Stephen and Elaine video of El Tour de Tucson

Here is a unique inside look into the life of a couple that just HAS to ride.

YouTube

SpeedTheory Cycling AGM Dec 10th, 8:30pm, 2008.

OK, the date is set for Dec. 10th at the Bugaboo Creek Pub (right beside SpeedTheory) at 8:30pm. We will keep it short but I would really like most members to come, so it encourages the new people trying us out. We are going to have it directly after spin class, so we'll make this spin open to everyone.

If you are not part of SpeedTheory but would like to be, or would like to meet our members and find out more about the club... THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY !! Please come out.

Please encourage new riders to come give racing a try. We want another solid group of Cat5 racers like we had in 2008, that was super fun.

The club will pay for the first round of drinks for all who show up.

El Tour Race Report.

El Tour de Tucson

A few facts: First and foremost it’s a charity event with over 8000 participants. There are a number of distances with close to 5000 of the entrants entering the 109 mile category. In that category you can enter as a pro which allows you to line up at the head of the pack in a reserved section. If you have a CAT ½ license or have done the event previously in under 5 hours for males or 6 for females you are reserved a section behind the pro’s in the platinum category and so on. Many individuals are just trying to finish the event however the racing is very serious upfront with many races forming up within the race. (see my face in the picture, I’m suffering sprinting for the finish and I haven’t sprinted for anything all year. Ok I can’t sprint but that beside the point, there was a group of riders I was not going to let cross the line before me)

I showed up at the platinum pre-race meeting a minute late and thought I was in the wrong room. There were hundreds and hundreds of riders, at first I thought I was at sales convention. I was sort of freaked out.I was up at 4:00AM as my lovely wife Elaine wanted to be upfront in the Gold category which allowed me to get her settled and have two breakfasts. As I headed into the platinum staging area at 5:30AM there were already 200-300 riders in front of me.

The game was on at 7:00AM with the big guns leading everyone out. Now there is a reason I don’t like crits and this was sort of like a crit with 400-500 people in the peloton. Within a very short distance riders had to cross the first of 2 dry river beds. If you dared to get off your bike you would have been run over and never found again so I had to put my amazing cycle cross skills to work, I have none ,and the freak-out meter was in the red. Next the whole group was stopped at a rail crossing by a freight train which allowed the peloton to bunch back up.

The riding was crazy for me until the next river crossing. There were six crashes within 1-2 bike lengths of me and I heard many others. I was up on curbs and even closed my eyes once as I threaded my way through one mess of bikes and bodies. Then guys would get flats in the middle of all of this and you had to avoid nailing them. Lastly I just did not have the skill to find my way to the front of the unwashed masses. Every time I thought I was getting there I would get boxed in and 100 riders would move up from the other side of the road. Now I know Trev and the lot of you like this kind of Sh!!!t but there was no joy in Whoville for this Rando rider. The race was all surges, at every corner and even on the straight sections, for no discernable reason; this took a real toll on my legs.

Most , if not all riders were off their bikes at the second river crossing running like mad through the sand etc. I was still with the lead group and the motorcycle escort to that point however I picked something up in my cleat and couldn’t clip in. By the time I got that sorted out I was off the back. Now we were into my kind of racing. A peloton formed up that fluctuated up to 30 riders and was eventually whittled down to 15 by the end of the race. Lots of long hard relentless pulls with a pretty good group of guys. We had one crazy Mexican in the group, that’s another story, but for the most part people tried to do what they could. When we turned south the wind took the stuffing out of the group but it was my kind of gig so the pace stayed up.

It should be noted that there was a group of 40 riders chasing us down who eventually caught us going into the finish line which had close to 60 of us doing 2 ninety degree turns then sprinting for the finish, crazy.

So great riding, great suffering and great fun, I was done in 4:49 a tad slower than my 2004 time but a much harder ride.I think I’ll go back next year, you should all come.

Stephen

PS: Elaine was in under 7 hours earning her a Gold medal

Photo Courtesy of Steve of PBase.com

Date set for JayLap Memorial Bike Fest Weekend.

The ABA is being super proactive with forming the 2009 race calendar, which is awesome. I am a big fan of the ABA in its current configuration and look forward to this years hammering.

I would have really liked the dates to be July18/19 weekend, since this would have been the 3rd year anniversary many of us lost a great friend, however, the ABA felt they wanted to spread out the races a bit more and apparently there are already several big races in July scheduled.

Therefore we settled for Aug. 22/23 as people should be performing a late season peak for us, and a big stage race planned the following weekend.

Therefore, we announce:

Aug. 22nd, morning: Jason Lapierre Memorial Provincial ITT Championships.
Aug. 22nd, evening: Jason Lapierre Memorial Criterium and BBQ.
Aug. 23rd, morning: Jason Lapierre Memorial Provincial TTT Championships.

This is great news for our club and for the event. We want to establish this event as one of the premiere events in cycling for Alberta. The TTT Championships will be modified to teams of 4 with 3 finishers timed. This will encourage better participation.

We are in the process of determining a good Criterium route. I have found several good candidates, however, I am 'all ears' if you have a venue that would rock and accomodate great spectatorability and BBQability. It needs to be between 800m and 2km long.

From what I have heard through the grapevine, this is going to be a good year of racing. I am excited.

Good luck to Stephen

Stephen is racing in the El Tour de Arizona this weekend. It is a 180km massive road race. Looking forward to hearing about the race.

Sunday morning spin at 9am...and Okotoks XC run on Sat.

I am covering Scott Curry's spin class on Sunday morning (Nov. 23rd) at 9am. All Mon. Wed. night spinners and ST Cycling members are more than welcome to join us. Same place, same great tunes.

.

Also, if anyone is interested in a low-key, cheap, awesome run raced on trails, the Okotoks XC is being held on Sat at noon. I will be there.

Trev

ST Cycling AGM

We'll probably have our AGM in early December. Rob W. is currently working 23 hours a day preparing for a company altering conference in Chicago from Dec. 1st - 5th, so I am thinking maybe we should have our 'Short-and-Sweet' AGM after a spin class either on Dec. 8th or 10th. at Bugaboos pub, since it is pretty quiet at that time.

How does that sound? Please leave a comment if you could come out from 8:30 - 9:30pm on the 8th or 10th. I would like most of the club there go to over the new season and listen to suggestions about how to improve our club and it's direction into 2009.

In the meantime, I would really like to focus on getting new riders 'into the fold' and encourage them to come out and meet us. If you know of a potential rider, please let them know to check out our blog soon for a confirmed date and time. We need new riders in our never ending quest to expose people to the coolness of road racing, and now is the time to let the word out.

Also, finally found some Indoor Cyclocross action here. It's not me falling, but I bailed at the same spot about 3 times. I took out Sean's spokes around the first corner coming into the barriers.

ABA AGM

Just got back from the ABA Annual General Meeting. Sounds like it is going to be another exciting year of racing.

Two things of note I need to address:

1.) The biggest thing as usual is insurance. I need to get our club registration into the ABA before Jan. 1st 2009 so our club is 'in' for 2009 and our MEMBERS are insured for training.

2.) This means that you are NOT insured past Dec. 31st 2008 unless you are a registered 2009 member of ST Cycling. So if you haven't joined up, please do so soon, so I don't have to remember to hound you over Christmas holidays.

Insurance sucks in general and Jay used to always lament how it was killing the cool aspects of amateur sport and I agree with him. So I will try to keep it out of an 'issue' for our club by ensuring to keep us 'covered' as a club, and as long as you guys ensure to stay current as club members, we shouldn't have to think about it.

This particular insurance has nothing to do with your racing license. This is the $35 insurance fee that the club pays per member every year (outlined in the Karelo race reg. package). This covers you should you happen to have an incident while training.

So please sign up as a 2009 member at your earliest convienience.

Ride on Saturday

The current forecast for this Saturday is 13 degrees and that means it will be a great day to be outside. If anyone is interested in heading out, I am planning on leaving from the Rocky Ridge Co-op parking lot around 10 am. I was thinking about heading north towards Madden on Lochend Road and then looping back around via Symons Valley Road (2 to 3 hour ride). After Trev's punishing spins this week, I think we should try to keep it more on the side of fun than punishment. Location and time can be negotiated, I just want to make sure that it warms up a bit before we head out. Let me know if you are interested in coming along. Enjoy!

Mark

ST Cycling radness in Alberta Spin Magazine.

On page 13 of this quarter's edition of Alberta Spin is Steve G's wicked TT start ramp and Carl M.'s awesome sponsor post. Thanks again guys for making those, they'll be used again for years to come.

Also in the picture is Rob L., which now qualifies him as a star, since Alberta Spin is right up with US and People and even Voque. We can just hope he doesn't forget us little people.

How NOT to win the World Indoor Championship of the World

1.) In the first heat which was a 3 lap race in about 3min, don't crash 3 times.
2.) In the second heat, don't take out 2 of a competitors front spokes with your knee before clipping out. (Imagine how hard this was to do)
3.) General thoughts: Don't think you are a good bike handler until you watch messengers take jumps that you crash on .... on fixed gears.

Pictures to prove everything should be coming.

Ride SUNDAY

There is racing on Saturday so we head out on Sunday. Here is the scoop:

We will meet at the paper clip in front of the Olympic Oval (North side of the main entrance) at the University at 9:30AM. We will then do 15km of urban riding and pop out of the city north of Center Street and make our way to Crossfield. At Crossfield we will head west to Madden then South on the 772 coming back to town on Simons Valley. At Big Hill Springs rd we will head west and come into town on Bearspaw road via Burma, rocky Ridge to the 1A. The northern folks can head home from there the rest of us will head back to the University via numerous back roads. Total ride approx. 133-135km, fairly flat at the beginning then the hills.


Stephen

Spin:

Great long and hard spin last night. Great turnout. As expected, as soon as the snow flies, the room fills up!

Monday, Nov. 10th spin IS OFFICIALLY ON ! Originally I thought people would be in long weekend mode, but enough people said (actually promised) they would come, that I will be there and ready to hammer.

Monday's spin will be very similar to last nights but a little shorter.

Rui is providing the tunes for Monday.

Anybody volunteer as the DJ for Wed. ??

Olympic reflections by 2008 Olympian Joshua Riker-Fox

Presentation by Joshua Riker-Fox, 2008 Olympian


What: Reflections of Beijing 08 – Living the Olympic Dream. Join Joshua
Riker-Fox as he shares his story about the physical and mental preparation
required to compete in the 2008 Olympic Games (Modern Pentathlon). This
interactive presentation is perfect for athletes of all ages and abilities and
for those who just enjoy a great story!

Who: The only male athlete to compete for Canada at an Olympic Games in
Pentathlon since 1992 and one of the youngest athletes in the field in Beijing,
Joshua Riker-Fox will be talking about his Olympic experience

When: November 6th, from 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Where: Calgary Winter Club, 4611 14th Street NW, Calgary

Note the public is invited to this event. Tickets are 12$ per person and are
available from the Calgary Winter Club, call 403-289-5511. Light snack included.

Contact
For more information call Joshua Riker-Fox at 403-807-1737, or
pentajosh@yahoo.ca,
or visit www.riker-fox.com

Spin:

I'm going to start posting in general what we're up to at spin class. So people can have a head's up if there is a hard week coming, or a down week. The spins have been really good so far and I can't believe we've blown through 9 already. With the weather being so great outside, the attendance hasn't been amazing, but I suspect it'll increase soon. It is November, the off-season is over.

Nov. 5th:
Wed. be mentally prepared for a hard session. Focusing on short term high power generation, and big gear adaptation.

I'm not dead . . .

Hey Team. I am road tripping it up for work but I saw this and thought it must be posted:

BIKE-SEXUAL

I will be sweating it up with you all in spin soon.