Rain, eh!
Cascade's come and gone. It was an alright week for the team with two stage wins, one from Jeff Louder on Saturday and another from Kirk O'Bee on Sunday. In the stage 4 crit, I made the ill-advised decision to follow an attack from Ryan Trebon on lap 2 of the 90 minute race. Navigators, who were defending the lead and ultimately won the race, just laughed collectively and let us go. They then rode only hard enough for the next 70 minutes or so to keep us from lapping the field, which I'd imagine made for a pretty easy night for them. Eventually some other teams started to chase and we were caught with 4 laps to go. Other than the prime money we picked up, all we really gained were tired legs and a bunch of time looking goofy in front of the home crowd. And, of course, I got to show off the Lead Oregon Rider jersey. Yeah!
After two nights at home, I drove up to Vancouver BC with my teammate Roman on Tuesday. We're up here for the last of the Canadian Superweek races: Gastown, Burnaby, and Delta. Gastown was crazy. It's held on the waterfront at the north edge of downtown Vancouver and it always gets huge crowds. The course has some tight corners over old, uneven brick streets. And this year it rained! I don't remember the last time I was so nervous before the start of a race. But luckily I got a front row start and stayed out of the early trouble. I actually crashed myself out at one point, but I came away largely uninjured and got back in the race. But within 2 laps of getting pushed back in, I found myself in a break that I thought might stick. I really wasn't up for trying to sprint for the win though, so I wasn't particularly disappointed when we were caught a few laps later. Another group went away shortly thereafter with Kirk O'Bee in it, and from then on my only goal was not to break another hip. Kirk ended up winning the race and I finished near the back of the chase group. Check out the cyclingnews results, I've never seen such a disproportionate ratio of starters to finishers. And one guy who's on that DNF list but really shouldn't be is Aaron Tuckerman from Rubicon. He flatted out of my group with only a couple laps remaining, but he put in a pretty incredible race before that.
Thursday was the Giro di Burnaby (why the faux-european names?) The rain held off and it was much safer. A break went, I wasn't in it, and Kirk won again. Thank you Kirk!
Tour de Delta (there it is again) starts tonight with a 700 m (as in meter!) hillclimb. Finishing times are generally about a minute and a half. Then there's a crit tomorrow night and a road race Sunday. The forecast calls for rain all weekend. There must be a more sensible way to make a living, right?
After two nights at home, I drove up to Vancouver BC with my teammate Roman on Tuesday. We're up here for the last of the Canadian Superweek races: Gastown, Burnaby, and Delta. Gastown was crazy. It's held on the waterfront at the north edge of downtown Vancouver and it always gets huge crowds. The course has some tight corners over old, uneven brick streets. And this year it rained! I don't remember the last time I was so nervous before the start of a race. But luckily I got a front row start and stayed out of the early trouble. I actually crashed myself out at one point, but I came away largely uninjured and got back in the race. But within 2 laps of getting pushed back in, I found myself in a break that I thought might stick. I really wasn't up for trying to sprint for the win though, so I wasn't particularly disappointed when we were caught a few laps later. Another group went away shortly thereafter with Kirk O'Bee in it, and from then on my only goal was not to break another hip. Kirk ended up winning the race and I finished near the back of the chase group. Check out the cyclingnews results, I've never seen such a disproportionate ratio of starters to finishers. And one guy who's on that DNF list but really shouldn't be is Aaron Tuckerman from Rubicon. He flatted out of my group with only a couple laps remaining, but he put in a pretty incredible race before that.
Thursday was the Giro di Burnaby (why the faux-european names?) The rain held off and it was much safer. A break went, I wasn't in it, and Kirk won again. Thank you Kirk!
Tour de Delta (there it is again) starts tonight with a 700 m (as in meter!) hillclimb. Finishing times are generally about a minute and a half. Then there's a crit tomorrow night and a road race Sunday. The forecast calls for rain all weekend. There must be a more sensible way to make a living, right?
4 Comments:
Great job at Cascade and getting that top 20 at Gastown (sounded pretty gnarly)! That DNF list was huge! I did notice a lot of local Symmetrics guys seemed to survive though! Hometown advantage?
I gotta say D, PIR just isn't the same without you.
Wicked ride at the Delta RR today Doug. I was driving the media van (and gawking at your ptap wheel last night) and you guys did a great ride today. Nothing like attacking in the first 5km and holding off the pack to the finish line, 130km later.
Hope you and the guys come back. Always good to have you up here racing.
ps: I want your WKO file from the race today! What was the avg watts? the TSS? Dish the data!
Thanks Gordon. But truth be told, I was taking it pretty easy out there because I was scared of Pinner. Obviously for good reason. I can share the power file if you're into such nerdiness. Shoot me an email at doug@dougollerenshaw.com.
And I'll come back, but you have to promise it won't rain next time. I get enough of that at home.
And Kenji, maybe next week at PIR!
Looking goofy or not, the fans at Cascade crit loved your adventure with Trebon. I could hear yells of 'Dougie' the whole night.
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