 100% race dependable, full xtr drivetrain and wheels, Race Face cockpit, Fi'zi:k saddle, and Maxxis tires. I could jump this bike and it would hold up. Can't wait to race this lightweight machine from heaven.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Escape Velocity GP of Burnaby

Took the "W" down in vancity today at another one of those cyclo-cross gatherings. Finally a muddy one. Hit the front end hard in a mud hole and almost endo'd off the bike, and heard a big crack and by bars slipped forward and of course the first thing I thought was my handle bar broke, so I was trying to ride with all my weight on the back of the bike, gave up on that in about 5 minutes and just said the hell with it, break another handle bar and it might be some sort of record for one season. Tried to not get off my bike today, because every time I ran my heals would rub on the inside of my leg, which eventually led to bleeding. Shows how useless a biker like me is at running. Suffered pretty hard today, haven't done anything in a week and the extra pounds gained didn't help either, but I made it through and the handle bar thing just turned out I was being paranoid about nothing.


Photo: Carelle B. Dunn