the Stationary Stimulations

Bike the Bruce to Today update

2010-08-03T00:04:18Z

Past two weeks have been awesome, and now approaching exams training and school have been killing me. But getting better at school and training a ton can never be bad.

The Bruce was a good end to the season with the exception of provincials coming up soon bruce was my first real race in S3 and it was a good example of how you see races on the tv.

I jumped on the break within the first few seconds and stayed there until the finishline, thanks to SRS for great work in the break and in the peleton. good stuff boys.

Since then I have had a few good rides and great news Bryan King got 5th at todays Terra Cotta race.

Great race

More later
Midweek?!

Kitchener Waterloo Road Race

2010-06-14T02:06:27Z

Hidden Valley has grown on me, it’s a great 4.6-kilometer closed course, with a hill, a faux plat and a great sprint.

Heres the race report

Woke up this morning and put on some Miike Snow, Great new album that I am a huge fan of. (check it out on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/miikesnow)
So the day started out pretty good, I prepped great yesterday (Saturday) so I was ready. I rode down, the regular route, to get to the regular training ground and felt good, breakfast was light, had to think light for those hills

Got to the race, and it was a strange feeling, unlike any other race.. I had never ridden this many laps of any race course.. Ever. I felt prepared and knew exactly what was in front of me. (good feeling)

As soon as I knew it, we were lined up and ready to go. Rolled up to the line and listened to the commi’ with really bad breath repeat some rules we’ve all heard thrice by now. Yellow line rule for the first two corners, and, there’s sand on the top of the hill “it is a road race after all, heuk ←” think goofy.

All right so the guns/weird electronic babble sends us off and that was the start to a great race, there are some really good riders in S4 good climbers, but the same as every training ride, the hill kills us. We really need to do some hill repeats.

I can repeat the pace for you as if it were written by the courts-

You must take it easy on the first roller,
You must take unnecessary risks on the first turn
You must attack on the downhill
You must suffer on the climb
You must attack on the downhill after the climb
You must suffer on the faux plat
You must die on the roller
You must recover in the feed zone
You must take the chicane easy
You must go fast on the straight
Rinse.
Repeat

And that happened, 13 times…

in the end.. I WON! truth be told, as @iamtedking typed at me once, “ride, ride, ride”

ai ai captain

Tip: follow all those steps to be successful.

It was a great, race, the course was dry, sand free, with tons of interference with other categories – I’m looking at you Master 3′s.

Until next weekend..

Thanks Mom and Sebastian for coming out and cheering me on, also thanks SRS for being there and for your support… BADASS.
Congrats on your 2nd Charlie dude, and Andrew on the win in S3… moving up

imout

CJJCCJ

Sweet Victory – Calabogie Race Report

2010-04-22T14:30:03Z

“GET ON A WHEEL!” a teammate screams from the sidelines as I headed into the last straightaway in fifth position
And I did..

Calabogie Race Report

Race Day: 7:00 AM
I stumble out of bed trying to find my socks and, yep there they are.. right where I threw erm, put them

The sun is out, this is good, “hopefully it will stay that way” I think to myself as I walk down the stairs of our sickass accommodations.

I get to the sickass kitchen, and yep, I have no food, I’ve come very prepared to this race. All the guys offer me food, “you need to eat” they say, so I have a few noodles and drink up my Vega meal supplement getting fired up for the day ahead.

Its starting to get later, so I have to pickup my feet a bit in order to make it to the 8:00 am departure to the race course, change into my kit and stand back, it’s a really good feeling to be on an organized team, working together to get one goal. A win.

It’s now 8:10 AM and I’m still inside getting shit together making sure I didn’t forget anything, so go through the checklist.
Helmet
Glasses
Jersey
Arm warmers
Gloves
Shorts
Leg warmers
Socks
Shoes
Bike
SET.

Racecourse 8:25 AM
Time to start warming up, wait I need to get registered

Racecourse 8:45 AM
I’m registered now and on the trainer warming up, that was setup by Bryan King RAD Dude, thanks for your help out there yesterday BK you’re awesome.
A few members of the team start to roll in early to see us off, Emily H from Waterloo comes and mixes me some energy drink for me to drink on the trainer as I get my numbers pinned on by BK (thanks for that too)

Brianne is there with us, and she took some epic shots of our race
So with a few minutes of warm-up done, it is time to head to the finish line, I take position, Jimbo is behind me and before we know it, were off.

Race start 9:02 AM
Were riding, riding riding riding, I might as well tell you about the venue. We were at Calabogie Motorsports Park in Calabogie, Ontario
IT IS SICK, it is a car racing track, where you race cars and it has awesome sweeping corners 1 “kicker” of a hill if you can call it that – where team Ottawa made all of their attacks, there are 11 turns in the course, I read there were 23 somewhere, that’s a lie.

And because its is a closed course, the width of the track is all yours, the corners were sweet and by the end you had it down, right, up, right straight, right, left, right, right, left, right, big right, left, straight and all over again. For 11 laps

The last lap started good, I had positioned myself to stay within the top 10 for the entire race, and Jimbo initiated a SRS breakaway on lap 4 to show them the power of our legs, we flew by the girls race like they were standing still, and then sat up and light-pedaled until the group caught up.
The leader of the peloton began to draft me after they caught back up, I looked back said “Fuck No” and got off the front and blended in again to my safe spot, 5th place.

Last few K I’m beginning to see new faces from the ones that were at the front for the whole race with me, the slackers that were hiding from the wind at the back of the pack for the entire race are now up front, ready to rock.

Second last corner, I take it wide to avoid any unnecessary jams, last corner comes up and even as im writing this time goes into slow motion…

Its ON

I am the 6th wheel in the pack when I hear one of my buddies yell at me from the sidelines “GET ON A WHEEL” I see, one open “4th place” suddenly the wheel in front of me begins to die,

he’s redlining!?

I get on the wheel of the next guy up!

“3rd PLACE!”

the guy in third who was riding into the wind by himself, drops back…

“SECOND PLACE!”

was 10 meters out…

it’s now or never…

Nobody else is close to coming beside me….

Without standing, I power through the wheel in front of me.
…

“YEAHUGHHHHHHHHHHH”

Calabogie is mine as I step up onto the first place podium,
First time on the podium, has to be a first place.

Race Rating: TEN STARS
Do again, obviously?

Until next time, Cheers- the victory is mine

And Alex, yes… I’m a Rockstar

Hell of North Stouffville – Race Report

2010-04-22T14:36:57Z

The Hell of North Stouffville was yesterday and I had no expectations going into it. I went in knowing some of the roads and felt good on the bike, what have I got to lose? Nothing
So I got on the bike and did a quick warmup. Then saw the entire field wearing arm and leg warmers, thought to myself that’s too much clothing, and it was. But at the time I was COLD. Being honest now, I froze my ass off warming up. I guess that is what the whole point of a warmup is anyway.

So it was time to get to the line, ill pretend there were 80 of us but there weren’t. (This will help my overall placing) started the cold, slow start.

GETS BETTER! after the jump!

We crept up 9th line neutral until Aurora Road the first major intersection. When the pace picked up to a blistering 25 kph I sat in for a while thinking this would be another Good Friday and at the first turn there would be a huge break. I was wrong, so me and this other dood made our own break. He was one of the only ones in the whole field with a road bike so I felt pretty good about myself with my trusty road bike. I was wrong again. This dood on the road bike beside me begins texting, instead of pulling. So like usual I’m stuck pulling. Pulling until 26k where the MUD arrived.

Because of my solitary pull for approx 20 of the 26 K I turned the corner first, onto what was in fact a swamp, only to get consumed by the mud. However the cx racers that I was briefly running alongside seemed to be able to ride in mud (on their cross bikes) like no-other. “WTF” was the expression on my face as they rode past be when I was trudging through the mud.

Luckily they only gained like 20 minutes on that part of hell.

Getting back on the bike I felt great, my breaks were jammed and my speedplays were bricks attached to the new mud shoes I got myself.

Nows a good time for my first lesson;

Lesson 1. Do not use the speedplay pedal cleat combination if you expect to leave your pedals in the duration of the race.

Back to the race!

There I was coming out of this swamp 10th I can only imagine the officials that saw me go in the swamp first and come out 10th thought. “Did he get a flat?”

FLAT YOU.

So I got.. No.. Struggled back on my bike and continued pressing my bricks (speedplay cleats) on the pedals. Trying to catch someone in the pack infront of me, Alas! Someone fell off that group. This is good, turns out it was just zottl and he sucked my wheel for 20 odd k until the next part of hell.

So we turn onto some grass, that I miss (involving a technically incredible U turn) and off goes wheelsucker for the rest of the race.

That part of the course would have been good fun on a cx bike, no getting off and running for a solid 10-20 k of train paths. I said to myself hey if this is what cross is like it isn’t so bad.

We got back on the road and I started to overtake people struggling up the gigantic hills of the GTA . Hahaha.

People need to climb more hills.

Finally we reach the last technical section called “the mountain bike trail”

Alls well alls good riding nicely doing some running and tripping until we get to decent to hell no. 1
Let me draw this for you
Pitch is about 18 percent for about 20 meters of huge crevasses, 1 right path 50 wrong ones and on this path are stones (about 1 to 2 kg) so I make it down the first one, heck yeah, all star fuckin gave-er so here comes the second one, ill rock it no big deal,

I then flipped, un-clipped over the handlebars and onto my phone, landed on my bike somehow and then stood up, man 1 flew by yelling “watch out” as I assessed the damage (on the only way down) I moved aside and put my chain back on the rings and straightened my handlebars to avoid constant right turns, I was saved! The bike was fine and I’m, 1 day later, alright! The phones not ok. It was conveniently placed in the wrong pocket, its seen its last day.

2 more guys flew down the hill 1 asking if I was alright, the other ignoring me in fear of possibility of the same incident happening to him.

So I re-mounted my wounded steed, who had the equivalent of a broken neck. And continued up onto the road!

Its time for the next lesson? Next lesson!
Lesson 2;

When beginning a mountain bike descent on a road bike; brace for impact and wear your melon protecting device.

Back to the road and into view of musslemans lake, I had to be 2 k away and decided to pass someone who had just seen me do some bike-ro-batics.

Passed!

To the finish line with smiles and cheers coming from the concerned families that were both surprised and pleased, that I survived hell.

Race Rating: ****1/2
- lost half a star due to crash

Do again?: Absolutely, see you in 2011

Hopes for next year: Same course + SNOW

Cheers.

A new blog name! oh my you didnt even know that was coming.

2010-04-09T20:27:58Z

Alright well, today riding the bus I decided to change and the new name is.

Green Tea

2010-03-24T13:11:58Z

Going to and getting back from South Carolina has been an eye opening experience for me, I have met a lot of great people and had a chance to spend quality time with some really excellent caliber athletes from all over Ontario. Team Ontario to be exact, these guys have won lots of races, gone to provincials nationals and worlds and I learned a TON about what I am doing right, and what I need to start doing. So first real day on the bike was yesterday the 23rd and it was chaos, my brain was screaming for scenery, it could not understand how pedaling so hard wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I suffered through that interval workout without a smile.
One thing that I know is important yet almost always chose to ignore or fail to do is be consistent. I know that my training regimen needs to be consistent for success, I know that my diet needs to be consistent and smart, I know that the amount of work I do must be consistent for success, but there is always something else to do, thankfully cycling gets precedence.
Continuing on the journey that I have set on myself I see that not all roads are like the ones in Ontario, but they can be like the ones in South Carolina, they can twist, be on the sides of mountains and have switchbacks that make you shudder at the thought of gravel in the bend. Roads are not always linear and in order, 1st 2nd 3rd there is east fork, west fork and north fork, and they all go to different places, follow the right road and eventually it will take you to another, and another that gets you to where you need to go.
I will take the right road..

Signed 9:11 AM
Getting back

Deaths and births…

2010-03-05T13:19:02Z

First I’d like to send a shoutout to a longtime friend who lost her mom this week, I wish you all the best and know she will always be in your heart. Moving past that, this week marked some new experiences, bigtime. I sat in/ powerpointed a huge meeting and it went alright. As for training, let’s say I’m going to ROCK south carolina next week.. Bring her on! Ill be filling out the training log, by memory.. Today so that I look somewhat presentable to denise or whatever her name is, who I found out is turning 50 new blood required, I think so. But if she’s a good coach or not she will be there training all the athletes.
Cianara and next weeks blog will come in more than 1 dose because it marks the beginning of the OCA training camp.

Keep Isabella in your prayers

Signed 8:15

So we are talking about boxes…

2010-02-22T18:43:49Z

So I decided to take a photo of my box, its awesome, I know.

Signed; 1:42

So I was having a conversation with my brother about office spaces…

2010-02-22T14:53:41Z

I made the decision that I did not want to work in an office, as I do right now. As I sit here and wonder if I would like to look at these two brown walls for the rest of my life, the simple and plain answer is; “no” I do not want to sit in this box, with a few other box people sitting around me. Paid to sit in a box, that’s what I do. I want to get paid to be more than I was yesterday, physically and mentally, I want to get paid to live outside the box.
It’s a funny thing…
I also decided, pretty recently that I want to be a professional bike racer; this will allow me to live as far from the box as possible.
I was listening to “Four-Tet, Plastic People” while writing this blog, great music.
Think of that, living outside the box.

Signed 9:52

Turn around to watch the fishes fly.

2010-02-16T17:51:27Z

Todays my first day at Catalytics Group Inc and it has been an awesome one, this software company is geared at getting insurance companies to use the right brokers for them. Almost best of all, right beside me is a giant fish tank.

Rad..
CJ