Chicoutimi update

Team presentation has come and gone. Actually a pretty impresive opertaion. A packed room in the Devinci factory, sponsors gallore (hands to shake), some stage time in the light and of course many a snack to consume from the caterers. Maybe a little embarrasing to see a bunch of skinny cyclists gorging on hors doeuvres, but hey... we hadnt eaten all day. We were even in the paper the next day, as we are apparently quite a big deal around here. Even got our incredibly hot new team van all in team colours compliments of Honda. Big ups. Went for a good hard ride in the hills and wind of the area yesterday. Took in some absolutely stunning scenery between bouts of gutter riding. Lots of excellent climbs, some quiet farm roads and some sketch highway riding. Though to be fair, any time we hit a highway things seemed to get put in the gutter anyways; hell, we spent the first half hour to La Baie averaging 52kmh with a pretty wicked cross wind. A good hard 130ish kms in the end left us ready for a quick nap and some food. Not really warm here, but we jsut spent a nice hour and a half cruising today nice and chill. Got treated to a nice steak dinner after the team presentation by one of the sponsors, much appreaciated by some of us poorer members of the team. A quick grocery run take car of breakfast and lunch needs kept us rolling on the cheap. Tonight weère heading out to Simons house for dinner with his family, should be nice. Tomorrow we leave our kind hosts at Hotel Chicoutimi for Baie St-Paul and the Charlevoix race that follows this weekend. Try to get a quasi early start to allow us the time to get out for a nice tt training ride on the course. Not much else to report I guess, life is good. I do apologize for the lack of photo updates, apparently I have gotten quite camera lazy.

I don't even know

Does anyone even know where Chicoutimi is? I know so far it is in the Sagenuay region of Quebec and that many of my teammates come from this region, but that is it. Oh. And I will be there as of this evening. And for the next couple of days. Exciting. I get to do some kind of team presentation for sponsors and check out the Devinci factory and all other sorts of cool, team related stuff. Generally my job will be to look good, and strain really, really hard to try and understand what is being said to me. Other wise I may just keep saying "oui" and end up in some kind of Quebecois prison.
As a separate, and also quite funny story, we were accosted by the police last night. Apparently, when 3 cyclists sit in a parking lot in a car eating ice cream in the dark (no, it wasn't even late yet) things look suspicious to Bromont's finest. Needless to say, as we sat enjoying our frozen milk treat, the police pulled up behind us, apparently thinking that they were on the cusp of busting some drug smoking, no-do-gooder kids in a stolen vehicle. Untrue, we borrowed the vehicle from our teammate, and the rest is completely erroneous. As they came a knocking on the window with flashlights, we explained that "non madame, on mange des McFlurry's" and I held up the tray with the evidence towards them. Slightly perplexed, they demanded more explanation. So we talked about cycling, and how I was not from around here. How they figured this nugget of information, I will never know.

Race breakdown

Small pack on a windy square. Cool to race a crit in downtown Montreal, but really not very exciting or fun. The fact that my legs were not quite there and some stomach issues never really helped my day. Basically, Perras and a Sleeman's rider got away early and held the pack at the 22-30 second mark until about 5 or 6 laps to go. I followed a few bridging attempts but generally sat in the pack trying to stay out of the wind. There was just no top end in my legs. The break was eventually caught by the Volks train who continued to control the race, a few small moves moved up but the pack was controlled with our train waiting directly behind Volks to launch Guillaume for the sprint. JS let Guillaume go out of the final corner launching the man to a sweet victory. Or so we thought. Guillaume took a free lap for a "mechanical" (a plastic bag was caught in his derailleur) before being allowed to hop back in by the commissars. After the race, a protest was filed by the second place team (obviously) cough...cough...Sleeman's... and Gui was relegated as a plastic bag is technically not a broken bike. After a long discussion with the people in charge, we discovered that this particular rule is open to interpretation; even if Gui's seat post had slipped all the way down, that as well would not have counted (if interpreted) as that is not a "broken bike". Apparently he should have crashed. Day done.
Pretty shoddy day today; rain and cool weather. Luckily it is a recovery day. Wasn't terribly tired last night, went out for one of the best burgers ever at the Brouemont (cheap too). Slept like a baby afterwards, and am quite tired this morning. Trying to work out my training and travel plans for the week currently. Really have a stick in the drivetrain at the moment with this having to travel to a team function thing in Chicoutimi. Good times. Next up, Charlevoix...

Of no particular interest

I managed to sneak out yesterday for a quick little 2 hour bike path spin up into Granby yesterday in between torrential rain storms. JS and I waited until one stopped late in the afternoon, jumped on our bike, enjoyed a brief appearance by the sun and then returned home to have the rain start again 10 minutes after our arrival. Not bad. Cooked us up a massively sweet steak, sweet potatos and a grilled veggie salad. Not bad. Windy again today, but at least it doesn't look like rain for the sake of the boys racing on the track today. I on the other hand am having a pretty chill morning here in front of the computer and waiting until the weather decides to warm up a tad. Planning another ride into Granby with some sprints, and to find a particular bike shop to fix my shoes. Damn cleat snapped, and some screws are stripped. Merde. Think I may swing by the track after to check out some of the action and see whats what with track racing. Otherwise, I think its time for another coffee and wait for the action to start in today's first real mountain stage in the Giro.

The Return

Back in Bromont. Woke up early this morning to head out for a ride with Geoff and JS, but first some pancakes. Weird weather. Started off quite chilly and light rain, then the sun proceeded to come out for our intervals on Blacks, followed by Geoff and I getting absolutely soaked as soon as we hit the long gravel stretch towards JS's place. It was actually quite Belgian, good stiff cross wind, mud, gravel and some serious downpour action. Then of course the sun came out as we arrived home. Such is life. Shower, nap and then we broke out the bbq for some tasty burgers before hitting the road. Just got into Bromont here, and am settling back into the house. I little more full and less tidy then when we left last week, but home none the less for the next bit. I'm bloody tired and a half, so I'm out. Hopefully some fun news to come. Racing a crit in Montreal Sunday, and may try to head out to try the track here soon.

The return

Busy

Man, for someone with such a theoretically simple life, I definitely have very little spare time. Especially at the moment while trying to get my life organized enough to spend several weeks away again. Went out for the crit last night and had a jolly good time. Bit of work on the front, slip into a few ill fated breaks, and then played 'follow JS' for a bit to work on my ability to focus and follow a particular wheel without wasting energy. Good times. Got my Nova Scotian boy Geoff staying with me at th moment too, so fun times have definitely been increased. Or at very least, I don't feel quite as lame sitting around drinking coffee in the morning as there are now 2 of us sitting around. Heading out for my first loop of the park in a few minutes, could also be my last for a while. Well I guess I better get moving, too much time blogging and no one will believe that I actually have very little spare time. Sorry.

weekend pics from Ste-Raymond

Rest

Ride today you may ask? Only if it is warm and sunny. So it would appear no. A tiring weekend of racing. I'll give you the short of it as I really just feel like a nap and a movie. Maybe some stretching and a session on the foam roller. Got down to Ste-Raymond area Friday evening and settled into our home for the weekend. A somewhat early race start Saturaday morning for 110km. I raced aggressively trying to get into a good brake for the majority of the race. Got hit with some wicked stomach cramps in the second half though which stayed with me for the rest of the day. I tried to stay near the front after that, but lacked the power for the sprint and got swamped. Crawled back to the car and tried to sleep and recover a bit to get the stomach calmed down before the evening tt. 8km tt with some real good burn courtesy of some good little risers made for a tough time on my hot new tt bike. Not super happy with the tt result (I came out a little hard on the first climb and never could settle back into a good pace) but on the other hand it wasn't terrible. After a real late dinner we finally arrived home and in bed for about 11. With an 8am start the next day, this was far from ideal. 130km on a hard course promised to make a selective race, especially when the big guns decided to go and make the selection. With JS sitting in 3rd overall (1 second down on first) and 3 others in the top 11 (max 23 seconds down) I was working hard today. Cover early moves and follow attacks were the orders of the day. And that I did. Rode in a few breaks, chased some others and generally created Sandy the human time bomb. Eventually, a break I was in was caught on a long false flat headwind section with the pack strung out single file in the gutter. I managed to jump back in line but riders were detonating all around me. With a few too many gaps to close, I as well blew like the atomic bomb. On the plus side, the selection was made at this point and both JS and Georges made it. Job done, time for a Coke. About 110km completed and one hard ass day in the saddle. Back in Ottawa now for the next few days before the schedule really heats up and some more travel days. Next up, the Tuesday night world championships (sorry, its not a race) and the gluing of 4 pairs of Cosmic Carbones and a Comete disc. I have a camera again now so I promise some pictures soon. Now, about that nap...

Its a pre race

Don't have to hit the road today until closer to 5 pm. So a nice chill day. Two or so hours with the tt bike on some on some wicked bike paths with JS and Georges-Edouard has my legs feeling pretty nice and fresh. Swung by the Canada Cup course on the way home (about 12 seconds from the house) to meet up with Viper dude , Paziuk, say hello to a few others. Gotta say, I didn't even feel the need to go out and get muddy in a mountain bike race. Though I did get some funny looks rolling through the gravel parking lot on my tt bike all dressed in white and orange. I'm pretty sure most were looks of jealousy about how good our stuff looks and how much cleaner I was. I could be mistaken though. At the moment, I am starving; and trying to avoid gorging myself. Recovery/ easy days are bad like that for me the body keeps working hard expecting some work to be done and seems to continue running in overdrive to replenish stores and prepare for what it knows is coming. Time for a nap I think, still got a few hours of relaxing before the 2 road races and 1 tt this weekend. Hopefully the legs are there, cause the head is in the game.

Merde Alors

In the last little bit, though my brain now seems to work faster in French, I don't seem to speak much better. Though my knowledge of dirty French words has increased exponentially. Today's ride was promised to be a mellow affair, I had Martin Gilbert's word on it. Though I expect he knew better as he decided not to come in the end. Brilliant weather, smokin' sweet route through the mountains of Vermont lead us towards a "chill" 5 hour day. 160km, 4:45 including a 30 minute climb and the ~20 minute ascent of Jay Peak. Francois Parrisien cracked our legs on the way up the hills, and we all took turns riding tempo on the "flats". Nice little group, basically me and 5 former/current National Champs. Rollin, Parisien, Perras, Boivin, Duquette, myself and 2 others whom I have managed to forget the names of. Not really according to the training plan, but wicked good fun none the less. After arriving home we all showered up and headed out to Brouemont for a meal and a beer, though we somehow swapped Perras for Toulouse. I guess those with children sometimes need to go home. Either way, a good evening. We all slept like babies last night. Woke up to a super chill morning of coffee and relaxing. Not bad, rain this morning anyways. Plus our tt bikes aren't supposed to arrive until this afternoon so the ride will be pushed back until we receive those I think. Time to put the legs up and rest before this weekend's multiple races. Not gonna lie, I'm a little pumped.

going local

After a ridiculously relax Monday, I rode about 2 hours with Charles and G-E on some bike paths and back roads, today was back to some more serious work. Oh, we also did some house shopping at WalMart (my least favourite place in the world) for a new toaster and a basic coffee grinder. We may have also taken advantage of some cheap cereal and other foodstuffs. A beer at night to welcome Guillaume to the house finished off our day. A nice spin in the morning sun got us off to a good start on Tuesday, which also seems to be know as the international day of evening world championships. Things are no different around here with us making the quick drive down to Sherbroke for their version. 10$ got you an entry, into what was a smaller and less quite field than I'm used to, but we set about making the race hard for all. We made a plan of being on the attack constantly, and that we did. From the gun. Georges was the first to manage to escape the grasps of the peleton, even managing to stay away with one other rider for the duration and take the 2 up sprint. In the end a good day, though I was somewhat upset to have my final break caught just before the sprint. No worries, a good day training. And the nachos after were quite wonderous. Meeting a group of boys today for a nice hilly ride down into the US I think. From what I hear, it should be quite the group of boys. Tt bikes should be arriving tomorrow, along with my boy JS. The weekend is on its way.....

Bromont

A Bromont update here, Bromont rocks. Great training, good people and of course some good times. Found myself a sweet 5 hour route yesterday down through Knowlton (no sign of Lynn Bessette), through Sutton (some pretty wicked climbing), along the Vermont border, and then back up through some sweet gravel road climbing. Tons of friendly folk out on their bikes (pedal and motor powered) and some ridiculously good scenery. Every little town seemed to cry out at me with bakeries, and coffee shops. Got home, with a steep final climb up "Iron Hill" to the house (about 5-10 minutes of steep pitches). A good salmon dinner, seafood is cheap, set me up for a good evening of relaxing. Georges is at the house today, and we all seem to have a nice chill coffee ride on the schedule for the day.

negative racing, defined

Ontario, I'm pretty sure that is the definition. Everyone is happy to chase, then sit up. No one wants to commit to a good effort. Well, to be fair, its not everyone; its just a majority. My only teammate (le toujours sympatique Charles Thibault) managed to attack solo on the start of the second lap as a form of anger versus the 12km/h pace we seemed content to hold. A few riders scurried across at various points with various success levels with me scrambling around to try and cover everything. Needless to say, a few got away including a very nice little move by fellow blogger (though his blogging seems a rare occurrence) James Riggs and the man himself, Evan Mundy. Eventually the move settled with 5 boys up the road, soon enough a chase group formed, and though it lasted for some time, a few of us managed to whip the pack into chase shape and pull it back with about 3-4 laps remaining. After that, everyone pretty much sat up and returned to stop and go racing. Also known as, everyone sit and wait for Oz to attack and then chase. At least this managed to shed a few more riders And allowed me to simply sit near the front on some particularly 'draft worthy' dudes and eat some food. With 2 to go, things started getting a little impatient and it became apparent that the escape would not be coming back. Just after the feed zone I got fed up with rolling at 12km/h and then chasing so put in a move of my own and had a nice little solo/Jens move. I rocked and rolled my bike all the way into the finish just holding off the field sprint after a particularly brutal head win finish straight. Good enough for 6th place, with Charles taking 2nd. Not bad for a team of 2. Hoped ourselves back into the car and then booted it down the 401 to my home for the week in beautiful Bromont, QC. I'd post some pictures of our pad, but apparently I did not bring my camera. So those will have to wait. For now, its time to hit the local pub for a celebratory brew...
I should also mention that the dude who won was approx. 112 years old from Arkansas. When I saw him go I had some type of war flashback to being on Belgian roads and getting worked of by similar old men with down tube shifters, 1 bottle and flasks of espresso/scotch. Needless to say, apparently the the flashbacks proved correct. Charles has just informed me that google tells us he is a multiple time US National Masters champ. I think there is a moral to this story....

how to laze

Begin by pouring yourself a generous cup of your favourite brew, in my case a wonderfully smooth and robust bialletti cup this morning. Grab your computer, your remote, or a good book and proceed to put you legs up and let your cares float away. I have even gotten to the point that with the return of Mr. sunshine, my shy friend of years, that I will soon put down the computer head downstairs to the sunny deck to sit with my new cook book and a second cup of joe. Such is my morning. I do have a few things to do on my platter today, but before those of you more gainfully employed loose a gasket reading this from your cubicles, I would like to share the current downsides to my life. For examples, while going out to redevelop a social life last night, I was the most sober person within a 10 mile radius of the market. Not terrible per say, but most certainly not old Sandy either. The biggest minus to my current lifestyle would have to be the bank account balance. I know, cry me a river. But, I guess it is time to fill the page of this blog with something more meaningful, I just seem to be in a pretty bloody relaxed mood today. Due to the getting caught in the rain bit the other day, I need to give my bike a good cleaning. Can't show up to a race with a grimy bike, that is just not kosher. I also need to pack for the week to live in Bromont. You know, usual cyclist life things: Nutella, books, movies galore and some chain lube. Nothing big. I also intend to head off in a few minutes to the ol' Canada Tire to build myself a quick pit kit for my bike washing. I have a bunch of stuff, but feel the need for some more. Perhaps I'll check my basement stashes first... Got myself a solid interval session in yesterday's wind. Even managed to work it out so that all my intervals were into the head wind, and I could cruise a beautiful tail wind home with the sunset. Enjoy your weekend, and hope to see some of y'all at Brockville. The weather looks bike-race-'tastic.

Quick

Crit went well last night. Things got a little on the sketch side when coming towards the final sprint when a few riders who apparently really should not have been near a sprint, let alone a fast moving pack of cyclists, deciding to use the last of their "strength" to make their way to the front. Luckily their inability to hold a straight line, and an apparent need to dive bomb (poorly) corners moved them out of the way. That and a powerful pull/surge from a particular rider to pop the pace to about 51 on the back straight, allowed for a decent sprint. And by decent I mean I was the first to cross the line. Other than the dudes in the break. But JS won the real race, so it works out for us in the white and orange. Things are coming along nicely and I'm feeling better and better on the bike. Its time for a good race this weekend I feel. Solid ride today, though I may have pushed it a little long as I got caught in the rain for the last 45 minutes to an hour. No biggie. Nice day to cruise. About 6 hours in the end of solid zone .5. This equates to roughly "slow as ass" in metric. Not that I'm bragging or anything. I just happen to be really good at Zone .5, its kinda my thing. Keep the easy easy, and the hard hard. And keep your stick on the ice.

reportage

Some good days of racing under the belt. Legs were less than ideal I'd say, but I'd also say that I saw those 'base endurance miles' paying off. First off, with the legs I had, I would say that last year I would very likely not have finished either race. At very least, not with the pack. But that was then, this is now. Hit the road Friday with good ol' JS, direction Montreal to meet up with the boys. Made good time, so met up with an early Charles and settled ourselves in for a cafe and some shop talk before the arrival of the others. With Perras suffering from some gastro issues, we were now down to 5. No worries, Boivin promised some good form on his return from the hard man's land of Belgium so we continued along to MA. After having JS explain to the nice border man that we were driving to Bangkok (Thailand???) I took over the explanations and question answering duties (we were actually heading to Hancock, MA) for the slightly bewildered border guard. Back on the road, we stopped for a buter filled meal at some random US restaurant chain of whom name escapes me. Pulled in and checked in to our home for the night, meeting up with our 5th rider, Georges-Edouard, who had just finished a training camp in Virginia. Sleep, the a hostile takeover of the hotel's continental breakfast waffle machine. Sorry to any other patrons who waited for waffles before giving us a dirty look and leaving with a muffin. A 10:30 race start wasn't too bad, but the fresh temperatures (7 degrees), rain and wind left us deciding that an in-car warm up was in order. Rolling down the start, I discovered a slow leak in my rear tyre so made my way over to the lovely SRAM neutral boys in red to grab myself a Zipp. Sweet. The race started off alright, a real nice rolling course with a long headwind false flat, turn into a nice 2km finishing climb to put some weaker riders into difficulty. With the break beginning to establish itself after the first lap (~30km in), I found myself struggling a bit with some "lead legs" so played it safe staying near the front and out of the wind. Boivin got himself into the break while JS and Georges-Edouard did a good job covering any other early attacks or attempts to bridge. My legs began to come around slowly through the race, and I was climbing pretty well, so got myself in the front and started working on covering attacks as well, and generally following wheels in a defensive pattern. It became somewhat important to stay near the front on the climb as there was always a split. The long descent allowed for some re-grouping, but not without some effort on your part. On the last lap, I made a move with 1km to go on the final ascent to bridge to a solo rider (who was unfortunately cracked) and ended up leading out the sprint and getting caught with 250m to go. Still held on for about a top 10 in the field sprint on the climb. Should be about 25th overall I think. Not bad for the first 150km race day of the year. I should have put a bit more gas into my effort I think at the end as I got kind of caught up in 'saving' something in case I got caught. These efforts must be all or nothing, I had the legs for that.
Drove back to our new home after the race in Bromont, were we had an excellent night's sleep and a cold beer to celebrate a good day in the saddle. With the Brossard crit not going off until 4:30, we allowed ourselves a nice long sleep before heading out to buy some lunch supplies. Another coffee after some naps left us energized and ready for the day's efforts. With 9 of us at the race, we had a simple plan: make the day hard, and always be in every break. I got myself right to the front on the start (a little Belgian slip got myself backed into the front line) and then got into the first attack of the day. From there I got myself slowly back comfortably into the front and ended up getting into the break of the day with no effort, about 12-15 of us just kinda rolled away. This ended up being perfect for us as we had 4 riders in the break, all committed and working hard to attack, chase and counter. In the end, I did a large pull to bring back a small group setting up JS for the winning attack. He went with one other VW rider with 5 to go and was never seen again. Boivin took the sprint for 3rd, and Cossette was 5th. 1-3-5. Pay day again. I was pretty toast the last 5 laps but just tried to follow some wheels and make sure no one caught JS. A good day for the team, and a good day for me. I had very little jump, and as JS put it, I rode more like a diesel all day. Well, thats the long report. Luckily I had a big cup of coffee.

Travel day

Nice mid length endurance ride yesterday, then an afternoon of working at the shop. Picked myself up some much needed new tyres as I have already worn out the cheapo Kendas that came with my bike and the team has not received our sweet new Maxxis rubber. A few more things to take care of this morning race and packing wise before the arrival of JS and our departure for grand ol' Montreal. Busy times. Finally get to check out our team house in Bromont too. Enough dilly dallying, time to get to business. Enjoy your weekend.