weekend update

busy but excellent weekend. started off by working on the house. almost all the studs are up and new front door and all the windows are in; next step the insulation and then the siding.



after working on the house mrs. dr. and i went out for dinner, but this was more than just going to a resturant, we borded a bus and headed out to an organic farm for a dinner put on by organza and the dandelion resturant.

mrs. dr and alberto on the bus

the farm

appetizers served on a board

the table

sunday was race day (see the mucr blog for details). the race was perhaps one of the toughest that i've had. after the preliminary sorting out of positions i found myself in about 7th place, behind olli, dave d, adrian, brian s, tom and don s. things became more interesting when tom went down because his pedal came out of his crank (seems like standing up on the pedals and cranking hard and then having you pedal come out equals catastrophe). dave d flatted and suddenly i found myself in fifth, the only problem was i was all by myself. the reason that was a problem was there was a train of death behind me working to catch me - which they were doing rather effectively.

the train

dj broke from the train and soon passed me. for once i managed to jump on his wheel as he passed me worked hard to hang on (luc and allan were still on our tails and not giving up). dj tried a couple of times to drop me, but i managed to stay with him, catching up every time. heading into the last lap i decided to see if i could pull ahead of dj and drop him with a short sprint - didn't work; dj stayed on my wheel.

dj and i going over the hill

because dj was drafting i decided to slow the pace a little not wanting to do all the work and have dj pass me on the final sprint - i had to have something in my tank. at the same time i had to keep an eye on allan who was behind us, i did not want to bring him into the picture as well. coming around the last corners and heading into the last 150m straight away i was planning on when to start my sprint when i heard dj shifting behind me. knowing that it would take him at least 1 if not 2 pedal strokes to get into gear i immediately jumped on my pedals and started my sprint and some how i managed to hold him off long enough to beat him by a wheel - my god, that was hard.

thanks to jonny g for taking my camera and capturing these pictures.

on a happier note

okay, maybe the last post contained too much detail, but hey racing can be ugly at times.

looks like the cross frame is done, now we need to find the powdercoat guy in squamish. i asked mike to have the frame coated out there but his guy has not been getting back to him. may just have it done here again - any ways, it should be here soon. yeah!

as the stomach turns

was wondering when it would happen: 24 hours of 9 mile, any one of the manitoba races, test of metal, buffalo pound.... every once in a while my gut decides to, well, kick me in the gut and make a day of racing less than pleasant; yesterday was one of those days.

the day started well and it was good turn out. temps were cool at the beginning of the race, but warmed up quickly. the course was a nice layout for an 8 hour event, a nice mix of challenging up hills (not too crazy), rolling flats, speedy downhills and one or two technical sections. for the single speeder there were three hike-a-bikes for the first couple of laps (or more if you have the leg stamina) which morphed into additional hike-a-bikes as the day wore on. the first few laps went really well, but this turned quickly. in these events your first two laps are fine, however i find laps 3 and 4 are usually quite difficult. laps 3 and 4 are not so much a huge physical challenge, more of a mental challenge because you realize that you are going to be doing this for the next 6 hours and it is going to be a phyical and mental grind. the reason it is such a mental grind is that you know what to expect on every lap and there are sections you qucikly begin to despise because they are phyisically tough and you know that your are going to do those sections over and over again. once you except the challenge you can get on with your ride, settling into your rythym - that is if your stomach decides to behave. upset stomaches and bowels are a challenge present in every endurance event, and yesterday i lost the challenge mid way through lap 6. what did it cost me? 1 velo artisan bread singlespeed cyclocross cycling cap (something needs to sacrificed when one does not carry TP (if you are riding at birch and you come across a vab ssc hat it would be best to leave it be). that was it, my day was done, having suffered these bouts before there was no need to try and continue on which was too bad because i had 6 laps in 4.5 hours, although the last lap was about 15 minutes slower than it should have been. c'est la vie.

the festival of belgian sports took place on saturday and mrs. dr. partook in her first 'cross event, no, her very first sporting event where she was not forced or obligated to particpate because of school. not only did she race cross, she bowled and competed in pole archery where she took down one of the birds.

here are just a few pictures of her cross participation.

XC aching

XC8 was a slug fest this year which saw over a 1000 feet of vertical climbing per lap, coupled with no real recovery sections (downhills don't really count because you can't sit and spin), making this year's event a very tough challenge. you can tell that paddy has benefited from the move to lethbridge (altitude and hills to climb) and is riding really strong finishing first in the singie speed category. dave persevered and put in another gutsy effort to finish third behind pat doyle and and paddy. i managed 7 laps in 7.5 hours (i think) which i was happy with considering the difficulty of the course that had anywhere from 5-8 hike-a-bikes per lap depending on the will and leg power, in fact a lot of the gear heads out there were pushing it also. greg had a really good race and there was a great manitoba contingent at this year's event: allan r, shawn z, mike k, bill a, seema, and young luc (am i missing someone?). photos and results will be up soon.

sweet finds

yesterday we had a great ride out in morden. tinker tim, jl, james, scott, ger ger, matt (not matt h but a local matt) and myself had great time in the heat, humidity and wind on the lake and trans canada trails. some definte happenings on the lake trail with new lines being marked and going into development soon (i would have some pictures but the new camera is in the shop for repairs) - as if they don't have enough trails. any ways, after the ride we stopped at the world's best trail head shop and i spyed a set of these on james' product board (but in the 9 speed variety). seems like james brought these in for a customer and they were never installed and ended up sitting on the shelf for some time. these were exactly what i was looking for. the plan is to set up the new cross bike with paul thumbie shifters on the top of the handle bars and to do this i needed a pair of bar end shifters. my plan is to run a solid housing from the shifter to the derailleur so i can easily switch from singie to mutli speed without having to remove the bar tape from the handle bars all the time. james gave me a sweet deal and in turn i took them off his hands.