Day 2: Amsterdam to St.Goar

Today, we got a free morning to see some sites and walk around town. It was a little rainy but not too bad…mainly just a light drizzle. After getting dropped off in the town centre we decided to walk over to the Anne Frank house museum as a group. The Anne Frank house was a pretty surreal experience. I don’t think I said even two words to anyone while I was in there. Most people have read the story but to actually see where they lived and understand how they were able to hide for so long in the house is really amazing. Going through the house really made me appreciate the freedom that I have even to do something as simple as riding a bike. After we finished at the museum, three of us decided to walk down to the Van Gough museum. It was a pretty good walk and it was fun to see all of the different architecture and how compact the city is. The Van Gogh museum was really big and it was hard to try and see everything while trying to keep track of time. After the museum we went for some poffertjes. We went to a place that our tour manager recommended and the poffertjes were amazing. They look really small pancakes which they then put on some butter and then dump some icing sugar on.

After finishing up our snack, we now had about 30 minutes to try and get to the other side of town. We starting walking in the general direction but after a few minutes we managed to flag down a taxi. The taxi was an Audi A8 which was pretty really nice but not what I’d expect to be a taxi. The driver was really nice and spoke extremely god English. He was able to get us to our meet location just in time for us to get on the tour bus.

From Amsterdam we drove over to the Rhine Valley where we'd be staying in St. Goar. After arriving in St. Goar after about a 6 hour drive, we got into our hotel and right away there was chaos. There were four flights of stairs to go up to get to our room and there were no elevators. The stairs were packed with a lots of the people trying to get their packed heavy suitcases up the stairs. It was pretty comical sight…but after a while with people helping out, we all managed to get their suitcases to their rooms. After getting settled in our rooms and having a quick shower, we had dinner and then we went for some wine tasting. The wine tasting was held in wine cellar built in the 17th century and the current owner was gave us some different wines to taste from different harvest periods. I’m not a really big fan of wine but his wine was actually really good. I tried some ice wine and I was blown away so I ended up buying a bottle to take home. As a gift they let us keep the shot glasses that we tasted the wine from.

After the wine tasting we all went down to the hotel bar for a few drinks. I went for some German beer which was really good while most people were trying to see how many Feigling shots they could do. I think they said the next day they had about 4 boxes of 50…

- Kyle

Eurotrip 2011!

Day 0: Calgary to London

The next set of entries will barely be cycling related but I don’t want to start another blog so I will blog about my 2 weeks adventure to Europe. I chose to go to Europe because I felt I needed to experience a few different cultures and possibly have a sneak peek of the cycling for my next adventure here. My tour was going to do 8 countries in about 12 days so it was going to be very busy days.

My flight to London was a 9 hour flight from London so I was trying to think of how I going to pass the time on the plane. After got my seat, I saw someone I though I recognized trying to get to his seat, turns out he was going to be sitting with me for the flight. After a few minutes he turns to me and we both sorta recognized each other and it turned out we went to the same high school 10 years ago. We had a really good chat for a few hours and it really made the time go by fast as we caught up a little bit about life, politics and real estate. He is going to school in Amsterdam and was just on his way back so it was pretty crazy to actually know the person sitting next to you on a random flight by yourself.

After landing in UK, I took the “Tube” (London Underground) from the airport to Russell Square where my hotel was located. Right away I noticed that the public transportation system was much better than anything we have back in Calgary. The map of the transit system pretty looked like spaghetti and I was a little confused trying to figure out where I was but once the train started going, I figured it out and was able to locate where I needed to get off.

I arrived at Russell Square and after walking around a bit, I was able to get my bearings and find my hotel. I didn’t have much time to walk around after I got to my hotel so I just went for a walk to try and locate the tour meet up point which was at the basement of the Royal National Hotel. After asking a few questions, I went to see if I could find a store to sell me a SIM card for my phone.

I found the phones stores but none of them were able to sell me a roaming SIM card so I just went to a Starbucks to grab a coffee. After grabbing my coffee, I went back to the meeting place to meet up with the rest of the tour group. I thought it was going to be a fairly small group, but it turns out it was sold out and we had a full group of 50 people on the tour. I met up with another Canadian, an American and a few Aussies right away. After the briefing we all decided to go out to a local pub for a pint and a bite to eat. The dinner was pretty good and much better then the standard pub fare that we usually get back home. The beer was pretty good but to be honest I was expecting a little better. After dinner we headed back to the hotel as we had to wake up quite early to board the coach the next day.

Day 1: London to Amsterdam

The first thing I did when I woke up was obviously take a shower which was much easier said then done. This was when I noticed that everything in Europe is much smaller and more compact then anything that we have back in Canada. I literally had to stand sideways in the shower the entire time and was bumping into everything as I tried to wash up. I almost fell on my face trying to get out of the tub as the sides were super high.

After boarding the coach we left London in the dark so I wasn’t able to see any major sites except for the Tower Bridge. The plan for the day was to drive to the port and take the ferry over to France and then drive through Belgium to Amsterdam. As we got on the ferry we got to see the White Cliffs of Dover was are cliffs of sheer white. They stretched as far as the eye could see along the coastline but it was really cool to see from the top of the ferry.

I slept part of the way on the drive from France but there really wasn’t much to see. When we arrived in Amsterdam I was really amazed how flat it was. There wasn’t a single hill in site. After the bus stopped at the hotel for us to put away our luggage, we had some dinner then we were onto our first excursion. We took the coach back to the center of town and the first thing that they told us was to watch out for bikes.

There were thousands of bikes! 99% of the bikes were the infamous Dutch bike which is a single speed bike with coaster brakes. Because the twn is so flat, gears aren’t needed and so I’m sure this really helps control the pace on the bike paths. The bikes racks were filled with almost identical bikes and they were literally fighting for space amd some racks just had bikes toppling over each other. There was even a bike “parkade” which probably held thousands of bikes, it was crazy.

The group then got together for a river cruise through the canals with an open bar. On the ride we got a taste for the typical Dutch music (techno?!) and probably the best Heineken that I’ve ever had in my entire life. I guess maybe it was because we were much closer to the brewery (Heineken is brewed in Amsterdam). After the river cruise we walked over to the infamous Red Light District. I wasn’t able to get any photos because it is apparently run by a private security firm and if you’re caught taking photos they will take your camera and smash it on the ground.

After doing a quick tour of the Red Light District, most of us decided to go check out a "cultural show". All I can say is...you have to go to Amsterdam. It was pretty unbelievable what I went to go see but it was a little more culture then I was expecting.

After the show we went to go check out a coffeshop. We went into one of the famous Bulldog Cafes and was pretty much what you'd expect from a palce where it's legal to smoke to marijuana. A couple people bought Space Cakes but most of the others went downstairs to smoke a few joints. I left after about 10 minutes and decided to head down to a bar where the rest of the group was hanging out. After about hour we prety much got kicked out of the bar as they were closing up so we all went back to the hotel. Tomorrow are supposed to get about half a day o free time to walk around the city before heading off to Germany.

More Photos

Red Cross

I was going into this race with a ton of confidence. I had ridden one of my best races ever and gotten enough points for my upgrade. A couple of us were told that they were 99% sure we’d be able to race in the Expert race the next day….so I prepped the next day to race in Expert. I got to the race site a little late but left just enough time just in case something happened and I would have to race in Sport again. Once again the race was at the same site as the previous day and once again it was on the pretty much the same course, only backwards. The only difference was the two run-ups were eliminated for a 2 barrier set into a short run-up.

I got down to the race site and strolled over to registration when Chris comes out and tells me that we have to race in Sport again. I was a little annoyed as we were receiving mixed messages from officials...but I didn’t want to waste time arguing as I was now running late for my start. I was sort of half-expecting this but I now had only left myself 45 minutes to get changed, get my spare wheels to the pit, pre-ride and stretch. I was only able to do barely get a one lap pre-ride in, which was essentially my warm-up and a very quick stretch.

I got to the start and did the one thing you should never ever do before a race. I decided I was in too easy of a gear to sprint out so I changed my bike into a harder gear to go for the hole shot. I was pretty focused today and didn’t chat nearly as much as usual. The whistle blew and my gear was way too hard and I trouble finding my pedal with three quarters of the field flying right by me. When I finally clipped in, I was near the back of the field going into the hairpin turn.

I was able to start passing lots of people in the first lap but on the longer steep single track sections I got stuck behind riders who couldn’t make it all the way up and had to stop to dismount. Because it was pretty tight I couldn’t ride around them so I had to dismount and run around them in the deep grass. The dismount into the barriers was right hand hairpin which really messed me up. I lost a lot of momentum and had lots of trouble clearing the barriers.

Around 3rd lap in I had caught up to Thomas. I went by him and tagged him on the back telling him to grab my wheel and we could work together to move up the field. 4th lap in I could see Mark up ahead…so I decided to grab onto his wheel. Mark and I changed position a couple of times as I would attack and then he would counter-attack in every chance he got. It was awesome. Then I had caught up to rider who had apparently been lapped so I grabbed on to his wheel and Mark timed his attack perfectly and was able to gap me going into the steep climb as I had gotten stuck behind a slower rider. I was able to catch up again and then attacked again.

Last lap Mark and I continued to battle it out, a rider flew by us…but I thought it was a lapped rider so I chose not to chase him down. On the last power section, I caught up to Chris Coleman who I had raced against the day before. I grabbed onto his wheel and was trying to set up an attack going into the last power section. Chris was going really hard and I had a tough time hanging on. We got the hairpin and I didn’t want to crash him out so I laid off the gas to try and out sprint him to the line. We got the finishing straight and we both sprinted hard for the finish line…Chris had just a little bit more left in the tank and beat me to the finish.

Result: 4th

Because of my start, I had no idea where I was most of the race. I didn’t really believe Craig when he was yelling at me that I was closing in on 2nd place during the last lap, I thought I was much further back then that. There were 40 riders in all and I think I was in 30th place in the first 200m of the race. I was really happy I was able to claw my way back up the field and once again finish in the prize money. In some ways I felt this race was just as good as yesterday…I had a lot of fun battling it out with Mark for 2 laps and having a sprint battle at the end of the race.

All in all, it was weekend of great racing on great courses with some awesome weather. This would probably be my last trip up to Edmonton for the year so glad for all the good times and awesome company.

Photo Credits: Ken Hurd

Jim Horner Grand Prix

I decided to head up to Edmonton to do the next series of races as I was now pretty close to my Expert upgrade, so I figured I’d be able to do it by the end of the weekend.

Immediately upon us arriving to our hotel in Edmonton, I knew this weekend was going to be awesome. I drove to Edmonton with Thomas and there we met a whole bunch of other riders from Calgary. There at the hotel bar sat 10 of us: Keith, Shawna, Thomas and Charles from Speed Theory; Katie Curtis from Bowcycle; Craig F. from Calgary Cycle; Craig S. and I from Deadgoat along with independent riders Mani and Josh. It was great times, all of us laughing over beers and food even though we’d all be racing against each other the next day. To me this is what defines the racing community, the great times we all have on and off the bike.

The next day we rode down to the course from the hotel as it was only about 5 minutes away by bike. I dropped off my spare wheels, registered and went to do a proper warm-up as per Keith’s advice prior to doing my course pre-ride. This time I went into the race with a plan. I knew who I needed to stay with and what position I needed to hold on to in order to have a good race. I wanted to finish on the podium this weekend…all I needed was 5th place for an upgrade…but I wanted top 3.

The race course was one that was suited to me. Lots of short power climbs, 2 forced run-ups and it was fairly technical with some good flow as well.

The start of the race was probably one my best starts this season. I was sitting in the top 5 going into the first turn and pretty much right away 6 of us had a slight gap on the field. There was a really strong headwind along the power section so I knew I wanted to sit a few wheels back in the paceline to conserve energy. Going into second lap I moved up a few positions to sit on Chris from Pedalhead’s wheel, who was in the lead.

3rd lap in, I noticed Chris was starting to slow down trying to fight the headwind on the power section so I did a quick check to see our gap on the field and noticed the chase group was closing. Against my usual nature and probably a bit of surprise to many people, I decided to attack and push the pace a little bit. I was now leading the paceline and trying to fight the strong headwind but I figured I would only lead for a little bit and drop back a few spots on the next power section. We went through a technical turn and then I heard Chris drop an f-bomb behind me so I knew that he had slipped out and bailed. I attacked again to get a gap on the field as I knew he had gone down in tight section and was holding up the chase group. I was now by myself with the whole field trying to chase me down going into the next power section.

Every lap I could barely hear Craig yelling my time gap on the field while I ran up the run-ups and Keith yelling at me that I was getting away from the chase group, but I was just trying to push through all the pain in my legs and keep going as hard as I could. It was pretty crazy trying to focus on the race, it was my first time ever being in the lead and having a significant gap on the field. I was now focusing on riding the rest of the race clean and to keep going hard even though everything hurt. There was even a point where I almost ran into a lapped rider as I got tunnel vision trying to concentrate on my lines.
On my last lap as I neared the finish line, I knew I had it…in my last 100 meters I started thinking about my victory salute. There was a bump at the finish line so I didn’t want to do any crazy stuff and then bail so I decided to go conservative with the one arm fist pump as I crossed the finish line for my first ever win.

Result: 1st

After I crossed the finish line I remember asking Shawna “Did I win?”...hahaha...cyclocross can make you delirious. During the race when I was in front, I never once looked back and I don’t even remember looking at the lap counter…I just listened for the final lap bell. It seemed like all the work and all the challenges throughout the season had just paid off. Talk to most bike racers and they’ll tell you how rare winning a race is, so I have to admit it felt amazing to stand up on the top step of the podium for the first time. The best part of my race was all the support I got from my friends during and after my race and I think that’s what really made my race what it was. I also got my upgrade to the Expert category which was my top goal for this race season.

Handlebar camera video of the first lap: (I think it's from a Velocity rider...not sure who though). I'm the rider directly in front (527).

Oval Crash

The next day we raced on pretty much the same course but with the pump track removed as it had to be opened for the downhill mountain bikers. To make the course a little longer there were a few modifications to the course. The result was a more technical course with lots of sharp, leg shredding power climbs.

I was back to racing my usual Sport category, although a little tired from racing the night before but most of us were in the same boat. I was really aiming to try and make podium this race but a lot of the top guys had come out so it was going to be another hard battle. I once again started right up at the front of the pack for the start.

The start was pretty fast and it was all the usual suspects in the top 10. Personally I like having the long climb to start off the race, it really strings things out pretty quickly and the start isn’t nearly as chaotic. My legs were feeling pretty good and I felt that the course really suited me. There were parts of the course that threw me off because I was so used to the course the day before…so some of the minor changes kept catching me off-guard despite having done a few practice laps.

We got to the sand pit and I decided I would try to ride it the first few laps to keep in the top group. I went behind another rider so I could follow his line through but he lost a lot of momentum and stopped right in front of me. I started to dismount from my bike but a rider had gone really hot into the pit and couldn’t slow down in time so he ended up running right into my bike. I managed to untangle my bike and started running but when I remounted and tried to pedal, I found out my chain had come off from the crash. I fumbled it back on as I was a little flustered having lost about 10 positions. I remounted and now came the hard task of trying to focus to getting back in the race.

I was pretty mad at this point as I was really hoping to get podium in this race and I was now near the back. But it was first lap so I tried not to panic, ride consistently and try to ride the rest of the race clean. I don’t know what it is, but I entered into a zone where I was just concentrating purely on my race and trying to ride cleanly. I was starting to pull people back in by my third lap and that just fueled me to keep going hard. Lap 4 I had caught up to Brent and was now trying to catch up to Thomas. The last lap, I managed to catch up to Thomas and was trying to hang on to his wheel.

After the sand pit we went into the technical section of the course when Thomas lost grip in his back wheel and bailed. I just managed to ride around him, but he was up running with his bike as I was trying to pedal up the hill. He remounted just as I cleared the hill, but I was lucky to have a little more momentum and managed to gap him slightly going into the final stretch of the climb to the finish.

As I climbed I could see Mark in front of me. 50 meters from the finish, I attacked and sprinted for the finish to beat him by 1 second.

Result: 5th

I was completely surprised by my result….even more than usual, I was glad I was able to re-focus after having a bad first lap. I rode a clean race from that point forward and managed to finish up in the prizing again. Mark got me by one second at the Hop N’ Hurl so it was pretty funny that I beat him by the same margin this time. This was also one the reason I love bike racing, after the race Mark and I shook hands and had a great time talking about our neck-to-neck battles in the last couple races.

Photo Credits: Trevor Jensen and Rod Loewen

Dark Knight Year 3

This race almost didn’t happen. During the crits there were rumors that this race would be cancelled as we were told that we were not welcome back at the University…but the Cyclemeisters team managed to find a new venue on time and saved the race.

The race was a go ahead at COP and it looked to be an even better course than the one at the U of C. Knowing the Cyclemeisters, this event was guaranteed to be pretty awesome and probably even better than previous years. The main highlights of the course were the inclusion of a downhill pumptrack and “high-Speed” barriers.

Battling for position with Judd Fraser

This year I decided to race the B category, because apparently all the cool kids were doing it and I wanted to challenge myself  as I was really aiming to make Expert this year. Our category was the largest one with 60 racers signed up so it was going to be chaos once again…but that what makes ‘cross so awesome. Before our race, there was already huge crowd of spectators gathered on the hill where most of the action was taking place.

We had a large contigent of 'Goats show up to the race which was really awesome. Derek was the first to go in the C category and was able to hold onto 3rd. In the B category it was me, Tim, Pat and Ed. In the A category was Devin and Craig. And of course, Ken, on photo duty.

Tim rocking the stealth kit

I took a spot near the front for the start as I wanted to be in a good position as it started off with a fairly long hill climb and I didn’t want to get stuck behind a huge line of riders. The race started and we all went out pretty hard up the hill, but had to file up in order to go on the skinny wooden bridge and then onto the bit of single track on the way down to the pump track. The pump track was super fun but it was hard trying to keep the bike from grabbing air and right at the bottom was a sharp 180 turn on gravel, which meant you almost had to come to a dead stop to make it without bailing.

Devin getting ready to hop the barriers

I rode most of the race on the wheel of Pepper Harlton, who was last years Provincial Champion and member of the Canadian National team. She was racing in her costume, which looked pretty uncomfortable given the unusually warm weather so I’m sure she wasn’t going as fast as she could have been. Pepper is a fantastic technical bike handler and it was fun to see how she took the lines as she weaved through the course in the dark.

Ed running the sand pit

Result: 10th

I managed to finish in the prizes but more importantly I finished about a minutes behind Tim who took 6th and Pat who was given'r to avoid getting chicked by Katy Curtis (he still did) for 3rd. It was great to have 3 of us place in the top ten and I was really glad to not only not get lapped but finish right up there with the people I hope to be racing with soon.

In the A category Devin and Craig gabbed 4th and 5th respectively.

Climbing up to the pump track

I liked this course a little more than the U of C course and was able to ride the sand pit probably half the time. It was pretty technical, had 2 sustained climbs, flowy downhill sections and it felt like a pretty fast course. The pump track was a little sketch in the dark but overall it was a great night of racing. The crowd was amazing and most people stuck around all the way to the end. There were lots of families and so much cowbell...it was awesome.

Huge props to Cyclemeisters for putting on another fantastic event. I already can't wait until next year.

All photos: Ken Hurd
Flickr Photo Set

School of Cross

Finally it's ‘cross season…and it seems like it’s been far too long. So far it’s been a pretty tough start to the season with 2 midweek CX races cancelled due to rain and the Bow 80 cancelled due to inclement weather. It had been almost a month since my last ABA race and I now really pretty anxious for ‘cross to start up. I hadn’t done this series of races last year so I decided it would be worth the drive up to Edmonton to get a couple races under my belt before the Dark Knight and Oval ‘cross races.

After meeting up with my buddy Simon and his wife for breakfast buffet at our hotel, we headed down to the venue that would be hosting both races. We got to the race site and it was actually really warm outside so the course was probably going to be pretty dry and fast. I went to sign in and I was fairly surprised to see I was going into the race ranked 3rd out of the registered racers based on my results from ‘09. After getting ready, we both went out for a couple warm up laps.

The course had a road start, which went into a criterium like sharp turn then onto the grass portion. The first section was fairly technical with some really high barriers (I read somewhere they were actually 6cm too high). The next section was totally sketch with a deep grass off camber into a really steep descent into a small forest. After climbing out of the forest, it was another off-camber section into a set of man-made stairs. The next section was fairly windy with short power sections and a couple power climbs. Then came the double sand pit…both of which were completely unrideable with a short section of pavement separating the sand pits.

Stappy running the sand pit

After doing another warm-up lap, I went to what I thought was the start line. I waited for a couple minutes with another ride wondering where everyone was…but then Simon started calling me to the right start line. Late again…d’oh. I got to the real start line and had to seed myself somewhere mid-pack. After some instructions and a quick about some of the technical sections of the course we were off.

The race started which a paved section which was fairly fast, but slowed down as we all had to try and make the sharp right turn with a little bit of gravel so the group filed out pretty quickly. As we negotiated the first lap, Simon and I were pretty much calling “on your left, inside, outside” as we tried to move our way up the field. I was trying to move up as quickly as possible as getting stuck behind slower riders through more technical sections can really break your race if the leaders can gap the main field. As the race progressed I tried not to panic about my bad start and just tried to ride consistently. I knew I was moving up the field but still could not tell how many riders were in front of me.

Second last lap, my friend Masa calls out to me that I was only 40 seconds behind the leader so now I started to put on a little more pressure to try and close the gap. I had gotten a cramp on the second lap in my stomach from eating breakfast late so I was also battling through the pain while trying to keep riding hard.

Last lap I was starting to lap riders on the course but still wasn’t sure if I was even in the top 10. It seemed like there were still quite a few riders in front of me so I kept going hard…in fact midway through my last lap my breakfast started to creeping its way back up….which is pretty much a sure sign I was going all out.

I crossed the finish, completely exhausted and surprisingly there were only a few guys there and they were all telling me I had done awesome in the race and I had finished in the top 5. I talked for a bit with the top 3 riders but headed out to do a recovery spin as my heart rate was still pretty maxed and my stomach cramp was really painful. After spinning around and getting back to the race site, I got changed and went to watch the Expert race.

Result: 4th

My best racing result so far (I have finally broken the 5th place barrier) and I was actually really surprised that I finished that high up. I was slightly worried about being burned out for ‘cross going into this weekend as I had been riding, racing and training way more than last year. It was great to see that it all paid off and I was keeping up with the race leaders now.

Photo: Bill Quinney