Cycling/Photography related blog. I race at an elite level for road and track. A good portion of the content is original but I also include material that excites me. If you like bikes and photos, we have something in common.
Steven
My good friend Noah came out to a race to take a few shots at a local crit. It was exciting for me, since the race was local and friends/family were there to watch.
The morning I woke up feeling miserable, (probably from a calorie deficit) but it turned out that sitting in the pack didn’t feel much different than attacking. It’s motivating to receive Kudos from my peers re: aggressiveness.
The following day I caught a ride with Noah to Port Alberni. This would be the 2nd time that I biked to Victoria from there in as many years. It’s about a 215km route on severely undulating terrain. The first time I was less fit so felt the need to eat at almost every chance. This time I rode with a light meal for the first 70km and ate a medium lunch with a final dinner 70km from home. (Basically I managed the route with the same food I would normally eat in a day without traning) Previously, I avoided the Mallahat, (A very hilly section) because I was cracked 70km from home and took the easy route. This time, I was prepared from a winter of consistent high volume training sessions. (5 four day 20 hour training camps)
I came across this frame for a good price. It made sense to build a singlespeed because I already had track wheels lying around and it was difficult to find era-appropriate parts. The gearing is 42-16 which is good enough for in town use.
I feel compelled to post since I developed the film.
Consistency:
So far the season has shown me a few top 10s. I wouldn’t have objected if fenders were permitted for this particular race. Our team had two riders represented in the winning break. So I sat in the group and ate dirt for about three hour and waited for the sprint.
Ideally I would have saved a clean set of glasses for the last kilometer. It was particularly fast for the last 5-8 minutes and I was operating with about 20% vision.I’m sure all of the other riders were in the same position.
So far the season has been promising. My team managed a GC first place this weekend and I’ve been in the top 10 for two minor road races and top 15 for a more significant road race. This isn’t to say I’ve been in contention with the major players. It means that I’ve been energetic/fit enough to get into late breaks or initiate late attacks. It’s nice to see improvement over last year and have the support of the team.
“Perfecting your time-trial position is something that needs persistent work. It doesn’t get optimized through formulas, but rather through constant re-adjustment and vigilance. It’s critical to experiment before the season starts. You can’t just show up to a race and ride your TT bike without having trained on it.
Travel initially started early at 6:00am on Wednesday from Vancouver after a refreshing stay Accent Inns Richmond. The border crossing was brief without any waiting. Driving through the coastal states was much the same a driving through the mainland of BC. The vegetation was lush while the hills became less pronounced as the van went further south. In typical west coast January fashion, the rain was steady and the van heater was used to keep the group comfortable.
Once we reached California the landscape became noticeably more arid, and infra-structurally dense. Our overnight destination to cap off the 16 hour trip was a hotel outside of Sacremento. The next morning, we drove through the some of the flatter industrial farming regions of California and into Arizona. Gone was the green lushness that we were used to on our temperate coast.
The first day for the athletes rode for three hours at a steady pace to clear the travel weary legs and then a Bikram Yoga Tucson session. The following days were a daily mix of climbing, intensity, volume, and pace line riding drills.
Let’s talk about the important details. Tucson has fantastic warm dry riding weather by Canadian standards; however the road surface conditions are less hospitable at times. In general there is much more debris and pavement is cracked from large daily temperature variance. Thankfully for our Team, Russ Hay’s The Bicycle Shop has us fully supplied with Specialized Bicycles tires and tubes, and our Wheaton Chevrolet Buick Cadillac GMC support van is always close by for repairs. In any event, this shouldn’t dissuade an avid racer from choosing it as a destination for early season base.
In my mind one of the biggest draws to Tucson for cycling would be Mt. Lemmon. The grade is steady and the climb in incessant for 21 miles. On the decent, the corners are steady enough to not brake. Hurricane ridge, Cypress or Mt.Seymour are half the height in comparison. So far the outskirts of the city has offered a good range of terrain from flat to rolling to hills. My guess is that this is the reason that many pros are drawn to the region. Speaking of pros, we watched Team Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda’s Tommy D. do three consecutive ascents up Mt. Lemmon today!
All for now, Steven
Training camp. I did a few time trials 3 days after the camp have improved by a large margin compared to earlier this year. 49 hours on the bike in 10 days. This amounted to 1250km in distance and 49500 feet of climbing.I don’t think I’ve matched this volume before even when stage races were factored in.
(Unofficially I bested my early season tt result by 3 minutes, within 1 minute of the stronger tt riders on the team)
