Calabogie Classic '14

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On Sunday the team had a good showing at the Calabogie Classic Road Race, which was held at the Calabogie Motorsports Park, and was organized by Cycle Logik. Nine2FivePro had a lot of representation in a host of categories.

Graham Page lined up in the Elite 4 field. After 56km, his race came down to a bunch sprint for the line, and in the mad dash to the finish Graham came home in 11th place.

Janine and Caroline rode in the Master A women's field. Their category was combined with the Elite 3 and Junior women's fields, making a pack of 30 riders. Nine2FivePro hung on for as long as they could, but the accelerations in the pack eventually became too much, and they found themselves distance from the bunch.

Caroline did the brunt of the work in her group behind, while Janine rode solo to take the last podium spot in her category. Both rode strong and finished off the race. This is still early days in their racing careers, as it was only Janine's second road race, and Caroline's first. So kudos to them.

In the Elite 3 field, Darrell and Sam represented for the team. Their category was combined with the Junior men, to make a 45 man strong field. The race was aggressive, something Darrell noticed compared to the Elite 4 field he raced in last year. Juniors love to attack, and eventually a group mainly composed of juniors went up the road. However, a couple category 3 riders had snuck into the move to claim the first two Elite 3 podium places.

Darrell and Sam finished in the pack, 13th and 20th respectively in their category. Darrell had found himself boxed in; an easy thing to happen given the twisting nature of the car track, and so was unable to take part in the bunch sprint. And Sam rolled in to the finish pleased to have got some racing miles in his legs.

Racing on sleep deprivation and new-daddy syndrome, Adam Freed lined up in the Master 2 field. They had to tackle 15 laps of the track for 76km. A group of three went up the road in his race to take the podium, while Adam hung on to finish in the pack; a respectable effort from him!

Gerald stuck to his plan in the Master 1 field, to hide in the pack, keep position, and have a good dig in the sprint. A break was still away late in the race, but the Nacsworld.com/Norco team brought it all back together for their fast finisher and current 40+ National Champion, Steve McKee. Gerald's consistent winter training paid off, as he was able to pull off a 9th place in the dash for the line.

The Elite 1/2 race started out extremely aggressive, with lots of attacking. The team rode really well, marking moves and making their own aggressions. Doug and Charlie tried to make it into the usual early breakaway, while Warren, Greg, and Greyburns (Andrew) marked moves and chased down dangerous breaks.

Eventually a break did go up the road. Unfortunately, it was at a time when the team was taking a bit of a timeout, with a lot of us coming to grips with the fact that there was still an hour-and-a-half left of racing, when it had already been a full assault from the start. The move didn't seem too dangerous at first, as it didn't have a lot of guys.

However, a counter-move went up the road with some horsepower. Greyburns latched on to the counter-move, but quickly paid for it, and had to drop back to the bunch. And once the front break had reinforcements, they weren't going to be seen again until the end. Doug made some strong accelerations in an attempt to pull a group free, containing himself and Charlie, but the pack kept gobbling them back up.

With 6 laps to go, Charlie attacked from the bunch and bridged to Andrew House, of the CoachChris team, bringing with him a couple other riders. The four riders quickly formed an alliance in a bid to steal some of the lower places, cooperating well to distance themselves from the bunch and pick up riders who had been dropped from the breakaway. Eventually their group began to shatter, as the efforts in the windswept course began to sink in, and the group split up, with Charlie coming in at the front of a group racing for 11th place.

A couple other groups had split off from the bunch, while Doug finished off his race by taking the pack sprint for 19th place. Greg had succumbed to cramping, not a surprise given his efforts early in the race, and so had packed it in early, while Greyburns and Warren finished safely in the bunch having done some really strong teamwork, which was the theme of the race for Nine2FivePro, and one we'll see a lot more of throughout the rest of '14 racing season.

Kudos to all Nine2FivePros, for the awesome efforts in your races, for the support on the sidelines, and for all the pictures.

Arizona Update...Gerald's in town

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Gerald arrived in town on Saturday. Unfortunately, his bike did not. However, United Airlines was quick into action, tracking the bike down like a samurai, and delivering the bike to our rental house Sunday evening. Not bad. But still too late for a Sunday ride.

This meant Sunday was a day of chilling by the pool, shopping, a few wobbly pops, and a nice meal cooked by Gerald. The tasty dinner he made got me thinking it wouldn't be so bad if his bike was MIA for a couple more days....if it meant his free time would be spent cooking.

Alas, with his bike delivered, Monday's ride had reinforcements, making us an Army of Three, hell bent on conquering the cactus strewn climbs of Apache Junction, AZ. What follows are the latest pics and vids from Monday's and Tuesday's rides. What you'll see is more of the same; desert, cactus, some gradual grade climbs, and a lots of tall rock faces.


Arizona Video Clips

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A few video clips from my first couple rides in Arizona. Short clips are from a ride up and over Usery pass and back into town. Longer clips are from an out and back on Apache Trail to end of the pavement and a bit of gravel. Enjoy...

-Charlie

Tour of the Catskills

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This years Tour of the Catskills adventure could likely be described as our most civilized implementation ever. Thanks to Greyburns' organization, we had a big comfy house to stay in over the weekend. We had a hot tub, nice deck with a BBQ, lots of space to veg out, and even a foosball table!

We were rollin as a big crew, which included Me, Andrew, Gerald, Sam, JRoc, Nigel, and Duncan, with his newly minted Passport on his first trip to the US.

First up was the stage one 12mile time trial. After we rolled into Hunter to pick up our race numbers, we had some time to fuel up and pin on numbers, with Nigel coming up with the most novel number pinning approach.  The shakedown from the ITT was that I finished up 4th, just off the podium (doh!), Andrew finished a couple minutes behind me, and the rest of the gang spread out through the bottom half of the riders.

Next up was a 90km stage taking in a couple really tough climbs, including the infamous Airport Road Climb, with pitches upwards of 20%. About 5km before starting the first climb of the day, my rear tire punctured. Crap! Andrew rallied the troops, and en masse, the team stopped for me like we were pros. Duncan gave me his rear wheel, and we got going again, chasing as a team to try to catch the pack. Unfortunately, we ran out of road before we hit the first climb, and when we hit the climb we saw the carnage of what the climb had done. Groups spread out all over the road, with the leaders out of sight.

Andrew and I spent the rest of the stage chasing, not giving up, and in the end kept the gap to the winners pretty reasonable, at five-and-a-half minutes. The rest of the group survived the stage, with Gerald and Sam riding together and passing dropped riders, and Duncan grovelling home, being over-geared on the spare wheel he had received from neutral support. Nevertheless, he was in good spirits, having done his part for the team.

The dinner that night probably would have had PETA banging down our doors if they knew what was going on. Ribs, chicken, burgers were on the menu....I'm sure there were some carbs in there somewhere!?!? Oh yeah, JRoc had made a delicious pasta salad. After pigging out like cavemen, it was time for a long night of chillin', watching episode after episode of Gold Rush.

After the finish of road race numero one, and having been scared by the steep climbs, we had made our way to the bike shop down the road from the start/finish to grab some new cassettes with easier gears to make sure we weren't totally screwed for the next day's crazy finishing climb, Devil's Kitchen.

The second road race saw Nigel and I go off the front early. After flatting the day before I was keen to try something crazy to make up lost time. Nigel had been directed off course the day before and was keen to make amends for that. We found ourselves at the front of the bunch about 10km in. Nigel ask if I wanted to go. I nodded, he accelerated, and with a hard push we got ourselves a gap.

For the next 10km or so, Nigel and I worked together to build our gap, which got out to a maximum of 45 seconds. After awhile Nigel found his legs hurting, his gears skipping and encouraged me to continue on without him. I made it over the top of the first KOM solo, but the long descent off of it allowed the group to get back to me.

In the pack I started my recovery mode. There I found the rest of the guys, who were also in conserve mode in anticipation of the final climb. Andrew was always well placed near the front of the bunch. And Sam, Nigel, and Duncan were all looking comfortable sitting in the wheels. Unfortunately our team was not without any mechanical troubles this day, as Gerald had a mishap that was causing havoc with his front derailleur; not an acceptable situation when touring the Catskills.

On to the final climb, and Andrew's conservation strategy began to pay off. The rest of the guys climbed past me as I began to pay for my earlier efforts, having not had the prescribed dose of hero biscuits that morning. Andrew hung tough near the front of the race going over the top, put himself into a good position for the sprint, and took out a 6th place on the stage, which is an awesome result on such a challenging parcours.

Once I finally dragged my carcass over the climb, Duncan paced me to the finish. I was lucky to have his wheel to follow. But we weren't out of challenges yet. Over the top, a storm started, the temperature dropped, and rain and hail came falling down on us. Not fun. Gerald made his way to the finish solo, having suffered an early mechanical. We made our way back to the house to warm-up and celebrate another Catskills wrapped up.

Luckily, Greyburns' wisdom paid dividends this year, as he booked our accommodations for an extra night. So there was no need to pack up and drive home after finishing the brutal stage. Not only that, we could have a civilized brunch the next morning before heading home.  

A very well executed Tour of the Catskills! Thanks to the crew for all the fun. See you all there next year. 

2013 Provincial Road Race Championships

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By Charlie: 

The Provincial Road Race Championships were held on Sunday July 28th, hosted by Spinsanity Cycles in the Holland Marsh area. The course was a challenging 12km circuit with a long climb that crested only a few hundred meters from the finish. 

Greg and I headed down to Cambray on Saturday to spend the night at my folk's place, before heading to the race the next day. After a civilized Saturday BBQ dinner and a relaxed Sunday morning with lots of coffee and bagels, we headed off to the race for our 2pm start with plenty of good wishes for a good race.

Once we were close to the race, we stopped for another bathroom break, and grabbed a couple of espressos....double shots at that. In hindsight this extra dose of caffeine may have been a mistake, but at the time we thought it was a stroke of genius...mostly for the java deliciousness than the extra kick.

Signed in, kitted up and on the start line, off we went with 108km of racing ahead of us. Our Master A field was a relatively small one, but I expected that those who showed up to have some legs. And I was right. Greg and I went in with a two-pronged strategy, that I would seek out the breaks, and he would get my assistance in the sprint if it came down to a group gallop for the line. 

Trying to set the tone of the race, I pushed the pace on the climb the first time up, and made a couple of attacks early on throughout the first 2 laps. This strategy worked, as it brought out the riders who wanted to get out front. On the 3rd lap, Peter Mogg of Team T1c London Honda-Village went off on a solo break. Given the strength he showed to hang out there on his own for a whole lap, I thought he would make a good partner in a break.

The next time up the climb, Greg set a hard tempo, making some legs hurt and stringing out the field. I got a sense that it was a good time to attempt to bridge to Peter, as he was still hanging tough out front. As we crested the climb I attacked out of the pack, and soloed across.

Once I made it across, I went to the front for a few km to establish the gap, and let Pete recover a bit from his solo efforts. Not long after we starting working together, doing equal work in the wind, and keeping the pace high. For the first couple laps of our break, the pack was organized in their chase, and kept our gap around 1 to 2 minutes. After that, our next time checks were 3, and then 5 minutes. It was clear that the battle for the Provincial Champions jersey would be between us.

Despite our large gap, we kept up our efforts all the way to the end.  I was keen not to show much weakness, despite the feeling that my left hamstring was ready to cramp up. Little did I know, Greg was suffering from cramping too, and we attributed our cramping to our over-indulgence in our black gold.

Knowing I was a bit vulnerable, my strategy was to feign strength to avoid being attacked, and then bring the race down to a sprint, as the sprint was a bit downhill off of an overpass over the 400 hwy. Having made it to the bottom of the climb, Pete was expecting me to attack. I took the front position briefly to keep up appearances, but then let off to let Pete lead. He made some strong accelerations on the climb, and I had to ride carefully to stay close but not cramp my leg.

Over the top of the climb, we played some cat and mouse, as we jockeyed for position, coming almost to a standstill at times. But I was sure to keep the back position so I could get the jump in the sprint. Into the last 200 meters, and Peter opened up the sprint. Off the slight downhill of the overpass, I accelerated past for the win. It was just enough, as right after the finish my left hammy locked up in a cramp. Job done and a Provincial Championship won!

Thanks to Greg for a fun road trip! He kept his name on the finishers list with a 10th place. And kudos to Pete Mogg for a long breakaway and a good battle!

 

Coupe des Ameriques

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By Charlie:

Participated in the Masters stage race "Coupe des Ameriques" in Sutton, Quebec from July 5th to 7th. Pretty awesome race courses, with great organization and volunteers.

Hill climb in torrential rain on Friday evening, followed by morning time trial and afternoon circuit race on Saturday afternoon. Then it all wrapped up with a 108km road race finishing up the climb to the Sutton ski area. Finished up 8th overall after hanging tough on the climbs and doing a decent time trial. Check out the pics!

Mississippi Mills Grand Prix

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The team rode in the Mississippi Mils Grand Prix, held from June 7th to June 9th. The race was hosted by Ride with Rendall, and it consisted of four stages: a Friday evening road race, Saturday morning time trial, Saturday afternoon criterium, and a final 170km road race on Sunday. 

We had a big crew participating, both on the bikes and as support. On the start line were Doug, Andrew, Greg B, Gerald, Marc, myself (Charlie), and a guest rider, Brandon Spencer (Mt. Borah/Minerva Design Cycling Team). As support, we had Hans as DS, whose insight and enthusiasm was invaluable all weekend. And on Sunday, Duncan joined Hans in the team car to help pass bottles, advice, and tend to mechanicals.

As per the team plan, Gerald and Brandon followed moves early in the Friday road race, ensuring the team didn't miss out on any critical breaks. Doug escaped in a 3 man move just after an intermediate sprint. The lull in pace was enough for the 3 riders to get away, and never be seen until after the finish. Behind, Charlie bridged to a dangerous chase group, policing the move to ensure Doug gained as much time as possible.

The time trial the next morning saw good rides from everyone on the team. Doug rode a strong time trial to keep himself up in the overall standing, putting himself into 2nd place overall going into the afternoon criterium.

The criterium, which took place in Almonte, consisted of a 9 corner circuit, with an uphill rise to the finish; a challenging course to say the least. The Stevens team were keen to take advantage of the technical circuit, and went on the offensive right away, putting two guys into a breakaway that would eventually lap the field. As a team, we were on the ropes for most of this one, but came out relatively unscathed, with Doug only dropping one spot on GC due to the Stevens' breakaway.

For the Sunday road race, we went into the race with a similar game plan to Friday's road race. Be attentive early, watch for moves, but not be too aggressive ourselves. With Doug sitting 3rd overall, there was minimal responsibility on the team's shoulders to chase moves. Mid-race saw the team come to the front to close down a move by a Stevens rider, who threatened Doug's position. But we dodged a bullet with that one, as the rider out front suffered a flat bringing him back into the pack, and we were able to call our guys off the front.

However, on the last lap, another dangerous move went away, threatening both the leader's jersey of Aaron Fillion, as well as Doug's 3rd spot. I went to the front and closed the gap significantly. Unfortunately, this allowed a teammate of the one of the breakaway riders to join the move out front. Brandon and I joined forces with Aaron, to chase the move, but with an extra rider to power the break, and only 20km left of the race, we never managed to bring back the escapees.

After the final shakedown, Doug finished up an awesome 4th overall, while I clung to the pack after my chase efforts to hang on to a top-ten overall in 9th. It was an awesome team effort from all the guys. The small things really contributed a lot, like Andrew and Greg bringing up bottles, Duncan and Hans providing race status, and Brandon staying at the front to follow small moves so Doug didn't have to. I'd say we saw some of the best racing by the team at this one.

Thanks goes out to Ride with Rendall for hosting a great event. I think we'll see another contingent of Nine2FivePros at Mississippi Mills next year!

Sam Scores a Podium at Niagara Classic

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Newest member of the team, Sam O'Donnell scored a podium on the weekend in the E4 race at the Niagara Classic road race. ​He managed to take 2nd place in the bunch sprint. Here's a report from Sam on how things went down:

Sam in the 2nd spot on the podium.

For the short period of time that I've been racing the Niagara classic has been one of my favourite races. The course had some changes this year from the previous editions: the start/finish is now located on Metler drive. So, on the last lap, instead of finishing on the hill, you take a left hand corner about half-way down Effingham dr before the steep part of the climb. About 500m after that corner was the finish. Right after the corner was a slight downhill of 2-3% or so, and then a ramp of 2-4% for 400m. 

On the first lap a guy rode away, caught the M3's and tried to pass them. It was pretty funny when the group decided to bring him back in the second lap and you could see him sitting at the front of the M3 pack! 

After we caught and passed the M3's (which entailed a bit of confusion), the pace of the E4 pack slowed down quite a bit, and the next lap or so we were caught by the M3's. It was pretty hilarious. Everyone was getting worked up about it and a couple of the guys from our category thought it would be a good time to launch an offensive move! Of course they were called back by the commissaries and we were told to separate the groups, etc. 

Throughout the race, someone would drive the pace over the top of the climb and I would follow, and put in a few pulls at the bottom of the descent. But, there was no real break away, just people being dropped. I never really felt like I was in difficulty in this race for an extended period of time. I would certainly be feeling it over the top of the climb, but other than that I felt good. Though, the final 2 or 3 km were pretty hard, of course...

On the final time up the climb (last lap), the pace was driven by the eventual winner. I of course followed, 2 wheels back, and on the backside of the course we had about 9 guys. A rotation was started but it seemed kind of half-hearted (I was far from feeling like I was doing a TT effort). More riders latched on and eventually the rotation stopped. I went onto the front through the S corner and for the last 6-7km really focused on positioning and marking the guys in the race I knew would be looking to win. 

Through the twisty downhill I stayed pretty close to the front, but I was a little far back (7-10th) when we went through the corner at the bottom I stayed on the yellow line side and moved up to about 5th wheel or so and stayed behind the guy I marked at the Lake of Bays (I had a chat with him earlier, jokingly, about getting a good leadout from him this time... He said he'd be going for it so he'd be a good one to follow!) he ended up winning this race. We went pretty hard up the little ramp after the 2nd last corner; a guy attacked up it but didn't get much of a gap. I held my position and shortly before the final corner someone jumped (he finished 4th), the guy who won followed, and I followed him. We went through the corner and I lost the wheel in front pretty badly... About 2-3 bike lengths opened up. I chased and chased. The guy who jumped first faded, and the guy behind him looked back and then sprinted by him. I passed the guy who jumped first and kept sprinting but couldn't close the gap on the winner. Finished a couple bike lengths behind him.

Here's a nice video of the finish from the Beaches Cycling Club: