Road Riding Fun

The race season is in the horizon now. I’ve been able to stick to my training plan pretty well over the last few months and I can’t wait to see where I’ll be this year. The past few months I’ve been out on more than a few rides where I know people would smile, nod and back away slowly upon hearing what I decided would be a good time on the weekend.

Until about 2 years ago, I had been a pretty dedicated mountain biker, if you asked me 3 years ago if I’d would ever own a road bike, I probably would have thrown out a few choice words…but the overall message would have been “no”. I mean what could be so fun about:

- Riding on a (mostly) smooth road with a few hills thrown in
- Wearing spandex shorts and tight jerseys
- Shaving your legs
- Not having to dodge trees, jump over logs and clean technical sections

It’s now 3 years later and I love road riding. People ask me all the time where the fun in road biking is and why do we do it but I think I finally have an understanding. It’s really easy to knock something if you don’t try it first. Road biking is not for everyone, just like mountain biking isn’t for everyone. I do understand why people tend to stick to one or the other, but personally, I just love to ride and enjoy the variety. There are not many who race multiple disciplines, but I think competing in multiple disciplines really compliments the others without things getting too stale. I’m sure one day I’ll get to the point where I may start to favour one discipline over the others but right now I just want to go until I stop having fun.

This past weekend I had another ride which I would have to throw into the epic category now. The premise was simple. Ride out from Westhills to Bragg Creek and back on the highway with our ‘cross bikes. Estimated distance 90km, all highway road and one coffee stop. Andrew, Brent and I set out early in the moderately brisk, sunny morning and headed out to the west. Soon we were joined by Ryan and Greg with Bicisport and we got settled into a nice ‘relaxing’ paceline. I took a spot behind Ryan who is a Cat 2 racer with Bicisport and stayed on his wheel as he seemed to be going at a pretty relaxed pace and I usually ride near the front to avoid getting dropped. I checked my heart rate and it turns out that while he was pretty relaxed, I was pretty much redlined trying to keep up. After a quick stop for a few people to relieve themselves, Tom from my team rode by and joined up with our group, so we went from 3 to 6 riders in the span of about an hour. We regrouped and headed south on the 22x towards Bragg Creek for our ritual coffee stop where I finally realized that I might be involved in some sort of Bicisport recruiting campaign. As we were finishing up our break, the Calgary Cycle road contingent rolled in along with a few H&R and Bicisport guys. It was great to see so many familiar faces in a small coffee shop in Bragg Creek.

As we headed back towards Calgary, there were little specks of snow but we didn’t really think much about it. When we started heading north again it started to snow a little, it was pretty light and dry at first so we figured it wasn’t too bad so we kept riding. Then we went around a slight bend and into a full on snowstorm of wet heavy snow which of course was blowing in opposite direction we were headed. All of us were pretty much covered in snow as we continued to ride and could barely see 50m in front of us. Andrew was pacing really well on his heavy cross bike and that was good encouragement for me to keep pushing onward. As we turned west to head back to Calgary the snow started to clear up a little and just as soon as we were caught in a snowstorm, the clouds cleared and it was warm and sunny out. We had just experienced all 4 seasons in the span of 4 hours.

To me it’s these experiences which make road riding so interesting. The conversations are usually pretty good and most of the time people will help you reach past your self-imposed limits. I encourage everyone who has a road bike and is tired of riding alone to join a no-drop group ride and have a great experience riding a bike with others. I found that just by participating in rides and accepting invitations to ride that I’ve met a lot of new people and picked up a lot of new skills. A year ago 100km rides seemed impossible to me…now I’m doing 90-100km rides pretty regularly and rarely feel completely shattered when I get home. Having accomplished these long rides really early in the season has given me the confidence to want to do events like the Salty Dog 6 Hour Enduro, the Giver-8-er and the Bow 80 races. A few more years and maybe I’ll want to do events like the Breck Epic, BC Bike Race and the Transrockies…but only time will tell. I’m still a little nervous about racing this year but I feel that once I’m out again on the start line and the whistle blows…I’ll feel right at home…doing what I love and enjoying it.

- Kyle