Hot August Nights 24 Hour Bike Race

Race time again at Albion Hills :) I've been racing on the coroporate team with Wescam for about 4 summers now (man time flies). I love going to these weekends. Such a great atmosphere and everyone there is there because they love riding and want to have a good time. What more can you ask for.

Well this time was going to be a little different than usual with only one corporate team (10 person) entered (normally we have 2). Little too bad but what can you do. Summer time is busy for people (though really they should get their priorities straight, what could be more important than riding ;) ). The weekend at first wasn't looking to great weather wise either. Poor Chelsea and Paul headed up on the friday and got majorly poured on. I headed up on Sat morning this time. It poured on most of my drive up. I was wondering why I was putting myself through this wishing for awhile that I had been one of those who couldn't make it, but I couldn't pull out or I would be considered one of the "uncool" people according to Chris, who stated that it would be "uncool" to pull out at the last minute (lol). Too much pride I guess.

Amazingly though (well considering I prayed almost the whole way up that this rain wasn't hitting Albion Hills) it wasn't raining there :) But of course that would change later :P I was the 4th person to show up at 10:30am and the race was starting at 12pm. Slowly more of our team trickled in. We started with 6 people at 12 (oh dear, lol), but later 2 more of the guys showed up and one on Sunday morning (for the good weather...wus...lol).

Definantly a lot less people at this race overall. Alot of last minute back outs...scared of getting wet??? The rain came halfway through my teamate Chelsea's lap (poor girl, the one thing she hoped wouldn't happen) and did it come down for awhile...of course I was after her so here I was getting ready in this miserable weather (but at least it was still fairly warm out) thinking this sucks and I was definantly not all that excited about going out for my lap. It rained for the beginning of my lap and then cleared up but unfortunatly it left alot of the roots very slick. I was off my bike a lot more then I normally am, which kind of sucked but what can you do. Otherwise the lap felt pretty good. Apparently the laps were about 16.5 km. The only unfortunate part was they had put the S16 single track in and let me tell you I hate S16. It is very technical. Needless to say I walked quite a bit of it. There was no way I was breaking any bones right at the end of the lap (this time anyhow :P). I had done quite a bit of praying beforehand to God about coming home with nothing broken...as you'll find out in a bit, apparently I needed to be a wee bit more specific, lol.

Oh the one great thing about us just being the one team this time was we snagged the best camp spot in the whole place. It was awesome! We had such a good view of a section of the trail (which is normally near the end but they changed the course all around this time). And oh man was there carnage here this time! There's this bridge just down a bit which is normally fine, but from all the rain it had spread quite a bit of sand as well on it. Well the first guys from the first lap came speeding through and one after another they wiped out right into the side of the wooden bridge! One guy even broke one of the posts! So for the next hour you heard various people (till first aid showed up) yelling, "Slippery bridge! Slow Down!" Finally Shawn (one of the coordinators) put up a big sign that said that...of course then we joked that he needed another sign that said, "Watch out for sign that says, Slipper bridge...." as the thing was sticking half out into the trail, lol. He wanted to make sure it caught peoples attention as it is amazing how riders can miss numerous warning signs on the trail. So any how that was our excitement for awhile :)

Did a lot of hanging out inbetween. Had a nice massage from my wonderful massage therapist, Sam (whose been there every time I have, so I always go to her now...oh yeah the race provides the option to sign up with a massage therapist...very nice! Does cost though but at least they are there for that option).

So now to my second lap. It was early in the morning (cause yes I am a wus when it comes to riding at night...eventually I will do it) part of the dawn lap actually. It was such an awesome lap. I was going so fast this time as everything had dried up and I had somehow found my cornering back (hugging the corners closer) and everything was feeling great. I was barely getting tired and was flying up the hills. Everything was so good infact that I started going over the stuff that I walked in the S16 single track section....until I hit this one section (that I never do) and just went for it...next thing I knew was my body was being thrown off my bike and slammed, neck first, into a tree and then down to the ground. Groannn! Thank goodness there happened to be 2 spectators there and they grabbed my bike (which amazingly didn't break or anything) and made sure cyclists were aware of me and didn't ride over me. I had to lay there for a few minutes, making sure I hadn't broken a collarbone or anything else cause let me tell ya, I was flying fast through that trail so it ended up being quite a strong impact. I got up after a few minutes, got myself oriented and jumped back on my bike...hey, I only had like .5km to go! I wasn't quiting. Managed to get out of the single track, though proceded to walk a few more technical spots and rode the last bit in.

On my way back to the campsite I guess the shock of it all wore off and all of a sudden the pain started to hit me and I couldn't stop the tears from coming. I hated riding into the site like that but I could feel my neck starting to stiffen as well as my back and just wanted to sit or lay down. I think I scared people though when I got back because for some reason everyone decided to give me space for what seemed like an awful long time before someone came over to ask if everything was alright. I layed down for awhile to just rest. I had booked a massage though so I got up about 30min later, had something to eat and hobbled back over as I couldn't stand straight any more. The most amazing thing was nothing had broken but of course I prayed for that, but this is what I meant by being more specific, lol. As I was pretty stiff for the next couple of days and took about 2 full days to be able to lift my arm all the way up. Still a bit sore overall but amazingly almost no bruising either! God is amazing! Thanks for keeping me safe.

Found out later that poor Sab had also had a run in with the tree and broke his bike and hurt his leg and Trevor as well broke his fork and ran out of lights part way through his last lap. Everyone ended up taking off early on sunday and didn't stick around for the prizes or awards later. Sunday though ended up turning into a beautiful day! Just georgeous!

So except for a few mishaps the weekend was still a fairly good success. Our team came in 47 out of 89 teams in the corporate category thanks to the fast guys who are usually on the fast team, unlike me who just sticks to the fun team (not as bugged to do night laps then ;) ).

I realized that next year I probably won't be making either of the 24 hours as I will be away at the Sea to Sea but I think I can handle that, lol. (I added a bunch of pics of our campsite, riding, where I fell and my wound.)

Almost a great ride

The other day someone told me about this great site called http://www.bikely.com/ so I checked it out and found a route new to me and near my area. Quite a bit of it followed along the Grand River so I was looking forward to that...of course I didn't end up seeing the river till the point in which I was turning off that Hwy, lol. Oh well.
Today was a great day for a ride though. Absolutely beautiful weather out, 18 degrees when I started, rose to about 24 degrees. 15km/hr NW winds. Wasn't too bad. Traffic was fairly light for the most part but it's funny how the cars seem to drive by in packs.

So anyhow why was it almost a great ride? Well after having riden already 58 km I was on the home stretch, back on familiar roads, about 7 km left to go. Feeling a bit hungry and a wee bit tired but otherwise feeling great. I was setting up for the 3rd last hill, hitting some higher gears when I felt it and heard my rim scrapping against the road...noooooooooo. I had blown a tube somehow, though funny I hadn't heard it blow, shoot must have ridden over something sharp.

So off I get, dump everything out of my seat pack, thinking I sure hope I do this right this time. I was actually doing pretty good too, managed to get the tire off the rim fairly easily, took out the tube, didn't see where the hole was so I ran my fingers along the inside of my tire just to make sure there was nothing sharp still in there. So I got my tube in all set to be blown up, set up my CO2 cartrige and...nothing...great...what did I do wrong this time. Stupid valve didn't get punctured and there was noooo way I could tighten it any tigher. That's it, I am done with those cartriges, they never work for me!! I am officially buying a small pump for my road bike!

So now what to do? Well this is why you always carry a cell. Called home to see if my roomate happend to be there...nope...next called a few friends from Brantford...none of them were home....hmmm. Well you know maybe I will just go knock on that lovely house's door across the street. Thankfully a girl about my age answers the door. "Sorry to bother you but by chance would you happen to have a bike pump?" Well she didn't have a pump but she was on her way into Brantford and would be willing to drop me off at my place. WOW how awesome is that. "Thank you sooo much I really appreciate it." So I went and put my bike back together as she finished getting ready, then loaded my bike in her truck and off we went. It's amazing where you can find good samaritans, eh! Sure saved me about a 30-40min walk back home lugging my bike along.

So sadly I didn't get my full ride in but up to that point it was great none-the-less.
58km in 2 hours 10 min. (suppose to be a 66km route)
26.5km average

Monday Night Road Ride

Well, only just my second time out on Monday's ride and already I could definantly tell that I had improved in the 2 weeks since the last group ride. Phewww! Though I'll admit that long ride up Valley Road though I was a good 5 km faster than previous, I was still going a measly 11-12km/hour up it :P But with practice it will come. I was not near as far behind the pack this time and they barely had to wait for me at the top.

I had been working on keeping my cadence higher as well, trying to spin faster rather than mashing all the time and wow did my legs ever thank me. I was able to handle most of the ride this time and had only one fall back which I later recovered from and all of a sudden found this burst of energy! It was awesome! The winds were really strong on this ride too but thankfully it was "sort of" at our backs on our way back home. In total we went for a 62km ride in about 2 hrs 15 min.

Also made it for the Wescam Mountain Bike Ride the next night. Just a few of us but it was great getting out on my mtn bike again. It had been awhile as it alwasy seems to be crappy weather on those nights.

My mom was over tonight and we took a couple of pics of me and my be-u-ti-ful bike as I didn't have any yet (shame on me I know). Almost ready to send all my papers and stuff in to officially register for the Sea to Sea and get my name up on their website :)

Finding the right adjustment - never easy

Well I started the weekend out with a visit to my friends (and fellow riders) Mari and Dave's place. They have been so wonderful to me, helping me set my bike up to the best it can be. I have had a lot of issues with my back on my road bike which has been pretty frustrating at times but I feel like I am slowly getting to the right adjustments on my cannondale. A couple of riders on last Mondays ride made a comment that my seat seemed to be a few notches too high which can shift my pelvic area and arch my back which can then add to a sore back, so Dave helped me alter that a bit. He also is lending me one of his own fork's to swap on my bike to see if I need the extra height as I have felt like in the past that my back can't handle being so far down. He is such a great guy! I can't believe he trusts me so, but he says anything to help a fellow rider get out more.
Well I was going up to Long Point at a friends cottage for the weekend but I wanted to get in a decent ride on sat morning. So out I went just after 10ish in the morning (a bit of a slow start but what can I say :) ) I realized after a bit that my shoulders were feeling jammed again into my handle bars. I decided that maybe the seat had been shifted down just a bit too much, so I got off, took out my tools and shifted 'er back up a touch but after about 6km my seat was really rubbing and making for an uncomfortable ride and I was feeling like I was stretched out too far again. So once again I got off my bike, took out my tools and slide my seat a touch forward (as I realized I must have accidentally pushed it back a bit when I was playing with it before). It's unbelievable how just cm's can make such a difference. But I know Lance himself says he can tell when a mechanic has slightly adjusted his bike to not the right measurements. He says since he knows his bike so well he can tell when things are off even by a few cm's! Being a lot less experienced, even though I can feel in my body things are not quite right, to actually figure out where the problem is, is not so easy.
But off I went again having only road 15km in like 35 min or so because of all my stops :P The rest of the ride was a good one but on my way out I had strong winds so I was going pretty slow. The way back was way more fun. In total I did 55km, home by 12:30pm.
Managed to get another ride in on Monday morning as well. The ride felt way better. Though this time I had the head wind on my way back. It was a strong one again. I seem to be only able to go about 22km/hour when going into the wind. I have to figure out how to go faster but I guess that just comes with strength. I'm trying to make my rides longer and longer but even though I feel like I am adding on new routes and today I ended up going to Copetown and back and then in the last half of my ride going all around Brantford it still ended up being only 58km! Riding time was 2hours and 20 min. Funny thing is, my back felt a lot better today. I think I will hold off for another week or so, get some more riding (with this latest adjustment) under my belt before I swap stem's. Though I think I still need to change my handlebars at some point. The reach to my hubs is good, but my reach to the horn's seems to be just a bit too far (noticed on last Monday's road ride that they all had shorter handlebars). Sigghh, so much to do! and figure out! But at least I got a few more months on the road before the winter and another 10 months before the tour next year to sort everything out.