Race The Ridge 2013

April 27-28 2013 marked the biggest weekend of my very short racing career. The always interesting Race the Ridge stage race organized by Local Ride Racing was being held in Maple Ridge. 

The road race and time trial were contested on Saturday, while the criterium was run Sunday. I had done a lot of riding leading up to the race and wasn't quite as fresh as I could have been. But I had signed up to race Cat 4 months ago so I went out to give it my best shot.

As with most early season races the weather always decides to play a factor.

My late race attack in the criterium getting shutdown.

Road Race
The toughest course I have raced on. It makes the Spring Series races look easy. 

A 10 kilometre loop with 5 kilometres of punchy hills and some tight corners at the end of long downhill straightaways.  I managed to get dropped quite early, tried my hardest to work with some others off the back, but the climbing was too much. The rain started with about 3 laps to go, adding insult to injury. 

Eventually I finished in 16th place over 6 mins down on the leaders. 

Pretty disappointed in my performance, I was hoping to stay much closer to the lead group.

Time Trial

I felt really good about my performance in the time trial. I had never raced a time trial before or even used aerobars. Ted Matson had withdrawn from the Cat 1 race and kindly lent me his helmet and aerobars.

The road surface got really rough about halfway through the TT which complicated things a little bit. Definitely made the effort a little harder to sustain.

I clocked 16:40 (44.97 km/h) over the pretty much flat 12.5 km course finishing in 12th. Lost another minute to the GC leaders.

The headwind riding back from the TT finish was even harder than the TT!

Criterium

I really enjoyed the criterium in downtown Maple Ridge. It's pretty awesome to have the roads completely closed to traffic. I found the course very fun course, a nice flow to all the corners. 

I flew off the front partway through and spent three laps alone out front. No one was willing to come across to me so I was caught. I tried again later in the race, but my move was quickly shutdown. Finished 17th.
 

Coasting in for 17th place in the criterium.

Overall it was a great weekend of racing. I finished 16th overall out of 29 starters. Not so bad for my first ever stage race.

Other links of interest

Results: http://www.localride.ca/wp/2013/04/28/race-the-ridge-results/

Local Ride: http://www.localride.ca/wp/2013/05/07/cyclists-storm-ridge-meadows-for-12th-annual-race-the-ridge/

Maple Ridge News: http://www.mapleridgenews.com/sports/205478301.html

Criterium Photos by Alex Pope: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexpope/sets/72157633375950010/with/8691672910/

Starting the 2013 Season

The time has finally come for me put my preseason training to the test. This Sunday marks my return to bike racing. Looking back, I haven't raced in far too long. I missed the opening races of 2013 due to work, in fact my last road race was Barry's Roubaix in April of 2012! Definitely need to focus on attending more races this year.

I finally committed to joining a cycling team this year. I'm looking forward to representing Daryl-Evans Racing this year at road and cyclocross races.

I initially learned of Daryl-Evans Racing reading the exploits of Joshua Weiss and their efforts in hosting cyclocross races at the South Surrey Bike Park, including the 2012 Canadian Cyclocross Championship. I've also met some of the other team members through Twitter and Strava.

I was attracted to the team due to the local nature of the events they host and their mission to build a Master's road and cyclocross program, plus their jersey looks pretty cool.

When you join a cycling team, you need a new bike right?

Well even if you don't, the minimum number of bikes one must own is three, I managed to find a great deal on this 2012 Opus Crescendo at Fort Langley Cyclery.

I knew that if I was going to buy a new bike, it would have to be full carbon, with at least an Ultegra groupset. I figured anything less wouldn't be enough of an upgrade over my current bike. I had looked at many bikes, a lot of them seemed to be white. Which was something I wanted to avoid, white is definitely a little harder to keep looking clean. The Crescendo fit all those requirements plus it matched my Easton wheels quite nicely.

As expected the Crescendo feels lightning fast, and is a very comfortable ride. However, as they say "It never gets easier, you just go faster."

Hopefully it helps me go a little bit faster.