Ever Onward

By the beach in forestville

2010-12-25T14:26:00.001-07:00

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My bride with our new nephew!

2010-12-24T13:25:00.001-07:00

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2010-12-17T23:10:00.001-07:00

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Construction day 5

2010-12-17T17:05:00.001-07:00

Tiling should be done tomorrow and grout on sunday

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Day 4 of the bathroom reno

2010-12-16T12:53:00.001-07:00

- Sent from my Bell mobility device

The tub is in!

2010-12-15T13:12:00.001-07:00

After several months of sitting in our office, the tub is installed!

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The solution to my keyboard problem

2010-12-10T09:15:00.001-07:00

So, another problem with hugo laying on my computer is that I can't use the computer while he is on it. Trying to push him off repeatedly proved futile, so I moved their heating pad up onto my desk, and this seems to be effective in luring them away from my computer...

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My computer is a really expensive heating pad

2010-12-09T11:42:00.001-07:00

Hugo recently discovered that warm air shoots out the side of my laptop, and then if he lays on top of it then it just keeps getting warmer! I have a feeling that this could spell an early death for my Vaio....

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An amusing summary of French military history

2010-11-30T11:51:00.001-07:00

So, while we were in class today we somehow diverged onto the topic of French military history (don’t ask how) and one of the guys quoted something from a site that he had seen that amounted to “France’s armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman” ... LOL ... I don’t think that my bride will find it very amusing, but if you want a funny read:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm

psychological operations course

2010-11-30T07:47:00.001-07:00

Here is a poster for all those of you ending what PSYOPS is all about...

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Great army accommodations...

2010-11-17T18:19:00.001-07:00

So, not only have we been placed in the same type of rooms thati stayed in on my basic officer training, and we have to share rooms, but there power and heat have been out for over an hour now...

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100 trillion dollar bill

2010-11-16T05:55:00.001-07:00

Day 2 of the PSYOPS course and one of the guys pulled out this bill from Zimbabwe... And we get worried over 3-5% inflation!

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70.3 done!

2010-11-13T13:31:00.001-07:00

So, we didn't get the bike split that we wanted, but we got a time of around 2:08 or so.

I am a little disappointed that I can't hang around for the dinner or hang around the expo... I had to grab my stuff right after the race and stay packing to leave tonight.

Off to kingston in just a couple hours for the residence portion of the PSYOPS officer course!

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70.3 preparations

2010-11-10T16:43:00.000-07:00

Our prep for the 70.3 world championships on Saturday is going well so far. We are in a hotel that is walking distance from the start line, we checked in and got our race packages today and took a walk through the expo.

Yesterday I marked up a map with the directions to ride the race course ahead of time so that we would know what to expect for turns, hills (not many at all) and condition of the roads. Brian kept on joking that he thought that we must be on the wrong roads since we didn’t see a single other bike out on the course! After speaking with one of the other guys that has done the course in the past, he said that nobody dares ride the course before the race since a lot of the course goes along major freeways with lots of traffic... There were a couple of spots where we had to cross 2-3 lanes of traffic, but I have ridden in way worse traffic than that!

We went for a swim on the first day that we were here that worried us both a little. There were waves swelling up over 3 feet at times where I felt a little like a surf board sometimes shooting up the front side of a wave and then crashing down on the other side. Brian and I are both hoping that the waves are nothing like that on race day because we both drank a lot of ocean water and we weren’t moving very fast at all... The last couple of days have been quite calm and nice.

Nexus pass is amazing!

2010-11-04T06:25:00.001-06:00

I just passed through the US customs line at the calgary airport where the line was out into the airline desks this morning and I got through in less than a minute with my nexus pass.

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The shower is complete!

2010-11-02T23:33:00.001-06:00

At long last, the shower is ready and my dear bride will stop threatening to hire a contractor to do the work :p thanks for all the help Dad!

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KidSport board and staff

2010-10-01T11:52:00.001-06:00

A nice group photo of the KidSport board members and staff in attendance at our first donor appreciation event.

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Day on the ranges

2010-09-25T19:29:00.001-06:00

Today I was the range safety officer for our unit range exercise
Thankfully the weather was beautiful and nobody got shot. So far so good. I got a couple of pictures of some troops doing a jump after we closed down the ranges. Not sure how week the pictures turned out, but I attached them anyways.

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The power of ebay item titles...

2010-09-21T11:30:00.001-06:00

so, I just sold two sales on ebay that are the same brand and close to the same model, but one retails for 2 times the price of the other because it is much lighter and mostly made of carbon. The cheaper one that I had put the msrp of 170 into the title for sold for 135 while the one that retails for around 350 sold for just 100... The only reason that I can think of to explain this would be the description that I listed... Go figure...

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Canadian military slang

2010-08-27T23:06:00.000-06:00

So, while driving to Edmonton for ranges, one of the guys in the car said this his son came across this list of canadian army slang on wikipedia. Quite amusuing, and quite accurate.: Appendix:Canadian English military slang - Wiktionary

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Scum of society...

2010-08-17T08:59:00.001-06:00

We had someone break into our garage last night and steal a laptop, GPS, and who knows what else out of our garage. I used to think that we lived in a pretty safe area where we didn’t need to worry about these things, but I guess I was wrong. Thankfully my mountain bike is still there since we are going riding on Thursday :P If only these wankers could put their time towards doing something productive with their lives, we would be a lot better off...

Our garage door opener has been flaking out on us for the last couple of years and I know that the security isn’t great on those old models so I am going to Canadian Tire to buy a new one today... I guess the bathroom reno can wait a few more days.

proven right...

2010-07-30T09:02:00.001-06:00

Just like clockwork! This morning while I was picking up some printouts, there were a couple of guys standing around the printer waiting for a big print job to finish. After only 1 hour and 5 minutes of work, the one turned to the other and said "shall we go for a smoke? Should take about that long for this to finish" and the two of them disappeared for 20 minutes… I rest my case.

smoking... the socially accepted reason to slack off at work!

2010-07-29T13:11:00.001-06:00

One of the other guys on the course raised an interesting point while we were both going to get some water this morning. He pointed out that taking up smoking might almost be worth the negative health effects in order to have an excuse to drop all of your work and hang out in the sun and get some fresh air every hour and a half or so. If you think about it, smokers are rarely challenged or criticized for going out to smoke several times a day. It is just an accepted practice that they need to satisfy their addiction. If a non-smoker were to go and stand outside chatting with other non-smokers for 15 minutes every hour and a half he would be called a slacker… if a smoker does it… he's just a smoker…

Every time like it's the first time!

2010-07-19T15:53:00.000-06:00

This is one of my favourite sayings for organizations that have no standards, templates or tools. Normally, the army prides itself on standardization of tools and templates, however it is clear that the individuals that manage the content for AOC are computer illiterates... Every scenario uses different icons, a mish mash of screen shots and power point slides are peppered through out power point slides. It seems asthough we spend just as much time playing with icons and formatting as we spend learning material...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Still stupid, but better....

2010-07-18T06:06:00.001-06:00

The CF has long taken the worst of both worlds in its approach to IT security. They make silly and unmanageable rules to follow and then provide no enforcement. Thi provided a flase sense of security to management and really didn't improve security because everyone did what they needed to do to get their work done... Now they still have the dumb rules but they are enforcing them now... So, here I sit in front of a "scrubber" ... Which is actually just a desktop with AV installed and isolated from the rest of the network... Waiting to scan the usb sticks for my syndicate... Great use of resources!!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Home for the next couple of weeks

2010-07-16T17:28:00.000-06:00

The building you see is the old library of fort frontenac and I have a room on the 3rd floor overlooking the lake. Not a bad plave to stay since it is a private room with an ensuite bathrom and a LCD TV. Only one problem... It's about a million degrees!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

AOC excess baggage...

2010-07-16T05:18:00.001-06:00

So, everyone that I have talked to on AOC has complained about needing to get authorization for excess baggage (3 bags) but I only brought 1 suitcase and I thought that I was packing a little excessive... What am I missing here? Either these people don't need to travel, or I am missing a lot of stuff that I am going to need...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

I am going to miss my aeroplan elite status....

2010-07-16T05:12:00.000-06:00

So, this year I have accumulated 0 status mile points towards getting my eite status again. It takes 35,000 and my flights from this trip will give me a little over 4000 points. Going to world championships should give me another 6000 or so, but that won't even get me to prestige (25,000) and I will have to stand in line with the rest of the peons in the regular check-in line... No more lounge access (they are serving pancakes and bacon and there are fresh strawberries today!) and no more upgrades to executive class... Speaking of which, I think I am getting upgraded today :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

detailed time splits from nationals

2010-07-13T09:25:00.001-06:00

So, I just got a copy of the detailed time splits from para track nationals and apparently we lost the race in the last half lap... ouch.... I wonder how the race would have turned out if we were going head to head. It is easy to say that we could have found another 4/10 of a second of effort during the race if we had known, but on the other hand who is to say that they wouldn’t have been able to match it? I guess that we will have to wait until World Championships for the rematch...

I have to hand it to Alex and Daniel, that is some pretty amazing consistency throughout the pursuit. That was a great ride on their part!

probably just a minority... but I am still shocked

2010-07-08T16:20:00.001-06:00

I was just watching CBC news a few minutes ago and there was a news clip where the reporter said that emergency services asked the Montreal fire department to go door-to-door to find people suffering from heat exhaustion in their homes as a preventative measure. The city has set up cooling stations with A/C, water, and medical aid to take in people that do not have a cool place to get out of the 34 degree heat (42 with humidex). Apparently fire fighters have the right to decline preventative services when the temperature goes over 30 degrees and several Montreal fire fighters have exercised this right and declined to help... Of course they coupled this clip with an elderly man who was rescued from his home that was measured at 50 degrees... I understand that it is really hot, but isn’t saving lives a big part of why fire fighters join? Again, I am sure that this is just a small minority of individuals that are refusing to help... but have they no shame?

lost by a pedal stroke

2010-07-07T16:28:00.001-06:00

So, the track national championship pursuit is behind us and we lost by 4/10 of a second which equates to about one pedal stroke... A bit of a crushing defeat for us, but I guess that we should be happy that it is way above the national standard for selection to worlds (we did around a 4:43 and the standard was 4:48).

Neither Brian or I had great preparation leading up to nationals so I am certain that we will be faster at worlds. Since we are already 5 seconds faster than last year (although the conditions were faster today due to the high heat and humidity) I think that we are going to have a great race and hit the podium again.

We both found it a little odd that the national team coach didn’t say so much as a word to us after coming within 4/10 of a second of the national title, but it is par for the course. I thought that we were starting to gain some ground and that the East vs. West thing was behind us... I guess that I was wrong.

2 days prior to nationals

2010-07-05T17:27:00.001-06:00

So, we are now 2 days before the start of Track nationals and there are rumours going around that the schedule may be changed around to fit everything into 1 day. When I saw the schedule originally, I thought that it was a bad idea to split it up between 2 days, but we had our training plan scheduled around a 2 day event.

Apparently the CCA realized that it should have all been done in 1 day and now they want to change the schedule around so that they don’t have to set up and tear down 2 days in a row... No way they would try to pull this on elite nationals.

Speaking of elite nationals, we are now at 7 weeks and counting before elite track nationals and the Bromont track is barely safe to ride below the blue line and definitely not suitable to ride above the blue... should be interesting.

Training in Bromont

2010-07-03T19:27:00.001-06:00

The last couple of days on the track have been quite nice. We've had nice hot and sunny days with just a little rain delay on Thursday.

Th bromont track is in pretty rough shape at the moment. Pretty much the bottom couple of feet of the track are the only parts recommended for riding. Some volunteers have replaced the bottom 10-12 inches of the track with new wood and this part is quite nice. I found it a little odd that they didn't go just a few inches higher to get the black line replaced, but I am guessing that this was a conscious decision since it is probably a lot of work to measure out and paint the black line.

Tomorrow is a rest day when I plan to catch up on schol work a little...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

life with cats...

2010-06-28T08:09:00.000-06:00

I have come to the conclusion that Brian could never live with cats... Quite regularly I will go looking for a small bike part, stack of papers, or pretty much any small item one could think of only to find that it is no longer where I left it. Our cats seem to enjoy playing with random items and dragging them around the house... This morning I stepped on a single brake pad that one of the cats dragged up the stairs to play with. I don’t like my hopes of finding its mate...

Calgary drivers have faith...

2010-06-21T17:45:00.000-06:00

I came to the conclusion as I was driving around today that Calgary drivers must have a lot of faith... There were at least 4 times while I was driving around when drivers in front of me changed lanes in front of me without even looking in their mirrors or shoulder checking. In most cases, had I not slammed on my brakes, I would have slammed into their car. Thus, I have deduced that these drivers must make lane changes based purely on their faith that they aren't going to run into another car since they clearly aren't checking first...

Enumclaw stage race

2010-05-22T14:06:00.003-06:00

Just finished the time trial (10k and change) and I was very disappointed again. My time will probably be about 1:30 off of the leader, similar to walla walla and cherry blossom. I don't seen to be nearly as good at time trials as I used to be. There is still a little part of me that is holding out hpe that it has to do with mt position on my tt bike. It has felt off all year and I have been holding off putting any time into setting up the position properly while waiting for my new tt bike to come in. I took possession of the shiny new ride last night and houshang is going to set me up properly in aweek...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Enumclaw stage race

2010-05-22T14:06:00.002-06:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Enumclaw stage race

2010-05-22T14:06:00.001-06:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Enumclaw stage race

2010-05-22T14:06:00.000-06:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Fine dining on the ferry

2010-05-19T08:29:00.000-06:00

So, I am on the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, and I have to say that the ferry has one of the better breakfast buffets I have had. Cinnamon roll french toast, those funky looking dumpling-like things in the picture, fresh fruit with organic yogourt, smoked salmon... Since I had to leave Brian's house at 540 to catch the ferry, I had planned on eating on the ferry. I got out of my car and went up the stairs and saw a line and immediately rushed for a spot in it (if people are lining up, it must be something good.. Right?) I thought it was the line for the crappy cafeteria food that I had all of the other times I rode the ferry... Wow was I happy to see the buffet!

Last night I thought that I had lit 17.50 on fire when I made a reservation for the ferry. I made a reservation last night because the last time I went over, I was the 3rd last car to make it onto the ferry. A little too close for comfort. After paying the money, I was a little choked since you have to arrive at least 30 mins before the ferry leaves in order to claim your reservation. I was thinking that if one were to arrive that early, there would be no need for a reservation because you would be near the front of the line! Man was I wrong....Turns out it was a good idea as the ferry line was full long before I arrived. I would have had to wait for the next one today even though I was there at 620 for the 700 ferry!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Insult to injury...

2010-05-12T17:25:00.000-06:00

Not only was this guy dumb enough to get his car stuck in the hole on the other side of the curb... But he stopped feeding the meter and got a ticket to boot!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Snowing on the 5th of May

2010-05-05T08:47:00.000-06:00

Seriously, I was telling all of the folks that I met in washington and oregon that I had to go South to get early season racing in, but this is ridonculous!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Stage 2 cherry blossom

2010-04-24T17:44:00.000-06:00

Today was a really tough stage, quite possibly one of the hardest road races I have been in to date. There was pretty much no place t rest and catch your breath. The profile of the course resembles a jigsaw blade with over 7000 feet of climbing (maybe over 8000, I can't remember) in about 70 miles. The pace was fast right from the gun and the peloton shattered early. There was only a group of about 20 of us together after the first couple of laps, and then that completely blew apart on the final climb to the finish.

Talking to the hosts that we are staying with, they seem to think that we finished up around 12-15th (i finished the race with their son) and they said that there wasn't really anyone crossing the line in a group.

Should be interesting to see the reults!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Cherry Blossom Stage 1

2010-04-23T18:27:00.000-06:00

Today was a very odd race... I think it was something like 75 miles and the first few laps (4 total) were pretty slow and I think that I used my brakes more in that road race than in any other I have ridden to date.

There were a couple of hard pushes on the big climbs, but nothing that really split up the pack much. I think that the race finished almost completely together with just a couple of guys that got off the front early in the race. Since there was one member from the biggest teams, there were no concerted efforts to reel them back in...

Tomorrow is another road race, I think around 90 miles followed by crit and ITT on Sunday.

Fwd: Tour of Walla Walls 17 April 2010 YOUR UNOFFICIAL TIME

2010-04-17T15:09:00.001-06:00

20:13 would put me around 15th in the overall standings for last year's times. Again a little disappointing, but I didn't have the best warm-up due to poor time management prior to the race. It appears to be taking me a little longer than expected to get back into the swing of things. Like learning how to race all over again :P

Oh well, I just have to remember that this is my first race of the year...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <al@agrtech.us>
Date: Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 12:16 PM
Subject: Tour of Walla Walls 17 April 2010 YOUR UNOFFICIAL TIME
To: devon.smibert@gmail.com

Bib: 111 SMIBERT, Devon Time: 20:13.11

I iz pack filler...

2010-04-17T10:48:00.001-06:00

So, I finished 74 (I think) of 107 in the first road race of the Tour of Walla Walla yesterday. I didn't have high hopes going into the race as I have been sick since I got back from Cuba and wasn't really able to do any intensity for the last couple of weeks... But still... Bottom half! Ouch! I can't remember the last time that I finished bottom half in a race. A bit of a hit to the ego, but I hope to redeem myself a little in the ITT this morning (starting in 2.5 hours from now). I also made a bit of a bone head move early in the race. There is a tactic that PO Boily told me about where you shoot off of the front of the pack early in the race and then get caught relatively quickly so that nobody will chase you if you do the same thing later in the race... Well, it backfired bad when another guy came up and joined me and we ended up riding by ourselves for about 30km :P As coach EvDE likes to say... you only have one pack of matches per race and if you burn them all early in the race then you won't be there at the finish. I burned too many matches in the wind :P

walla walla day 1

2010-04-16T12:37:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was pretty much the 13 hour epic road trip I had expected (including gas and food stops). It was really nice to be welcomed by a very friendly host that was gracious enough to open up her home to me for the weekend. This is a really great thing that some of the races hosted by smaller communities seem to do. The race organizer contacts several members of the community and finds individuals that are willing to host athletes coming into town for the competition. This helps the race organizers to attract some of the bigger teams that are trying to stretch their budgets and helps out poor schmucks like me that are trying to stretch their own budget with limited funding from a team :P

I am really glad that I was able to come down the day before the first stage to give myself time to check in, clean my bike, and take my time to get ready for the race. This is my first solo race in close to 2 years now, so I have to say that I was a little bit wound up last night as I was trying to go to sleep. I guess that this is a good sign, it means that I am excited to get back into the game again J

I picked up my race package this morning and was quite surprised to get hit with a 30USD fee for one-day licenses to race in the US. I guess that this rule has been around for a long time, but it has never been tightly enforced. If an individual from just across the border was coming down to race, most organizers would simply ignore the rule in favour of helping attract more riders. I am going to have to figure out how to get this UCI license out of the CCA as there are a couple of races coming up where they will not offer 1-day licenses and I have already paid my registration... learn something new every day!

Cost savings vs. Hassle...

2010-04-15T12:44:00.001-06:00

So, while we were in Cuba for the training camp, I thought that going down there to an al inclusive resort was a brilliant idea to save money and get some good training in. The food at our hotel was terrible (helped me loose a few lbs :p) but the weather was great almost every day and it worked out to be a lot cheaper than staying in the southern US as we have done in the past.

After chatting with Brian and reflecting on the health issues that I have had in the last couple of weeks following the camp... I think that the monetary cost savings are outweighed by the loss of training that both of us have suffered due to some sort of bug that we both picked up down there (presumably from the food). Training in Tuscon and Florida were both a few hundred dollars more, but in both cases we were ready to resume training after a few days of rest at home... Perhaps a higher class resort may not have had the same issues, but I am a little reluctant to gamble with another few weeks of my health and corresponding training time.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

over training + travel stress = sickness

2010-04-12T14:58:00.000-06:00

So, while we were at the Cuba training camp, national coach Eric VDE kept on harping on about how we should be sure not to push ourselves too hard while we were there or we would get sick and end up having to take time off when we get home to recover... Well, that is kinda what happened to me. I was feeling good while I was there and really went for it thinking that I needed to make the most of the warm weather for training. This is a common mistake among athletes that is a little counter-intuitive for those looking into the sport from the outside, but I have taken a little comfort in the fact that even the pros tend to fall into the same trap from time to time. I have been reading an autobiography written by Bradley Wiggens called "In the pursuit of glory" where he talks a little bit about how he drove himself into the ground when he first went pro on the road. Great book, highly recommend it if you are looking for a good cycling book http://www.amazon.ca/gp/search/ref=pd_lpo_ix_dp_go_uk_ca_en_in.020the.020pursuit.020of.020glory.020wiggins_gl_book?keywords=in%20the%20pursuit%20of%20glory%20wiggins&tag=lpo%5Fixdpgoukcaenin.020the.020pursuit.020of.020glory.020wigginsgl%5Fbook-20&index=blended

BoosterJuice to pass a pee test?

2010-04-07T10:57:00.000-06:00

The stupidity of the massess never fails to amuse me. I was at TD Square waiting for the battery in my watch to be changed so I went to BoosterJuice to grab a smoothie while I waited. While waiting for my smoothie to be made, this guy (early 20's) goes up to the counter and says 'I hear you guys can make a drink to pass my pee test'... The girl behind the counter looks stunned and replies 'what?'... The idiot continues 'yeah, I have a drug test tomorrow and my buddy said you make a drink that will make me pass my pee test. I smoked some marijuana yesterday and I have a drug test this afternoon. What do you have that will make me pass the test?' The girl behind the counter giggles and grabs one of her coworkers that was making a turkey panini behind the counter... He replies 'we don't have anything that will guarantee you to pass a pee test, but the green matcha tea smoothie has a lot of anti-oxidants in it' The idiot says 'yeah, gimme one of those'...

Who needs TV when you can get great entertainment like that by mingling with the unwashed masses?

Fool's crown

2010-04-01T12:13:00.000-06:00

So, apparently I was the most gullible member of the team today as our fearless leader played an April Fool's day joke on the team. The picture below is the copy of the "proposed" new team kit for the year that was accompanied by a semi-plausible story about a clothing store owner that created the design for us... I drafted a very politically correct response to the various e-mails flying back and forth across the team and was given the 'fool's crown' for my efforts :P Shame on you Scott!

3 days into cuba training camp

2010-03-18T16:37:00.000-06:00

3 great days of training under my belt since arriving in Cuba on Tuesday. As indicated by some of the reviews that were posted on some travel sites, the hotel that we are staying at would definitely not be up to the standards of either my wife or Brian's, but it is great for cyclists on a budget! There is plenty of food, it is pretty healthy, and the poor taste and bland food helps to cut weight! The rooms are clean, we have A/C and we can drink the water out of the taps, so I am happy as a clam.

So far the weather has been great. We had a little bit of rain this morning, some cloud yesterday, but most of today and Tuesday were sunny and hot.

Some local riders latched onto the group pretty early and have been showing us the local routes and pushing the pace to see if they can crack a few canucks :P It is really interesting to see the gear that these guys have because apparently there isn't even a bike shop in varadero to buy any cycling stuff even if one has the money... Looks like most of the locals have been gifted cycling kits from Canadians and other riders that come down here for training camps. It is really interesting to see a guy riding tires that are shredded and patched on a carbon fibre frame and then the guy next to him is riding a full steel bike 10-speed (not the 10-speed in the sense that the cassette has 10 cogs, but 5 cogs on the rear... a true 10 speed!) with steel handlebars and no bar tape!

I think that my father would love it down here in Cuba. There are lots of old classic american cars that look like they have been pretty well maintained, the beer and cigarrettes are cheap, and people smoke everywhere! The people are friendly, the food is cheap, and the weather is beautiful year-round. I have to say that I like cuba a lot better than Mexico so far for everything except for the food (but it may be better at nicer hotels). Probably the crowning jewel of Cuba... no loud obnoxious Americans!

Internet runs around 8CAD/hour and is pretty slow, so posts are likely to be a little on the thin side while I am down here. Not to mention that the weather is so nice that I don't particularly feel like sitting inside on a computer during the day!

So far, this is definitely the best training camp I have been on yet and for the price, I think that this might be a good way to get onto more training camps while it is cold and snowy in the winter without upsetting my dear wife by being on the road all year long. I am thinking taht I could probably sell her on a couple of weeks/year at an all inclusive in Cuba or something comparable... :D

Travel preparations

2010-03-11T10:30:00.001-07:00

So, as I am starting to think about getting ready to travel to Cuba for the CCA Para-Cycling training camp on Monday, I thought that I would weigh my bike box to see whether I will be able to travel with it under the charter flight baggage restrictions. About 5 years ago I purchased this really nice hard case that can carry 2 bikes in it so that I could protect my gear and save money by cramming everything into one box. About 2 years later, all of the new baggage restrictions came into play and I was still able to put 2 frames with wheels into the box, but I had to strip cranks, pedals and seats out of the box and put them into my suitcase to meet the weight limits.

Going to Cuba, we are flying a charter flight run by SunWing and apparently we can have 2 bags at a max of 20kg each and one bike weighing a max of 20kg for a fee of 30$ each way. I threw my bike box onto a scale this morning with the padding that I would normally put into the case and it weighs 19kg... My bike weighs 7kg... so, at a cost of 12$/extra KG I could use this bike box for a mere 72$ each way.

Off to Bow cycle to get a cardboard box for free... Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones.

World championships moved again...

2010-03-02T15:12:00.001-07:00

So, I got a phone call from Larry last night letting me know that Columbia has bailed on organizing the para cycling world championships this year. The UCI really needs to get its act together. Last year spain bailed with only a few months notice and then this year the same story again!?!

So, road worlds will be in Quebec (I am really tired of going to that province) and track worlds are to be held in Nov or Dec at a location to be determined at a later date...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Contintental breakfast?

2010-03-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

How many times have you been to a hotel with a free "continental breakfast" that turned out to be some stale pastries with instant coffee? I am at The Matrix Hotel in Edmonton (thanks to my lovely wife's tip) and what you see is only half of the spread included in the free breakfast. The service, the rooms, and the location are fantastic and if you use expedia to book, you will get a discounted rate. Www.matrixedmonton.com

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Last day of the camp

2010-02-23T16:13:00.001-07:00

The photo above is actually from yesterday when we rode out to Saguaro national park where we had a photo shoot with canadian cyclist and Louis Garneau. Apparently, Louis Garneau is going to be putting photos of national team athletes in a bunch of magazines this year...

The photo shoot ended up breaking up the ride and most riders stopped for a coffee and then went back to the hotel. Something that I learned last year is that training camps can be great for augmenting one's training, however discipline is required to avoid common trapping that could throw off your training. Earlier this week, we were climbing to the top of Mt. Lemmon and at one point the group started to ride itlike a race. During a training camp like this, it is important to ride the pace that you need to ride even when other are going faster or slower than you need to go.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Tan lines..

2010-02-19T18:14:00.000-07:00

So, after seeing this guy (Spencer Smitheman) my dear wife should never complain about my tan lines again! She once threatened to hold me down and rub fake tanner on me to get rid of the tan lines.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

recovery ride before the climb

2010-02-17T19:11:00.001-07:00

Today was a pretty easy recovery ride, just over 2 hours on pretty flat terrain. My legs were still a little fatigued from the 5+ hours yesterday, so the rest was welcome.

Tonight we are having some sort of a photo shoot for all CCA athletes that are at the camp. This means that the CCA will stop using that terrible photo that they took of me almost 4 years ago! I am pretty excited about that because I really hate the photo that they have been posting on web sites and using for accreditation at events...

Staying at the new place that is closer to the CCA hotel has really made a difference in allowing me to rest and recover after training. Today I was finally able to get in for a much needed massage. My shoulders and legs were a total mess from going the first 10 days of training without any massage.

new accommodations and a great ride...

2010-02-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

No pictures today as I don't have internet access at the new place I am staying at (I am actually borrowing someone's computer to make this post). I finally bit the bullet and paid for a place in Tucson that is pretty close to the hotel where the CCA is staying to avoid the 50 min commute each way from Green Valley. The chateau McD was awesome while I was riding on my own (why didn't I come down here sooner!) but all of my stretching, recovery, and other things that I should have been doing were suffering due to the commute.

Yesterday I missed the group ride since I was moving my stuff over to the new place, but I did a pretty solid 3.5 hour ride up Mt Lemmon. It is a pretty famous climb among cyclists in North America as it is close to Tucson and it is a pretty steady climb for 25 miles!

Today was a pretty solid ride as well as we clocked just over 5 hours and something like 145km. Between the two rides I burned 6500 calories :) I am hoping that this training camp is going to help me in my efforts to lose some weight and get a little more competitive in the 2010 season.

First IST Session of the camp

2010-02-12T21:00:00.001-07:00

As the limits of athletes are continually being pushed farther and performance differences on the podium are often in the fractions of percentage points, the role of sport specialists is becoming more pronounced at the elite level every year. As part of the support provided by the Canadian Cycling Association on this camp, several sport specialists have been invited to share their expertise with the team on topics ranging from nutrition to recovery strategies. Today was the first IST session with recovery specialist (and former Speed Skating Olympian) Susan Massitti (Far right in photo)

T he first topic being covered off was contrasting baths. I am guessing that most people are aware of the concept of applying cold to injuries, however this technique is supposed to help with flushing out all of the bad stuff that builds up in your muscles during intense exercise.

The first ones to jump into the garbage cans filled with ice and water were these brave ladies. Bravo! Unfortunately, my swim trunks were a 45 minute drive away so I was unable to participate... darn!

Here is where the contrast comes in... into the hot tub, before hitting the ice bucket again!

Chillin' at the summit

2010-02-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

Here with a few of the others in the lead group chatting, eating and drinking before heading down. It was waaaay warmer than at the observatory yesterday.

The time passed a lot faster on the ride today since I wasn't out all alone. The 45 minute drive each way will get tiresome very quick though...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

First ride with the cca camp

2010-02-12T14:59:00.001-07:00

Once we hit the base of Mt. Lemmon, we split into three groups and the first couple of groups went up 14 miles and then turned around. I stayed with the first group, but the extra 15 pounds around my waist were very apparent as we were climbing. Total ride time was 3 hours 20 minutes. Tonight we have a specialist that is going to talk to us about recovery techniques.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

I heart mountains....

2010-02-11T19:34:00.001-07:00

I felt a little like I did at the summit of kilimanjaro today as I wanted to sit down and enjoy the view... But I didn't bring enough warm clothes to do so...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

But what a view!

2010-02-11T19:32:00.001-07:00

The view during the climb was quite spectacular. On the way down I was a little more focused on keeping the shiny side up as I watched for sand and ice of the road...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Yes... That is snow

2010-02-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

So, it is amazing how many of the little things one can forget after riding in a basement for several months... Like bringing a warm jacket to put on for the ride down the mountain while you are all wet and sweaty from the climb up...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Ride pic 2

2010-02-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

About 75km and 5000ft of elevation gain later.... There is the litttle white bump again!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Ride pic 1

2010-02-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today was a real bag drive of a ride. In this photo, I am already 15km into the ride and headed to the observatory on the mountain behind the one centred in the foreground of this photo. There is a small white bump in the distance and that is where I am headed...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

View from mid point

2010-02-09T13:14:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was 72.5 km, almost as long as the day before, but less climbing. Headed to the SW towards Arivanca Lake and met a very friendly bunch from the border patrol. The border patrol has quite an imposing presence near green valley. I see at least a dozen patrol vehicles each time I head out.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

First ride outdoors of 2010!

2010-02-08T08:53:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the first time out on the road for me in 2010. It felt great to be out on the road rather than fixed to a stationary trainer in my dark home theatre room. The day started off as quite cold and wet with some hail in the early afternoon. I chose to stay inside and relax for the first part of the day. Thanks to the wonders of the hour-by-hour forecast, I was pretty confident that things would clear up and I could have a nice ride just before sunset and I was right!

You can see in the photo that I took of myself that my phone is not easy to take photos of yourself with... have to hit the middle of the touch screen, which is not easy while riding! (see shadow in background)

test photo upload

2010-02-07T14:22:00.001-07:00

Testing a feature for uploading photos since my last post didn’t work...

Cold and rainy in Tucson

2010-02-07T13:53:00.001-07:00

So, I landed in Tucson last night for the start of my 2 weeks down here, first on my own and then as part of a Canadian Cycling Association training camp. Thanks to the McD family, I have a great 3 bedroom condo with a car to stay in!

The plan was to come down here to get away from the cold and get some serious base miles in. I went shopping this morning while it was cold and raining hoping to wait out the rain before riding. Came back, started putting the bike together and it started hailing! I am happy to see that I am nearly 20C warmer than Calgary, but shouldn’t it be a little warmer here than in Victoria!?!

Rain is supposed to break at 4 and then I’ll hit the road...

Devon's Fire Sale!

2010-02-05T11:22:00.001-07:00

In an attempt to make some room in the house and to fund by 2010 cycling season, I am clearing out some of my older gear. For anyone that is interested, please e-mail me and I will combine items and discount (ie, if you want the TT frame with SRM and carbone wheels...)

SRM Power meter dura ace pro 175mm cranks PCV (wired) – $1500 (Used, but like new condition)

Zipp 808 tubular USED (incl tire) - $650

Zipp 808 tubular NEW (incl tire) - $850

2005 Giant TCR Composite Time Trial bike (Large Frame 58cm) $1500 (paid 6k with wheels 3 years ago)

(no wheels, but could include wheels for $)

all DA components (less cranks),

ceramic pulleys and BB

same frame as http://www.honedesign.com/sites/giant/magentareign/tcr_composite_tt.html

minor scratches from travel, never crashed

nokon cable housing

Giant TCR advanced road bike (Large frame 55.5 compact frame like 58cm) $2500 (MSRP frame only, no components over 3000usd)

(no wheels, but could include wheels for $)

Full DA components (less cranks)

Ceramic pulleys and BB

Frame is brand new from warranty only a few hundred KM on the frame

nokon cable housing

Guru 60cm track bike w/Miche chain rings $600

(no wheels, but could include wheels for $)

Zipp 202 rear only ~300km on wheel shimano hub - $650 (MSRP over $1100)

Mavic cosmic carbone wheel set USED $1000

Zipp Vuka aero bars new in the box - $850 (MSRP 1200USD)

Blog resurrection!

2010-02-02T14:01:00.001-07:00

So... as my lovely wife as pointed out, this will be my third attempt at maintaining a blog. All of you who know me personally, know that I am not terribly good at keeping in touch with friends and family, but everyone keeps asking what is going on with my racing so... third time’s the charm, right?

Who knows... maybe now that I have a shiny Palm Pre to post things easier this one might work. Only time will tell!

Time to put in some quality time with my stationary trainer!

Home time

2006-09-18T12:19:00.000-06:00

Well, considering that I wasn’t sure that I even wanted to start the race, 8^th isn’t bad. PO and Steph came out of nowhere at the final stretch and pulled off a second place for Canada. Part of me was a little disappointed that we didn’t beat them in all of the events, but it was good to see Canadians on the podium. Also, I have to say that they made the exact move that I told myself that I was going to do on the first lap, but I played it safe. I have led out the pack sprint one too many times and didn’t want to get burned again. Fortune favors the bold.

I still feel like I want to curl up in a hole and die, but I think that I am going to kill off some of the evil flowing in my system with some cheap Aigle wine :)

Everyone is taking off to head back up the mountain for the last time so I need to sign off. But first, I have to say that I think that being a few pounds lighter and having more experience together riding, Brian and I will be a force to be reckoned with next year and then the next in Beijing. He is truly an amazing athlete keeping up with a lot of guys my age when he is the same age as my father! 10 Ironmans, 3 paralympic games… next year will be good.

Home time...

2006-09-18T12:17:00.000-06:00

I still feel like I want to curl up in a hole and die, but I think that I am going to kill off some of the evil flowing in my system with some cheap Aigle wine :)

let the suffering begin!

2006-09-18T05:02:00.000-06:00

Well, I am officially very sick. I am losing more fluid through my nose than I can bring in through my mouth, I have a fever, and I am coughing a lot still. Should be an interesting race today.

Goal for the day, beat the other Canadians for a 5 event sweep. I am not sure that we have a great shot at this since this is the only event that Steph and PO really care about and usually do quite well in, but what the heck.

Shoot me now and put me out of my misery...

2006-09-16T09:26:00.000-06:00

Well, the time trial (also known as both mine and Brian’s strongest event) was a total flop. I will take this one on my shoulders. I have been hacking and coughing for the last couple of days and despite my efforts to take in vitamin C and get lots of rest I think that it played a large role in today’s 10^th of 39 result. Although 10^th is a respectable result (the best since 98 I think) I know that we could have made the podium. The program that was laid out by our coach was a perfect taper for this event, my legs felt amazing today! I had lots of power and spring in my step, but my lungs really held me back. After finishing the race, I thought that it went well because my lungs were burning and I felt like I was going to throw up (if you feel like you had something left at the end then you didn’t go hard enough). However, once we spun out for a couple more minutes and got off of the bike, I knew that something was wrong. My legs still felt fresh. Throughout the race, I felt like we should be going faster, but my heart rate was pinned around 192 beats per minute for nearly the whole race (this is pretty typical for me in a short time trial such as this one).

So, I think that I am going to drown my sorrows in vitamin C, cry myself to sleep tonight, and hope that I feel better for the road race.

For those who are curious, we were still the top Canadian team in the race… but not by as much as it should have been (Steph and PO were 12^th and Gene and Craig were 17^th)

Sprinting is not my bag baby...

2006-09-13T06:16:00.000-06:00

Got beat out in the pursuit finals last night for various reasons. The primary one being lack of experience. I know that we are stronger and that we will school them next year :)

So, today was supposed to be a day of recovery riding with some strong efforts, but the other two Canadian tandem teams decided to make a late entry into the 200m sprint. We had no intentions of doing the sprint because neither Brian or I like sprints and we are both quite horrible at them. Not to mention the fact that we had never done one together before. But, we couldn’t let the other teams do one and not see how we measure up against them so we borrowed some sprint bars and entered the race :)

Now, one of the hardest parts of the 200m sprint is holding the bike steady while going well over 60km/h through the corners and then sitting down at some point to finish the ride. Normally, the riders will start up on the rail of the track and then dive down to the bottom of the track to use gravity to accelerate the bike. Both riders will also stand up and push as hard as they can for about the first half of the sprint and then sit down together. Now, Brian and I had never done one of these together before, and we got a pretty fast lap in our kilo while sitting down so we thought that we would try a slightly different strategy. Instead of dive bombing down just before the start of the first lap and then struggling to maintain control of the bike, Brian suggested that we dive down a half-lap early and just accelerate through the corner. We were the ONLY team that did this, but it still scored us a 10th place finish and the top Canadian spot :P

New Canadian record - shot at Bronze medal

2006-09-12T05:30:00.000-06:00

Final time – 4:34 something for third place in qualification. New Canadian record and a shot at a Bronze medal. Brian told me that no one has gotten a medal at world championships since 98 or something like that. I think that we have a pretty good chance since we had to pass the other team twice in our pursuit and we were up on the next guys by almost a full second.

Finals are this evening at 7:15 local time which equates to around noon in Calgary time. I will keep this post short as my battery is about to die, more info to follow … after the final!

2006-09-12T01:22:00.000-06:00

So, today was a rollercoaster of emotions. Before the race, I almost felt physically ill while waiting for the race to come (we were up at 630 when some wankers from Columbia were yapping in the hallways) for over 10 hours! Once we were on the start line, I was feeling pretty good. Then during the race I felt like we lost the race in the first lap. I felt like the start was really bad because we were a little slow to get going and then once we got into the race I was convinced that we were going to be bottom half. My legs felt like they were rubber in the second lap, I wasn’t holding the bike down on the black line, and I felt a piano drop behind me in the 4^th lap. Then, I was elated to find out that we beat the other Canadian team by 4/10ths of a second and were sitting in 6^th place!

Gotta run, but to make a long story short, the last Canadian team crashed and then didn’t beat us in their last run. We finished 7^th in the event that we think is our weakest event.

Boo yeah, can’t wait for the pursuit tomorrow!

2006-09-09T11:26:00.000-06:00

Today we didn’t have time booked on the track until 5pm so the team went on a bit of a day trip. First we went to the “Chateau d’Aigle” for a little bit of history and culture in the day (before we went into town for the eating and shopping). It was actually quite interesting to see how it was all laid out and to see how the use of the building evolved with time. There was one room that was used for a prison at one point back around the 13^th century that went though quite a few renovations over the years. When I first went into the room, I was wondering why there were parts of the walls that were plastered over and other parts where there was a lot of graffiti. After reading the signs that were around the room, I realized that there were multiple centuries of layers of graffiti that were revealed in different parts of the room. The oldest layers of graffiti were written in blood from prisoners close to the turn of the millennium and then the newer writings were more along the lines of poetry and artwork. There was also a torture room at the top of one of the towers, but I didn’t get a whole lot of time to look around in there. Apparently there were shackles hanging from the ceiling and I noticed that the floor was covered with some sort of carpet-like material. I think that it was there to cover up many years of dried blood :) Then the rest of the Chateau was mostly for wine making, entertaining and sleeping quarters.

Our times on the track were a little disappointing today, but there were a few contributing factors that slowed us down a fair bit. On a race day, we wouldn’t have even thought about walking around on our legs all day and we would have paid a lot more attention to our nutrition. It wasn’t until we got off of the track that I realized I hadn’t eaten a meal in over 9 hours with only a couple of granola bars and cookies in between. Not a good formula for success. Although, when I say disappointing, I mean that we would have been around the right time to tie the Canadian record. We want to beat it.

OK, I got Brian’s camera hooked up and here are the photos from the last little while.

Here is a picture looking out from just outside of our window... The camera can't capture it fully. plus this picture was taken on a day when the visibility wasn't as great as other days. When I make my millions and I don't need to work anymore, I will definitely retire in a little mountain town :)

One of the other athletes asked me today what my favourite part of the trip was so far and I didn't give an entirely honest answer :P This morning I got my bag full of national team kit so I would say that my favourite part of the trip thus far was throwing on the maple leaf in a foreign country representing Canada. What can I say? I am a bit of a fanatical patriot at heart.

Then, up top is a shot of our speed machine kitted out with the national team front disc wheel. Apparently, there are only a few wheels that most tandem riders will trust on the track. Brian said that he saw a Mavic Io crumple during a match sprint in Athens... ouch! Not only would that have been a front wheel exploding at over 60km/h, but those things run close to 3000US!

2006-09-08T08:12:00.000-06:00

I have to say that I am getting more and more excited for these races with the passing of every day. I had some apprehensions about both the new track and the time trial course at first, but the more that I ride both of them, the more confident I get. When we first drove the time trial course, I actually started to feel physically sick at the thought of riding what looked like a winding bike path at 50-60km/h. Then I really started to worry when I saw horses and tractors in amongst the cornfields that we were riding right through the middle of. All of this was preceded by a hairpin turn about 500m into the course and then an uphill hairpin turn another couple of km in! Remember, we are doing this course on tandems! Everyone was in agreement that it was probably the coach’s sick idea of a joke. Once we got out there and rode it a few times, I started to warm up to the course, and once we took a few of the corners at speed I was almost starting to like it. Although it is a pretty technical course, a lot of the corners seemed worse than they really are because it is literally the width of a bike pathway and all of the corners are blind corners. However, the course only goes in one direction, so it will only be a little sketchy when we pass people on the course.

As far as the track is concerned, I am in love! The corners are far smoother, the track surface is rock solid, and most importantly our times are way faster! For those of you who know a thing or two about track times, by the end of our track workout we were holding 12.8 second laps (200m track) steady during our flying kilos at close to pursuit pace. I think that we might have been going a little harder than a pursuit effort, but at the same time, it was at the end of our workout… I guess that we will see on race day. If anyone is interested, the Canadian tandem pursuit record was set in Sydney by Brian (that is the name of my stoker. “Mixmasta Cy” was giving me a hard time about not including any names. I was doing this because I am a little paranoid about throwing information about other people on the web, but I guess that it wouldn’t be too hard to find with a quick google search on our results) and Min … something or other… and the time to beat is 4:35. I think that we have a chance to beat the Canadian record this year, but I guarantee that we will have the record between now and Beijing.

No pictures for a while...

2006-09-07T03:44:00.000-06:00

We are now well into day two in Switzerland and everyone is adjusting to the 8 hour time shift (except the Quebeccers that only have a 5 hour time difference). We are staying in a Swiss ski school half way up the side of a mountain at about 1200m elevation (900m above where we will be racing). The view is absolutely breathtaking! Now, you are probably asking “if the view is so great, then why didn’t you post any pictures?” Well, my camera crapped out on me two days before leaving for Switzerland and I didn’t get the extended warranty on it so I am going to have to send it away for a couple of months to get repaired when I get home :( Since we are halfway up the side of the mountain, we have a really intense drive to and from town every day up and down this windy, narrow, mountain road. At many points it narrows down so that there is only room for one car and the places where there is room for two are so tight that the rock faces and retaining walls are covered in scrapes from people cutting just a little too close.

Although the view is breathtaking and the road is fun to come in and out of, we are 4 to a room in smaller rooms than army barracks and everything is continually damp… But, the cold dampness aside, I think that this would be a wonderful place to live. Down in the valley is the town of Aigle, the home of the world cycling centre and UCI headquarters. Also known as the holy grail of cycling. The track is in pristine condition, smooth transitions into the corners, and the fear of falling through one of the unsupported boards in the corners is blissfully absent from your mind while riding! Just to give a little idea as to how much of a difference a good track can make to the times, consider the following. When my stoker was getting ready to go to Athens, the best times that he and his partner could muster at the time in Burnaby were around 5:05 for the 4km pursuit. When they raced in Athens, they pulled off a 4:35! 40 seconds could easily be the spread between first and last place in a single track race. Luckily this track is indoors, so we won’t have opposing winds to affect race times so the strongest team will be the winner.

If there is one thing that I hate, it is to be beaten (or win) in a time trial (or other individual event) on a day where the wind conditions changed drastically from the starting rider to the finishing rider. If I win, then I can’t know for sure that it was just because of favorable winds and if I lose, I wonder whether I could have won if the winds had been equal.

So, the numbers are split down the middle between Anglophone and Francophone on the trip and from the moment that we arrived in the airport, the Francophone crowd chose to stand on the other side of the airport from the Anglophones (we arrived an hour earlier and sat down at some tables while waiting). I’d like to think that it is because of the language barrier since some of them seem to warm up to those who speak French, but nearly all of them speak English quite well. Over the last year, I have become quite fascinated with the attitude of the Quebecois towards the rest of Canada. Between work, cycling, and my time in the military, I think that I have seen a pretty good cross section of Quebeccers… Dangerous territory, perhaps I will save this one for another day when I have time to give careful consideration to my words so as not to horribly offend anyone :P

I hate airlines...

2006-09-05T07:55:00.000-06:00

Well, I knew that it was coming, but there is always that little glimmer of hope that the airline won't try to feed it to you up the hoop for transporting your bike on the way to a race. The most depressing part of it all is that sometimes it costs nothing, and other times they want hundreds of dollars. When I went to Chile, they didn't charge us a penny on the way down and then only 75 bucks on the way back. When I went o Brazil, I got charged 150 on the way down and then 350US on the way home. Today, we got charged 175/bike, which seemed like a deal since we talked them down from 350/bike.

But, I should go back to the beginning. We arrived at the airport 3 hours before our departure in anticipation of troubles with the airline. When we got to the front of the check-in line, we had a very friendly and helpful agent. She was going to only charge us a 60 dollar flat rate per bike and she offered us an opportunity to take a later flight (because they oversold our flight) and we could get either 400 euros in travel vouchers or 300 euros in cash! It was too good to be true! Then, reality came back to kick us in the groin when we were told that we couldn't go on the other flight because of our bikes (the other flight had too much cargo or something like that) and the manager of the lady who was trying to help us out came down on her hard and came to tell us that he was going to charge us 350/bike. Then, when I asked him to explain the pricing to me, he tried to brush me off (bad mistake...) but I persisted. He stormed off to some back room and then came back to tell us that we could bring the bikes for a mere 175 dollars a piece... I can't wait to see how much they ask for when we come back. My stoker said that they tried to charge him over 600 euros for his bike one time!

So, then we get to the airport and one of the pieces of luggage didn't arrive. So, we had to wait for the other pilot to fill out the forms for a lost bag etc and went out to the waiting area expecting to see our ride waiting for us. Turns out that even though we got to the waiting area an hour late, our ride still wasn't there to pick us up. I won't go into details, but the transport was supposed to be arranged 2 days before we got there and I am just about to get into the van now that is now 3 hours late... I really need to sleep.

Check out the view!

2006-09-02T01:32:00.000-06:00

Today was our last day of the training camp on the track and both my stoker and I were exhausted. We still managed to push out better times that the other team (because we couldn't stand the thought of them getting faster times even if it is just a training camp :P) but by the end of the workout we were both ready to have an afternoon nap. But, instead we had to come back and go for an hour and a half recovery ride to get the lactic acid out of our legs. Although it is a little counter-intuitive, sometimes the best way to recover is to work just a little more. If you just sit around after a hard workout, then there is still a lot of lactic acid lingering around in your muscles that will make you feel sore and stiff the next day. Getting out and doing some light activity stimulates blood flow and flushes the lactic acid out of your muscles and helps your body to start repairing the damage from the previous hard work outs.

Tonight we went to a birthday dinner for my stoker's brother-in-law and DAMN is he a good cook! I find these types of functions to be one of those love-hate relationships. I love eating all of the wonderful food, learning about some new dishes, meeting some new people. But I hate the inevitable overeating and sore belly that ensues. Ahh well, I guess that it isn't so bad when I am getting around 4 hours of training in every day. I love these training camps because it is actually a lot of work to make sure that you eat enough :) If you do the math, a medium workout will burn an average of 1000 calories per hour. That means that when you add on the rest of a normal inactive day, that you need to take in nearly 6000 calories a day just to maintain the same weight. Do you have any idea how much food that is? That is like eating 12 quarter pounders with cheese :P That's right, 3 pounds of beef, 12 slices of cheese and 12 buns!

On that note, I will leave you with the wonderful view from the house that we had dinner at this evening. They have a really cool little patio right on the top of their house that gets this wonderful view. Kinda gets me thinking about what kind of add-on I could put on my house to get an awesome downtown/mountain/COP view... Could get expensive, but would be so worth it!

Quote of the day...

2006-08-31T23:35:00.000-06:00

Originally I was having some second thoughts about taking the extra week to be able to participate in this training camp because a lot was happening at work this week. Today proved that I had nothing to worry about and that all of this training is going to pay off big. Things looked a little bleak from hearing what was going on in the office in the first couple of days, but my team pulled together and sorted out the problems that cropped up before the week was through. I should’ve known from the beginning that they would have no problems. As for the training camp, we have seen some incredible gains in a very short period of time. Although the individual skills of a tandem team are very important, putting two strong riders together will not always make a strong team. The team must learn to work together, anticipate the other’s movements, and most of all to trust each other (especially the stoker on the back!).

We have put a lot of time into honing some of the more technical aspects of track racing, such as maintaining a straight and steady line at high speed and doing a standing start. There are two types of starts, a standing start and a flying start. For the standing start, a person (usually a larger individual) stands behind the rider and holds onto his seat or frame and then the rider must start the race without any initial speed. This may not sound overly difficult at first, however you must remember that in track cycling the bike only has one gear and it runs on a fixed up. This means that the rider has to accelerate from 0 to around 55km/h in the same gear!

So, I finally got an itinerary of what the trip to Switzerland is going to look like. Apparently we have almost a week of acclimatization and training where we will be able to ride the track and ride the time trial and road race courses. The time trial course is apparently quite technical and short, neither of which are good for me. I tend to excel in the races where a really high, sustained effort is required because I am good at shutting out the pain and just driving forward. This course will have multiple turns and we will likely end up doing it 3 times meaning several turnarounds in addition to all of the turns on the course. To add to the excitement, they predict that the roads will be muddy and slippery because the locals are in harvest season right now… great. I am going to be playing the clip of Bobby Julich’s Tour de France ending time trial in my head :(

Finally, my quote of the day goes to our coach for the training camp (the guy on the motor bike) “You know what they say… Small headlights Big penis!”

2006-08-30T23:47:00.000-06:00

Another successful day at the track. My stoker and I were consistently pushing lap times that would give us a track record at the Burnaby track and possibly put us in the range to get a medal at world championships. Track cycling is very different from road cycling in that there are several events (like in track and field) each lasting from as short as 10-12 seconds to a maximum of around 5 minutes (for individual events). The level of effort and the amount of power required to do this type of event is much greater than in road cycling as you have to accelerate the bike from 0 to upwards of 60km/h (for the kilometer race) and try to figure out how hard you can push for the short distance without your body shutting down on you. The joke that is used a lot at the track is that at the end of a pursuit (4000m for elite men) is that if a person did not pace their race properly it is as if they have a boat anchor that falls out in the last kilometer because they just simply cannot maintain the speeds that they started at. The timing and efforts are so precise that going a couple tenths of a second faster in the early laps can cost 1-2 seconds in later laps (keep in mind that a lap in the pursuit on a 200m track should be around 14 seconds). Although 1-2 seconds doesn’t sound like a lot, track cycling is similar to events like the 100m sprint where the event can be decided in the thousandths of a second. At track provincial championships a couple of weeks ago, I ended up being tied down to the thousandth of a second for first place and had to do another race for first place.

It was also a really good day for us because we solved a lot of mechanical problems. If you read my post yesterday, you would know that I said that tandems have a lot of mechanical problems. As of the start of riding the other day, we had a broken crank, two creaky bottom brackets, a stripped bolt holding the crank on that prevented us from fixing the creaky bottom bracket in the rear, a stripped bolt on the stem holding my stoker’s handlebars on and a couple of other little things as well. By the end of today, all we need to do is pick up a couple of new bottom brackets (turned out they were toast) and put it all back together again.

Everyone has been telling me that the track in Burnaby is probably one of the hardest tracks in the world to ride and that all of our times will definitely be faster in Aigle, Switzerland. Below is a link to the website for the world cycling centre, home of the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) where they actually have a 360 view of the track that we will be riding.

http://www.cmc-aigle.ch/En/

I haven’t managed to find a site where our results with be posted, but I should be able to get that from our coach another day. I found out that there will be 41 tandem teams from around the world competing at this world championships. To give you an idea of the level of cycling, there are probably about a quarter that will be dropped from the peloton early in the race, about a half dozen that will be strong enough to break away and give most top non-disabled riders a good run for their money. We will need to get in the upper third of results in order to keep a spot on the national team next year and we hope to get top 5 or even a medal in the time trial. While in Aigle, we will compete in the one kilometer (the kilo), the pursuit (four kilometers) and a 200m sprint for track events and then a 24km time trial and a 105km road race. Should be fun!

2006-08-30T01:57:00.000-06:00

So, after much coaxing from friends, family, coworkers, and the love of my life I have finally started a blog! There have been many reasons that I avoided this for a long time, namely time, but I am also not a big fan of publishing anything without putting a lot of thought and time into editing what I write. But, what the heck, I am just going to blurt out the first things that come to mind about what is happening in my racing and other things on my path to Beijing.

I am currently in Burnaby, BC taking part in a small trianing camp with two of the other three tandem cycling pairs on the Canadian Paralympic national team staying with my stoker (this is what the person in the rear of a tandem team is called). So far we have had a couple of long rides on the road, two sessions on the indoor Burnaby track, and two "Coffee rides". For those of you who are not familiar with the sport of cycling, one of the most critical parts of training is to get a large volume of kilometers on the bike so that your body builds up a resistance to the long hours in the saddle. So a long ride will usually be at least 3-4 hours and be up to 6-8 hours long. Yes, even after riding for many years, it really hurts your rear end.

For those not familiar with the difference between road cycling and track cycling; tracks for bicycles are either constructed of concrete or wood and can be indoors or outdoors. The distances can vary from around 400m around (like the track in Calgary) to around 200m (like the one in Burnaby). Similar to stock car racing, the shape is usually an oval and the corners have a very steep bank, the shorter the track is, the steeper the bank. The 200m track in Burnaby is apparently around 49 degrees, which means that one has to be going at least around 30km/h to avoid sliding off!

The picture that you see is a picture of the inside of the velodrome. Those of you that are familiar with the volleydome will recognize the resemblance to the "volleydome" in Calgary. Apparently, the BC cycling association ran out of money to maintain the velodrome, so they sold it to the BC volleyball association and now rent the track time back from the Volleyball association (hence the volleyball nets and courts in the middle).

As for the cycling tradition of the "coffee ride", this simply refers to a training ride where one only brings along the tools needed to repair a flat tire and a couple of bucks to pick up a pastry and a coffee at the half way point of the ride.

Now, you may be asking, if I am only riding for around 4-5 hours a day, what am I doing with the rest of my time? Well, I am quickly discovering that tandem bikes have twice the number of mechanical problems as a single bike. The main problem is that many of the parts are custom for a tandem bike so they are either unconventional, or hard to find. The other major problem is that the remainder of the parts are ones that are made for a single bike and therefore not build to withstand the additional stresses and strains of two people riding the tandem… so they break twice as often. So we have been spending at least an hour or two every day trying to fix various bits and pieces.

The rest of the time? Eating, sleeping, and the occasional hours of work (the laptop is a mixed blessing. The up side is that I can work on the road… but, the down side… is that I can work on the road :P)

That is enough for one day.