Sept. 6th vounteers needed.

OK, here is the list of volunteers I have for Sept 6th.

For the morning, from 8:30am - 10:30am, we need 8:

Rui, Rob W., Mike's buddy, Paul A., Trev, Alex, Darcy Bell, Mike Chui

For the afternoon, from 1:30pm - 3:30pm, we need 6:

Mike Healey, Mike Chui, Hal and Jill Kuntze, Peter Keiley, Carl M., Mark S.


For the volunteers, please meet at the mailboxes on the north side of the 1A at the top of Cochrane hill at either 8:30am or 1:30pm.

Please leave a comment if you can volunteer.

Who's in for our next set of races.

Leave a comment what races you are doing and I will update the list.

Road Provincials:
Cat5: Rob W., Andy H., Mark S., Rui
Cat4: Mike G., Rob L. , Lachlan
Cat3: A-Train
Cat2: Trev, Jared
Women: Sandra



ST 16km ITT: Sept. 6th:
Trev, A-Train, Stephen K, Sandra, Andy H., Rob L., Carl M., Mark S., Jared, Kyle, Lachlan, Mike G., Slayer Dan, Paul C., and ??

ST Provincials 45km TTT: Sept. 6th:
Team 1: A-Train, Kyle, Jared, Trev, Stephen K, Rob W.

Masters Provincials: Sept 7th:
Trev, Sandra, and ??

Provincial HillClimb ITT: Sept 14th:
Sandra, Alex, Trev, Andy H., Mike G., Stephen K., and Carl M., Mark S., Steve G., and ??

Drool

I thought there was something special about the rigs the gang was riding at the olympics and the tour. Here it is. Strangely, I am digging the white paint with the olympic rings.

IMC 2008

The Ticker has Kyle at 6th and Lisa Bentley at 5th. Woo hoo! more as it develops . . .

Paul Anderson and Ryan Murray have also clocked in with some outrageous results. . .

Ride Tomorrow - Saturday

Anyone up for a 2-3 hour ride, leaving at 9:00AM, meeting at the co-op in Crowfoot? This would be a spirited but not a hammer-fest ride.
Stephen

10km open water swim tonight and tomorrow.

Make sure to catch the open water marathon action tonight and tomorrow night. It it exactly like cycling, dudes will be attacking, feeding, drafting, and eventually sprinting for the finish.. should be awesome to watch!

It's all over.

Well...after everything was ridden and all the crashes had... we had a great race.

Lots more single track this year, which made the race totally more awesome, but didn't exactly play to Charlie and mine's strengths.. which is fine, since the single track was amazing.

The third day, there wasn't 1 km of gravel road, and only a little bit of double track. Talk about a wicked race.

The fourth and fifth days were the stages Charlie and I were targeting to do well, as there were long stretches of big-gear 2-up TT work. The technical last bit of the fifth day saw 4 teams ride through us, which was pretty frustrating. On the 6th stage, I had a super duper crash on the second major descent (nothing surprising here) and almost broke my front wheel. After I extracted myself and my bike from the ditch, the wheel was holding together but had a massive (but JUST ridable) taco shape! Thank goodness for disk brakes. Anyway, for the rest of the stage, I had to be (even more of) a total wimp on the descents as I was worried my wheel would disintegrate. We still ended up with a 9th place that day though, so we were pumped.

The 7th day was probably our best day for both of us. Charlie was on fire and I just held on for dear life. On the last major ascent of the day, we caught and past the Exprezo team (8th on GC) and at the summit, caught the Opus team (6th on GC)! The Opus team descended better than us and at the bottom, Charlie and I started to hammer the flat gravel road to catch up. We missed a right hand turn in the flagging and didn't notice it, since the trail connected again about 1km down the road. So we accidently skipped about 2km of single track (probably about 5 - 10min of riding). We had no idea it had happened. Anyway, at the finish, people were telling us we are 6th ?!? when we knew we were riding around 9th. About 7 minutes later the Opus team came in and we knew something had happened. The Exprezo guys came in and told us they watched us miss the right hand turn. CRAP !! So I went over and told the results commisaire where and how we missed the corner and in what position we were at the moment. They told us they would place us right behind the Exprezo team, since that seemed to be fair, since they are faster than us on single track and may have caught us.

At the awards banquet, we picked up our final 'Finisher's Certificate' and found out we got a 2hour penalty !! Yikes... tough enforcement. Oh well... great, long, hard, race!

Both Charlie and I are happy with the amazing level of competition and were excited everyday to 'be in the mix' around such awesome riders.

The Deagoat riders of Craig Stappler and Erik Bakke ended up a wicked 11th overall, which is totally awsome and they were fun to battle it out with everyday.

Our final place was 14th.

Some stats:
130 gels used.
2 race wheels broken.
550 km, not one flat !
Almost 2 tubs of Carbo-Pro used.
3 tubs of powdered gatorade.
4 razor sharp cycling short tan lines.

TransRockies Stage 5: Consistency

Consistency thy name is TrevCharlieDanDennis. Again, a long day of climbs and descents and our teams finished 10th in their categories.

In the picture to the left is the top open men's team. Today they suffered 5 flats and a broken chain which lead them to surrender a good chunk of the hour-plus lead they had built up. Such is MTB racing, where you must ride unsupported, where you fix your bike.

The GC picture is anything but set with two days of racing left. Maxxim Power Corp(Dan and Dennis) currently at 10th are merely 46 minutes away from 5th spot and slowly closing in on their closest placed rivals. Kimberly Lodging Co (Trev and Charlie) also sit at 10th and are certainly in the hunt to improve their final position in the next two days.

TransRockies Stage 4

Whooo! Trev and Charlie cracked the top 10 finishing a blistering 8th on the longest and toughest day yet at the Trans Rockies.

Dan and Dennis rolled over the line 13th out grinding their nearest rivals by 3 minutes.

At 109K this marked an extremely long day though some of the most remote territory in the Rockies. Let's check the GC picture to see how everyone is holding up:

Trev and Charlie: 10th Open men
Dan and Dennis: 10th 80+ men

That's some pretty stellar results!

TransRockies Stage 3

13th and 10th are the respective finishes for Trev & Charlie and Dan & Dennis. An excellent performance from our guys in the mountains.

The TT course, designed by landowner Lyle Wilson, today's trail was a big hit with weary riders and the spectacular singletrack was a much-needed reward after two grueling days coming down from the Purcell mountain range and up and over the formidable western slopes of the Rocky Mountain range.


Granted, I suspect the riders will spent less time enjoying the view and more time putting on the hurt.


RESULTS

Sunday riding

I am planning on doing about 120k on Sunday if anyone is interested in joining. Leave the Westhills Starbucks at 7:30am? (yeah, I know its early, but the mornings have been amazing lately).

Trans Rockies: Stage 2

Stage 2 of the TR Challenge was a long day in the saddle for all riders. Especially the top ranked speedsters who missed the course markings and trudged up an avalanche chute. Such is life at the TransRockies, we can only hope Trev, Charlie, Dan and Dennis dodged this particular bullet but at press time no confirmation was available.

Results are excellent for Trev and Charlie who finished 10th at 7 minutes and change back from the top riders. Consistency is the name of the game for Kimberly Lodging Co team. Dan and Dennis Finished 27th but in a large pack so they should be in a good GC position as well.

GC after Stage 2:
Dan and Dennis as team Maxim Power Corp are 15th in the 80+ Mens (Stellar work boys)
Trev and Charlie as Kimberly Lodging Co are 13th in the Open Men (Also Stellar)

The next stage is a time trial, if you can believe that , we know our guys excel at the race of truth. Best of luck to them on it!

Ride tonight- Tuesday

I am going to take the TT bike out and cruise around the Sept 6th TT course. Meet at the Coop, in Crowfoot at 7:00PM
Stephen

Trans Rockies: Stage 1

Stage One of the Trans Rockies wrapped up Sunday delivering on the 2008 theme: Epic.

Riders were treated to all forms of precipitation as the race started in Panorama and looped down to the scenic K2 Ranch. While that route sounds easy enough the reality was something else, something much harsher. Day 1's ascent topped out at 2500m and had riders tackling a literal wall on the course before the technical descents into the Windemere valley.

How did our intrepid racers fair? Trev and Charlie weathered the storm in the open men's category and finished in 11th at 42 minutes back* while Dan and Dennis finished 13th in the 80+ men's category at 50 minutes back. Knowing how the conditions can be these performances are excellent and hats off to both teams.

Some new info, see link below, apparently the stage 1 weather was unreal with the temp dropping to near freezing at the midpoint in the race. It can get pretty hairy trying to operate brakes and maintain your balance on a tricky decent when you're cold. It's a testament to the toughness of Trev, Charlie, Dan and Dennis to see them finishing strong.

Some more coverage here.


* Since most of us are roadies and/or triathletes 42 minutes back seems insurmountable. In MTB stage races, 42 minutes is the rough equivalent of 3 minutes in a road race. If you have a bad mechanical it can take hours to get help or to the finish. Given the massed start and the likelyhood of no seeding Trev, Charlie, Dan and Dennis likely spent the first half of the race getting around people in front of them. Never fear, our guys are in great shape. Best of luck on stage two!

RESULTS

Where are Dan and Trev?

The provincial ITT was today and notable bodies missing were our resident crazy guys, Trev and Dan. Luckily, they have a great excuse. Nestled deep in the BC interior our intrepid duo are partaking in the pain buffet that is the Trans Rockies challenge. Best of luck to them and their teams. Keep a lookout here as we will try to scour for results and post outrageously embellished Trans Rockies Race reports and special features.

Race Report: Preliminary ITT Provincials

Captain's Log, Supplemental.
We dispatched an away team to the nearby planet of earth to partake in a strange local custom. . .

I suppose what I am trying to get at is this: Speed Theory showed up in Canmore today for the Alberta Provincial Time Trial Championships. I don't have the results handy so I will update this post when I do however I can say that we had some stellar results.

Cat3 Champion: Alex Shaw (I believe 'Foaming at the mouth Fast legs Frank was second?)
Cat4 Champion: Ryan Scary Fast Murray

Excellent performances were put in by everyone: MikeG, RobW, RobL, Sandra, Tanya, Mark, Kyle (who was going so fast his tire exploded, luckily for everyone else).

Look here for updates!

UFC Saturday, ITT Sunday

Is anyone interested in attended the UFC card on Saturday night at Melrose? If so let me know I can set up a table for us. It will be a great night of fights Canadian Superstar Georges St, Pierre (GSP if you are into the UFC) is fighting against Jon Fitch, a great match up, fireworks guaranteed. More details on the card at UFC.com Either shot me a note mgodfrey@newcap.ca or on the cell 403 512 3160.

Also anyone looking to carpool up to the provincial ITT on Sunday morning? Same co-ordinates,

Michael G

Congrats to Stephen Kenny

Congrats to Stephen Kenny and his great race at the Bearspaw open. This was a great event and well worth taking off early from work to participate. Read about Kenny's ride on the ABA website.

Congrats also to Sandra who was 3rd in the women's B race.

Team email.

I just sent out a wicked team email, if you didn't get it, let me know.

Race Report: Tour De Bowness

Here it is the official Race Report. I'd like to thank Lorne for snapping these pics and Lockie for being in good enough spirits to let me post them. More on this later.

We'll start with the Hill Climb, the leg crushing 1.8K of lactic acid hell. Speed Theory brought out quite a squad to represent during this vertical assault: RobW, RobL, MarkS, RyanM, Mr. Kenny, KyleM, SandraY, MikeG and Lockie. A huge mad props has to go out to Ryan (and I suspect Kyle and perhaps Sandra) who did their IM training in the morning, a mere 200K ride and a 2 hour run, then showed up to put down some mean times on the hill at COP. Tough as nails, I am sure Mr. Kenny is nodding in approval. At the end of the pain buffet served up by the fine folks at Bow Cycle we had some people rounding out the top 10 if not the top 5 in their categories. Those contesting the omnium had an ominous day 2 heading back the site of the 'Killer Kilometer'.

The start of the road race had some rain and was a bit chilly but that didn't stop Kyle Marcotte from laying down some badassery during the road race. Silencing any critics that triathletes can only ride straight, Kyle rode in the break and finished a superb 3rd in the final sprint for the line, that form is looking great heading into IMC. In Cat 4 Lockie rode to 5th with his upright sprinting style leaving us all wondering how he does it. Sandra finished safely in the pack for the ladies. And in cat 5 RobL was the lone survivor of a long race.

The Crit:
The Rob's and MarkS lined up for Cat 5 to contest the Bownessian crit. Typically, RobW's leash broke after the first neutral lap and he set a blistering but unsustainable pace and faded into oblivion. RobL, racing smart, lurked and took 5th in the final sprint. MarkS, suffering the after effects of some red grape juice made a valiant effort to hold on until his spleen exploded.
Lockie and Ryan put on some excellent shows in Cat 4. Mr. Murray escaped for most of the race holding the pack to a 30 second gap while MikeG made sure no one escaped out the back completing the Speed Theory Sandwich tactic. Coming into the last lap at corner 1 Lockie gambled and lost overcooking the turn and running out of room. Luckily the crash mat prevented and serious injury but soon afterwards Lockie recounted the experience, "My first thought was, wow this hurt a lot less than I expected and my second thought was, I can't win if I'm lying on the ground, damn!". Then the paramedic started digging asphalt out . . . wait that's too much info. At the finish RyanM finished a commanding second. Cat 1-2 had Jared Green riding solo but he showed his skills controlling the pack while Carson Bannon (friend of speed theory) rolled with the lead pack and finished 3rd. Great effort by all.

Next 'Focus' races for SpeedTheory

ITT and Road Provincials are our next big goals for the SpeedTheorists. Please put them on your calendar and 'represent' our wicked team. Also, we would like everyone that isn't volunteering on Sept 6th to be racing as well. So 3 big races coming up !!

We hope to have a big team BBQ very soon to get everyone together again. The last two months have been pretty hickelty-pickelty.

Tour de Bowness

I have only heard bits and pieces of the weekend events.

What I know:
Ryan Murray did awesome on Sat. and Mon. .. How awesome I don't know.
Rob Lukacs did super.... How super I don't know.
Rob Woolley led the pack for several laps in the crit.
Kyle may be the next 'targetted' road racer in Alberta.

Full results here

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Great little article that says a lot.

I consider rowing to be one of the 'tougher' guy sports. It requires finesse and grace while exterting extreme power under ultimate distress. This article from CBC is a rare glimpse into the mind of an Olympian, and an even rarer occurance in a mass-media environment, as its words would be lost on 99% of the population. Definately worth reading and taking something away. Remember, mentally 'being there', and embracing/enjoying the discomfort is a lot more of the race than most believe.

This is a great paragraph from the article linked below:

"When I unavoidably return to my mind, I have an imaginary switch installed in the back of my head that instantly changes mindset. I flick it and I am no longer tired or negative. I feel empowered. I also have many mantras that I will repeat to myself to keep positive and attacking. I will say phrases like: “I am strong” or “Yes, Yes, Yes” over and over again."

Full Article

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Tour de Bowness - Hill Climb

Who is doing this? Can we meet in one location and warm up as a team?
Stephen

Pics from the Jay Lap 2 X ITT

Pics from Patrick Graham on the Powerbar Killer K: Here
Pics from Mike Healy as the roaming photo dude: Here
Pics from Paul Anderson from various locales: Here
Pics from Lachlan from various places: Here