Ride Writeup

Bike to Work Week - Day 3

Nice ride in the morning. After work was a bit gross. The rain came out making roads slick and drivers hurried. Got home no problems though and even managed to not get wet. Enjoyed a fine home made pizza dinner. Yum.

Bike to Work Week - Day 2

Gorgeous day for a ride. Warm, sunny, no wind. Perfect conditions for riding to work. No issues today, although some drivers continue to astound me.

I had one van start to pass me, only to slam on the brakes to make a turn. Why didn't they just slow down a little before getting to me? They wouldn't have to hit the brakes then. Wierdo.

Bike to Work Week - Day 1

The 2006 Bike to Work Week is upon us. Today's ride in was no problem at all. There didn't really seem to be more bikes out than normal, but that didn't surprise me. The ride home I did see lots of riders, and that was great, but they are scary to ride behind sometimes. The occasional rider really doesn't know how to ride in traffic, and that can be dangerous.

Mix together inexperienced riders, unhappy traffic, and you get a dangerous situation.

Anyway, I hope the rest of the week is just as uneventful.

Reflecting back on my Island Cup DH race season I can be reasonably happy with results:

Victoria 7th of 43 racers
Parksville 33rd of 68 racers
Duncan 25th of 29 racers (32 with DNS and DNF's thrown in).

Riding as fast as you can is an eye opening experience. It is mentally challenging as well as physically challenging. The mental game was a big part of the results for Parksville. Mentally I wasn't "on" during the race. I tapped the brakes before the jumps, and took it easy through spots where I have previously crashed. I probably could have moved up a few spots if I had let go of the brakes more. 2 years ago I certainly flew more than this year. I think the reason for that would be sprout. Either that or I have turned into a chicken

Duncan was a physical problem (then mental). I added air pressure to my tires the day of the race, and I think that messed me up a bit. Then I crashed and mentally I couldn't hold it together. The goal of a DH race is to get down the course as fast as you can. When you crash you aren't moving. This is bad. Getting up from a crash the instinct is to get going as fast as you can. The opposite should be done though. I tried to grab the bike, seat myself, calm myself then go.

So, ever wonder why mountain bikers wear armour? I can tell you why. Because when they crash it saves their sorry butt.

The Duncan DH was not my finest race. I got to signup later than I wanted this morning. That was a bad sign. I rushed, got my gear together and got on the first shuttle I could. I got to the top of the race course and did my prerun. My shoulders were tight, my feet were aching, and my arms were on fire. Other than that, I only made a couple mistakes on my pre-run.

The pre-run did point out that the finish line was not where I was expecting. This was good news since I was expecting an uphill sprint to the finish line, and this new ending saved me from that. Whee.

I hoofed it back to the shuttle point. The sun was out and I was baking pretty good in my armour. My brakes felt a little off on that run too. Did I mention that this morning, before loading my bike in the truck I added a few pounds of pressure to the tires? Eh, no big deal.

Shuttling back to the top I sat in the back of the pickup. Besides being very dusty, it cooled me down nicely. I hiked to the top of the course and waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. Seems there was a miscommunication, and the beginners were sent to the wrong spot. They started late. My race number was 207. Thinking the intermediates were in the 200 range I thought I wouldn't have to wait long for my run. Wrong. The numbers were doled out randomly, and I guess race order was signup order. I paid the price for arriving late, and was 3rd to last in the race order.