Weekend family outing

On this hot, long weekend, I got out with the fam and put our latest bike accessory to use....a Burley D'Lite Trailer. It was time to initiate Lil' D into the world of biking.

Getting ready to go with the Burley D'Lite and Lil' D in tow.

It was the first time that I've ridden with a trailer, but it didn't take long to get use to it (the extra weight, that is!!). I could definitely feel the weight of trailer pushing me along or slowing me down. The other thing to get use to was spatial awareness of the trailer...it sits a little left of centre. I was pretty conscious of this while cruising along the bike paths, making sure that I stuck to the far right of the path. I used my Mendotta to haul the trailer, since it has a few components that makes it perfect for towing...it has a triple crank in case I hit some serious hills, and has cable pull disc brakes for a little extra oomph when slowing down. (After a few more outings I'll have a more detailed review of the trailer.)

A natural born cyclist...wanted Mom's water bottle instead of her sippy cup.

Chillin' at Kitchisippi Beach (even though it doesn't look like the beach from this pic, but trust me, it's there.)

Ride of the Damned

This is gonna be a relatively short post, not a lot of words, mostly pics. Mainly because if I don't do it now, it probably won't get up until next weekend. If you haven't already heard about the idea behind the Ride of the Damned, click here for a quick homework assignment.

When I rolled up to the start Sunday morning at Lac Leamy, I was told that I would be on a team with Jamie, Ariel, Thom and Steve. According to the results we were the Tall Tree Hung Squad. Not sure what "Hung" is referring to...I mean yeah, ok, we're all basically riding around in underwear, but come on, who's been checking out packages?!?!?!

Some brief highlights of the ride:

-sunny all day, not too hot

-gravel roads in great condition, with a good amount of climbing

-awesome spread of food at the checkpoint in Low

-Ariel suffered from some bad leg cramps. At one point he was forced off his bike and had to squat in the ditch. One team that rode by thought he was taking a dump.

-great post ride BBQ

A big thanks to Matt and the Tall Tree Crew for putting on a well organized, fun event.

After the neutralized start. Check out Ariel over on the left, looking to see if other teams are "Hung".

It's a Tall Tree Swarm!!!

Rodd cresting the climb before the Dam at Low.

 This little guy is at the start of Cross Loop Road.  He looks quite happy taking a dump.

Jamie on the last gravel bitch of the day.

Steve, making his way up the Cross Loop climb.

Purty view from Cross Loop Road.

Post ride BBQ action.

I won this pint glass as a door prize. Rodd suggested that I use it for my beer reviews....and that's what I'm gonna do. Thanks Rodd!

This is a good way to sum up the whole day.

Complaining about dirt??????

Today's stage in the Giro d'Italia turned into a muddy messy affair, when the route passed over dirt roads. Some riders were apparantly complaining about the stage (all quotes from cyclingnews.com)

Friday's stage winner Matt Lloyd was a rider who was not so happy. He made huge effort to win in Marina di Carrara and finished in the gruppetto, 24:10 behind fellow Australian Cadel Evans (BMC).
"I can understand that they want a spectacular stage, but something like what we've just done is ridicoulous if you ask me," he told Cyclingnews after pulling on the green climber's jersey again.

and

"The last 45km were worse than Paris-Roubaix,” Vinokourov said. “It was a terrible stage because we went hard right from the start.

Waaa, Waaa, WAAAAA! (That's supposed to somehow replicate the sound of whining, or crying, pick whichever one you want.) However, some enjoyed the conditions.

"It was a spectacular stage,” said stage winner Evans. “We'd prepared things in fine detail for the dirt roads."

David Millar said: "I actually enjoy it when it's like this. I think this is what racing is all about. In a way, the worse the conditions, the better I seem to go. In the end it was just mano-a-mano and it was actually a lot of fun."

Tomorrow's ride, Tall Tree's Ride of the Damned, will have plenty of dirt, and rain or shine (fortunately, it's gonna be sunny), I won't be complaining.

No time....

...to blog about bikes, because of this:

 If you've ever wondered what the inside of a washing machine looks like, here ya go. 

Back on Monday, our washing machine decided that the water wasn't going to drain out...lovely. After running 4 spin cycles, I finally drained the thing, but had to figure out the culprit was. I borrowed the Reader's Digest "Fix it yourself" from my Dad (with the help of this book, I fixed our dryer back in the fall), and tackled the washer.

 This is my new Bible. I probably saved myself a few hundred bucks by avoiding repairman calls and using this book.

Got in to check the water pump, and lo and behold, stuck inside, clogging the drain tube....:

For those of you who have been in a household where someone is breast feeding, you might be able to figure out what this is....pretty funny actually. Sonia was dumbstruck: "How did THAT get stuck in there?!?!?!?!?"

So now the washer is working, I have clean bike clothes, and more blogging to come.

A tainted win?

  Wasting time this evening, I came across a couple of good pieces ("The Taint of Suspicion" and "Amibivalence", both on red kite prayer),  about Vinokourov's win at Liege-Bastogne-Liege (old news by now). Both are extremely well written and bring up good points. The "Taint of suspicion" article does a good job of summing up why I felt a sense of disappointment when I first read that Vinokourov had won. Check out these articles out if you haven't already.

Almonte Paris Roubaix rundown

Yesterday marked one of my favourite events of the year...the OBC Paris-Roubaix cyclo-sportif (not race, but cyclo-sportif!). The mix of gravel, dirt, sand, rocks, pavement and hills are a good way to test out the early season legs and the puncture resistance of tires (this comes down to luck of the draw, mind you). It also tests the stamina of ones hands, arms, neck, back...might as well be mountain biking! The only drawback to the whole thing is the start time...8am!

After the formalities of registering, I was off to a bit of a late start, and got in about a 10 minute warm up. On top of that, my computer konked out on me. It had been acting up in the last week, but rather than change the battery and have to reset the settings, I decide to wait until after yesterday's ride. However, I think it proved to be a blessing in disguise, because it meant that I wasn't constantly looking down during the ride to see how many km's were left to go.

We got off to the traditional neutralized start, and then onto the gravel right away. I was taken aback by how loose the gravel was, making for some sketchy riding. Once I settled in, I was at the back of the pack. Damnit! Not where I wanted to be. My problem with riding in a pack, though, is that I'm not aggressive enough to try and move up closer to the front. I knew that I would need to stay close to the front in anticipation of the first wooded section, but that didn't happen, and I was still near the back.

After the first wooded section, the pack was broken up, and the group that I was in eventually swelled to about 25 riders. As we chugged along, we passed other riders at the side of the road, with flats. I saw a familiar Tall Tree kit at one point. Was that Matt off to the side? Shit, I hope not after all the work he has put in this winter with this race in mind. A little later on, hey there's Rodd.  We kept plugging along until we got to a point where some of the direction arrows were pointing right, onto a road into the woods. It was a narrow dirt road, wide enough for one car, windy, up and down. We followed the road, and after a couple of minutes, out of nowhere, Aaron Fillion comes barrelling from the opposite direction, yelling "Wrong way!! Turn around!!" Suddenly, more riders appear in pursuit, including one Ride with Rendall rider who flipped over into the woods! We all turned around, and regrouped with what was the lead pack. This put me amongst a group of extremely strong riders, ready to encounter the new addition to the course. However, I think we were all suffering as we dealt with the ups and downs and the twisty gravel turns of this new section. This proved to be my most favourite part of the course, because of the constant changes in the road.

On we went, and I kept thinking to myself "holy crap, I'm with the lead group!" As we approached the "switchback climb", I managed to inch up a few places, and had no trouble with the climb itself, but I couldn't recover afterward, and the road was so sandy that it just sapped me of my energy. Once I made my way to onto the next pavement section, I was caught by 3 other riders, including Todd from Tall Tree, and we basically rode together until we were caught by another group before the last forest section. From there to the finish the last few km's were pretty uneventful, except for Todd and I chatting as we pedaled along. 

So, another year, another Paris-Roubaix. Looking at the results, I finished 38th out of 150 finishers. That puts me in the top 25.3333333333333% (we'll just round it to 25%!), which I'm extremely happy with...my best finish at the Roubaix (due in part to the errant arrows though, I'm sure).

Canadians represent!

I originally started this post re-capping my weekend of riding...not too exciting. But when I was checking out results on cyclingnews.com, I decided to change the topic of my blabbing to point out some notable Canadian (and even local) performances from the past weekend.

The most notable performance definitely has to be Ryder Hesjedal's second place finish at the Amstel Gold Race. 259km of racing, and out of 1st by 2 seconds (actually a large margin, considering that most of the time these races end in a group sprint). It's just downright amazing to see a Canadian place that high in one the pro spring classics.

Last weekend, we heard about the Tall Tree Team competing in the Tour of the Battenkill in New York, America's "Queen of the Classics". This past weekend was the pro race, 2 laps of the 100km circuit. Local boy Aaron Fillion finished 25th, 3'46" behind the race winner, and 1'22" behind second place finisher Floyd Landis!

On to some mountain bike action at the Sea Otter Classic. In the men's pro race, Geoff Kabush battled with Specialized riders to finish second in a sprint finish (check out his doooope bike). And in the women's pro race, Catherine Pendral came in 3rd, while Emily Batty finished a very respectable 6th (I think she's still technically U23, which makes her result all that more impressive).

My next post or two will cover my own racing exploits as I get ready for Ottawa's own classic, the Almonte Paris-Roubaix.