Monday, February 13, 2012

Canadian Para-Cycling Nationals 2011

Every year I say I will update more often.....It doesn't happen so here is one from last season.


My first experience in Paracycling at the national level was an eye opener. There are some very good cyclists out there with varying disabilities and it was an honour to compete with them.

The time trial was a new experience. I looked at the course before I registered and I knew I was in for a hilly course. I opted not to bring my TT bike and figured I would fair better with my road bike and clip on aero bars. I knew I was going to have a different seat position for the TT as there are UCI standards with regards to seat/bottom bracket measurements but I did not know about aero bar standards. Lesson number 1 was learning that the aero bars had to be lower than the saddle. When I arrived at the TT area, the CCA referees were available to do a bike check. My saddle was within the rules but my aero bars were quite far above the saddle level. They are the hockey stick bend type and stuck up at least 3 inches beyond the legal limit. Thankfully I had almost 2 hours before I was off so I tried flipping my stem and went back for another measurement. They were still about an inch above the legal limit. I was running out of time so I just yanked them off and did my warm up. I talked to Steve Burke, a coach out of Calgary, and he said with what I had, I should be about as aero as I could be in the drops versus the aero bars the way I had it set up anyway. I rolled up to the start line and found out I was going to have at least 20 minutes as they were behind. I could have used that time to work out the aero bar situation but I used it instead to warm up.

I felt good, I felt ready, I had an aero helmet, a disk, and an aero front wheel so I had all I needed minus the aero bars. They juggled the order and before I knew it I was off. They had a start house with a ramp. Something I had not used before but as a mountain biker, coming down a hill wasn’t a problem. Seconds before I started I realized I was in my small ring but it was too late. I hit the ramp, rubber met the road, and I was off. 10 meters from the ramp, a guy walked in front of me, looking up the road, and I screamed at him, “coming through, move, move”. He didn’t even flinch, just went about his business. I went past him and went about the task at hand.



After the start, it’s at least a 2km climb, stair stepping up between 2-4%. I saw my 1 minute guy and said, “That’s my carrot”. I hit a big bump in the road and felt the nose of my saddle tilt down. Since I was still climbing, it was not bad enough to distract me so I left it.



After the first climb, it was rolling downhill, not very steep but I managed to maintain a decent speed. I had to stop pedaling a couple of times to pull the front of the saddle up but each time I leaned forward to try and get more aero, it would tilt down again.. As I hit the first turn, I was concentrating on catching the next rider in front of me. Around half way to the next turn (it was a rectangle), I was passed by the guy that started a minute behind me. I tried to chase him down but on the rolling terrain, I was unable to maintain the same speed as him and he pulled away. I managed to catch and pass my minute guy just before the second turn. As soon as I made that turn, the course went up and seemed to go up for a long time.

I heard a disk wheel coming up behind me, nothing else that sounds like that. A Quebec rider went past me like I was standing still. I didn’t know him but he had all his limbs so I figured he was their one C5 rider, not in my category. The climb kicked up and my pace slowed down and the rider I had passed came around me. I upped my pace again and went to go around him but he seemed to speed up and I was unable to pass him on the climb. I didn’t want to get a drafting penalty so I backed off and settled in 5 meters behind, off to the side.

The saddle kept moving and seemed to be tilting down easier. I finally gave up on pulling it back to level. I wanted to up my cadence so I shifted from my big chain ring to the small on one of the steeper pitches and my chain locked up. I still had momentum so I was able to try and work the cranks but I quickly had to stop and unclick from the pedals and get my chain back on. When you’re in the middle of a race and you have stopped for a mechanical, time seems to go faster. I don’t know how much time I lost but at the end of the day/race, I don’t know that it would have moved me up to 3rd.



I got going again and up over the last part of the steepest section of the climb and spotted my carrot again. He was on a flat section and I upped my pace again to make the pass. With about 2 km to go, I went by and kept my speed high all the way through the finish line.

By the finish line, my saddle was pointing so far down I wasn’t able to sit on it. I heard the race announcer say my time, 28:55. I was pleased with it but knew I would have been faster without mechanicals but that’s racing. Anything can happen and well, to me, it did. No sense crying over spilled milk, I had another race to get ready for. The road race was two days away.

Road Race

The day after the TT I went out for a couple of laps on the road course and do some openers. The course was a rectangle like the TT course but flat for the most part. On the back straight it was a false flat but it was very slight.

On race day, I went out a couple of hours early and went for a few miles with some others from Team BC. We talked a little strategy since it was us three against the three from Quebec. No other provinces were represented. It was going to be tough. Two of the three QC riders were already on the national team and had done this dance before at World Cup events and the World Championships. We were supposed to get matching jersey’s for our BC riders but the jersey was too small for me so I was able to wear my Project London kit.

The race was started late because the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) hadn’t shown up yet. This seemed to be the way things were going with the event so far. I wondered if the elites and U23’s had issues the week before.

The tandems were off five minutes or so before us, then it was our turn to start our 72km. Right away, the pace was pretty high. One of my BC teammates was pushing the pace til he realized no one else was behind him then he slowed. About half way through the first lap, one of the QC riders tried a break but I think it was just a test to see the reaction. Each QC rider was sitting on one of us. If they saw no reaction, the rest would take off. This is how it went for about 20km.

Just before the start/finish line, the pace went up to the 27-28mph range. I tried to get on the last guy’s wheel but I wasn’t able to hold it and I got gapped. It wasn’t substantial at first but it was enough, into the headwind, that I slowly fell further behind. I waved the referee and neutral cars past me. When the neutral car got alongside, it was the CCA development coach, and he told me I would catch back on, so I tried to swing around behind him for a draft but he wasn’t having any of that, and I was again caught out in the wind.

We turned the corner and I could see them slowing. We rounded corner two, and I was sure I was going to get back on but luck was having a laugh that day and it was not meant to be. My steering felt kind of funny and I looked down to find a flat front tire. I got off, quickly removed the wheel and held it up (saw that on the Tour de France, I thought I was so pro) as the next set of riders, the men’s tandems, went by me. I didn’t even get a second look from their neutral support, they went flying by. The second group of tandems, the women’s field, went by and I got a shoulder shrug from their neutral support guy. Finally, at least 7 minutes after I had stopped, the C1-3 group went by and my old buddy, Steve Burke from Calgary went by as the neutral driver. He went by but realized it was me and he jammed on his brakes and reversed, ran out and got me a wheel. I looked at my watch and figured I was about 13 minutes down and I would get lapped within a short time and be pulled anyway, so I threw my bike in the back and got in the van.

Sure enough, after I was dropped at the start/finish, my group rolled through only a few minutes later. I felt lousy for my DNF but it was a learning experience. Yes, I could have taken the wheel and stayed out there, likely on my own for 53km but my reason for being there was to try and take home a win or at least podium and that wasn’t going to happen after my flat. I still have a lot to learn about bike racing. There are times when I think that if I had to swim before a bike race, I would do better (that’s the tri-geek in me). You can’t prevent mechanical problems and sometimes stuff just happens but I’m going to make sure I do all I can to ensure it happens less often or not at all in the future.

Thank you to Project London, Rubicon Orbea, Speedplay Pedals, Chamois Butt’r, First Endurance, 2XU, and Challenged Athletes Foundation, for helping me get to Toronto so I could compete at Nationals. Without you, this journey would be a whole lot tougher.

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