Well That's a Wrap...

It's Sunday night, 9pm here in Monterey California. I am at the Sea Otter Classic and the cross country was today. Temps were good and the course fun. I had a decent start hitting the first singletrack section in the top 15 ish. There was ton's of passing on this course and I wasn't to worried about moving up through the race. There were only two rock sections on the course (hardly even that) and somehow I managed to flat on the second lap in the first of two mini rock piles. I did a quick fix, through a tube in and got going again. Pinned it for another lap and about halfway through the 3rd lap I managed to flat again! This time it was out in the middle of a double track section! Nothing even around to blame! Fixed the flat yet again, this time only slightly slower than the first tire fix. I got back riding and as I came out to go onto my fourth lap I decided that I was way to far back to make up anytime and get back into the race. I did the "go or no go" and I chose "no go". I went out and did a few hrs on some nice roads instead. Anyways hopefully since I had two flats today that will make up for any other flats that I would maybe of gotten later in the season(fingers crossed). There is really no point dwelling on something that is mostly out of my control, all I can do is look forward to what's coming next. On that note it is still always a bit frustrating knowing that I am fit and that I would of probably done well today.
Next up? A 3am rise n' shine to hit the San Fran airport for my 745am flight back home.

Sea Otter Classic

We (Mical, Peter, Fred and I) are at the Sea Otter Classic. We arrived here Thursday afternoon and are staying at a very cool local Ranch. Laguna Seca is literally in plain sight of our guest house. The weather really couldn't get any better (20 degrees and sunny). The XC course is much different then it has been in the past, it is basically a short lap of around 5km and really doesn't leave very far from the Pit area. Which is good because it makes it way more spectator friendly and exciting for the thousands of fans that are out here to watch us battle it out. The expo area is as BIG and complete as I think I have ever seen it, with a bunch of really cool products coming down the pipe. We are racing the short track at 3:15pm Saturday (tomorrow) and the XC at 2:00pm on Sunday. The start list is a impressive one with many of the top racers from around the globe here to compete.

Home Sweet Home..... Sort of.

In Brooklin, have been for a week now. It does feel pretty good to be back in Canada where I can't stream online tv, where I have to pay double the price of gas but I get to play "roll up the rim". The weather the first week was pretty good, I must of brought some nice Sunshine back with me from Cali. I did 15hrs of Mountain Biking on my sick Trek 8500 in the first 4 days that I was home! It is such a fun bike to ride. I (we, peter and matt) left Fontana sunday night and made it to the bright city of Vegas that night. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were same old cross country driving, Boring and uneventful. I made it back to Brooklin late Wed night. I slept forever thursday, still made ti out for a 4hr mtb ride on my local trails, which were surprisingly dry. I went up to Collingwood for a couple days and did a few more BIG rides up and down the Escarpment. Fast forward to tues, which was 5hrs 15min in the pouring rain... yay so much for the nice weather. Yesterday (wednesday) it was the same as tuesday only slightly cooler and I decided I was going to maybe give the rollers a whirl. 3hrs on them was good and bad and I had 90 min of tempo prescribed for the day, which once I got going felt pretty good. Doing anything on the rollers is hard, you have nowhere to hide, no stop signs, no down hills, no coasting or even hills to jam up. It is just sit and pedal... I am headed back down to the Sea Otter next Wed and I am super excited that the organizer has finally changed the pro course to a more spectator friendly venue.

Anyways here is a few images from my suffer fest on the rollers..

Internet Sucks, so I will make this quick...

Fontana Cali, US Cup #1. All the big guys are here from around North America and a few from around the globe to boot!. It was crazy Hot and super Windy! We had five laps of a pretty tough course.

I had a good call up (based on UCI points) sitting in the second row. I felt ok in my warm up, I did a few quick 15 sec sprints to open the legs up, I am still tired from a BIG epic week of training (expected). I was planning on training through this race and mainly used it for a bit of a leg stretcher for the coming season. I really only felt like I had one pace the entire race, I didn't have much for top end which is what I had expected. I was a bit conservative on the first lap rolling through in 13th. On the Second lap I made it from the little 3 man group that I was in and jumped up the trail to the next two riders. I rode with them for a bit and my jersey had come fully undone in the attempt to open it "partway" for some cool venting (crap). My superman jersey took a suprising effort to get it closed, especially in the 70km gusty winds... Third lap I rode up to fellow Canadian Raphael Gagne and we pretty much rode the rest of the race together. We were in 8th and 9th place and had 7th place in our sights (Barry Wicks). We hammered hard and gave a solid push to try and catch Barry and also not get latched by the chasers behind us.

I Finished the day in 9th place, really happy and stoked that the hard work and hard miles are paying off. Our team had a great day today with Mical in 8th place, Emily in 9th, Peter in 15th and Adam in 17th. I have the short track this afternoon at 2:45pm and I am running late so I have to run. I am headed home later this afternoon and will be back in Ontario sometime later next week!

Peace Out!

Where in the World could I be???

I am not sure why I haven't been here before...? This place is a climbing mecca, a Mountain bikers heaven and a trail runners paradise.. Hmmm where in the world am I ?. Well I will start out with how my day went.

Woke had a "continental" breakfast (muffins and cereal) ( and a danish, which was crappy and dry, the decent coffee made up for this).
Got my Mountain biking crap together and hit the road. 15 min from my hotel I was already pointing my bike up. Way up!.
Started my ascent of the "killer climb" at roughly 4000ft I climbed and climbed and climbed.
Hit snow around 7500ft and had to resort to bike some, hike some.
Snow got deeper and the hike part became more frequent. With the high quality fuel in the tank from my breakfast I was focused on my goal.... I guess my 21lb Trek 9.9 may have made things easier... Just a thought.
Around 9500ft the snow got deep enough that I was considering doing some off trail "hikeabike".
20 paces of that and I canned that idea.
Back on the snow drifted trail.

Around 10000ft I decided to maybe turn around....
Just climbed 6000ft vertical off road and if it wasn't for the massive amount of snow I would of loved to make the loop that I had in mind, even though it would have probably been one of the biggest most epic days on my bike I have had.
Who am I kidding? It doesn't end there, not even close.
I had to come down that 6000ft climb, which by the way I spent 90% of the time in my granny ring at "endurance" pace.
Had a few snow drift endo's on the way down which were kinda spontaneous and random. The top 1500ft of descending was on a sun baked snow crust and was seriously fun.
Hit the hotel at around the 4hr mark, re-fuel, ditch clothes, lube chain and head back out.

The Buttermilks is where I am heading this time.
Climb for.... a while.
Climb for a while more.
Hit my destination, take some pics, Ooo and Aww at the rock climbing I wish I was doing, turn around and head back down.
Shower (felt so good).
Get in the car with Fred (who hasn't exercised yet today, yay) and head up to see the ancient pines that are native to this area. Apparently these trees are some of the oldest in the world, some are still living from 2000bc!
Hit snow closed roads around 8000ft.
Start our "hike" up to above 10000ft where these amazing trees are.
Hiking, hiking, hiking.
Finally just as the sun is two fingers from sunset we hit the freaking trees.
We played around the trees for a bit, (fred found some "souvenir wood" for the pocket ride back down to the car.
Back at the car way past sun down, and 15 degrees colder than when we had left.

Grocery store dinner and a muffin that I stole from the "conti" breakfast later, here I am.

Itchy.

Sort Of....

California is super cool! The riding is amazing, the weather is fantastic and the scenery is out of this world! I only wish I had more time here at the Oxnard training house, the guys here (matt p and peter g) had a great setup and I would say that anyone looking for a sick place to train/explore this area would be a safe bet to get a good bang for your buck!.

I am headed of of here tomorrow morning and I am making my way to.......(not sure yet). My kick off to the race season is next weekend at the US cup #1 in Fontana Cali and I am getting a bit excited to get this season rolling.

Here are some pics from a quick trip up the coast to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, Big Sur.

Some Random Images.

Here are some images from a group ride up a super cool road in California. Peter G, Sean R, Kari F and myself.