Season stats

Being a numbers guy myself, I compiled a few numbers from this season that I thought you guys might like to see. If I am leaving something out that you would like to know, comment below and I will add it in!

Racing category: Elite 2
Number of races this year: 12
Number of pro contracts offered: Obviously a lot! (zero)
Road bike crashes: 1
Mountain bike crashes: too many to count
Number broken bones: 1
Number of stitches: 3
Mileage for the year: ~ 11 000km + over 100hrs on a spin bike
Longest training week duration: 19 hours
Shortest: Zero (does that even count then?)
Number of wins: Zero (if we don’t include club events)
Number of international/out of province races: 1, Tour of Catskills
Favourite shoes: Sidi Wire
Favourite colour combo: Black + Fluoro Yellow
Current race machine: Scott Foil
Favourite groupset: Sram red, sram’s shifting mechanism is definitely superior.
Average calories consumed/day: 3500-4000
Racing weight: 165 lbs (75 kg)
Height (for comparision): 6’2
Top 20min power according to garmin: 347 Watts (4.6W/kg)
Last years 20min: 322W

Other figures:
1 - Honours Bachelor of Science earned in Medical Physics
1 000 000 - Approximate number of calories consumed this year from brownies alone (may be inflated)
1 - Carbon wheel cracked in 2 places (damn Catskills!)
1 - Fingernail ripped off
500- Hours spent watching Netflix while recovering


**Adding to this, a cool feature a friend found for those that upload their rides to strava. A heat map for all your rides. Helps you see that you really don't ride that many different roads unfortunately. Here is my heat map for my last 100 rides! Check yours here. Note it takes a little bit to compile.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hopefully everyone was able to enjoy the nice weather that came with this long weekend. It is great time to look upon your life and be grateful for what you have in your life and what you have accomplished. Also it is a great time to show your appreciation to all of those in your life that have helped shaped your world into what it is today. I am definitely grateful for all my friends and family that have been there to support my cycling. They put up with my long training hours, not-so late nights out and busy weekends racing and still find time to hang out with me like a normal person. Without them I would probably become a zombie with no social life. I am also grateful for my coach Jeff Kehler for helping develop my skills over the past three years. I have grown past what I thought I could personally accomplished and because of this he has helped me aim my goals even higher than I started out with. And I think my mom deserves a special shoutout because she does so, so much for me. There is probably a lot of other people that I should thank, but people might get bored reading through and I don't want to upset any one by having a list and leaving out an important person or two. If you have touched my life and helped make a difference or pushed me in anyway then you are definitely on the list of people that I am grateful to have in my life. Without you guys I would never get to improve and become a better person and athlete.

Injury update: One more person I am very grateful for is Richard Bartolo for putting up with my shitty circumstances in the states with my crash. He could easily have left me there at the hospital and told me to get my parents to get me. But he stuck around and made sure I was as good as I could be!
On that note, everything is healing pretty good. Getting some neck pain I think from increased volume and trying to hold my head up in an aggressive position. I have attached some pictures of some of the scarring. Started a regimen of bio-oil to see if it helps clear it up. Has anyone else tried it with any results?
I posted weekend-of pictures in a previous post you can compare to if you wish.

elbow marked up

two puncture spots in my shoulder (from rocks maybe?) and remnants from the road rash. 

knee with its few deep gashes all filled in

Knuckle is all filled in and finger nail is half way back!

Thanks for stopping in, and make sure you take time to appreciate what you have, and show the people close to you that you do appreciate their efforts!

Prov TT and Injury Update

So it has been a while since I last posted. I have been busy with starting my Masters, getting back on the bike and trying to be a bit more social. I found some time this evening to write up an update for you loyal readers.

So I was almost ready to call it quits after Catskills for the year, but I didn't want to end the season that way. After the crash I was off the bike for a week and a half. Then I got in on a spin bike, doing 5 hours of training the second half of that week and 7 in the following week. I finally got back out on my bike towards the end of the third week and combined got 11 hours of riding in. So overall not what I would call a great training block leading up to provincials. The course was very hilly with only two short flat sections in each of the 20km laps. My garmin was in for repairs so I was going to do this TT completely on feel. I was also lucky to have a friend lend me a disc wheel. The 'whooshing' sound of the wheel always adds to your confidence I find.

At bike check, because I was just under 190cm I had to move my extensions in 5cm. This was complete crap! Because I can't afford electronic shifting, my knees now hit my elbows if my shifters are not sticking straight out. The UCI rules are complete garbage for tall riders and I am sure short riders probably have similar things to say. Anyway, this was not favourable with the hills as I very rarely found my shifter in the ideal location. It was either up too high to climb, or down too low on the descents. It was hard to get into a good rhythm I found as well on this course but I gave it a good go, with no numbers to judge my effort. I ended up 6th in U23. Overall I was happy with it because my expectations were very low going into it. Also comparing my times from this year to last year, I was a lot closer to the overall winner which I am telling myself is a sign that my fitness is improving! Had I not crashed, and had my garmin I think I could have knocked some time off, but no one will ever know. I finished in one piece and that is a much better way to end a season! Can't wait to come back next season even stronger and with more knowledge and experience.

Photo cred: Jeremy Allen

Results:here

Injury Update

So this past Tuesday I finally got my check up appointment and X-ray. Doctor said it healed well and I am ok to resume activity. I didn't tell him that I started 3 weeks ago. I have had some shoulder pain, but it has mostly felt like muscle pain, from trying to build the strength back up. Range of motion is pretty much all the way back now. Took about two weeks to get it back after I stopped using the sling. Now all I have left are some scars and a missing half a finger nail!

Left is healed, right is broken. You can see a bright white 'line' in the left one where the new bone has grown. Kind of hard to tell, so maybe I was just faking it?

Hoping to get out and enjoy some fall riding. Might get out to the UCUP mtb race this weekend and might try my first cross race this fall due to peer pressure. Thanks for checking in, as always!

Update -some graphic images

So stage 3 of Catskills was going good. I made it over the first batch of climbs in the lead group. After the feed zone there was a long downhill. All I remember was a loud bang, and then I was sliding across the asphalt. Garmin revealed I was travelling at over 70km/h when I went down. I thought "I should be rolling and not sliding", hoping not to get so much road rash. I came to a stop though before I could start rolling. Confused as to what the hell happened, I got up in pain and moved to the side of the road. The race director got out of the car and started to check up, classic first aid style. At this point I realized something was wrong with my shoulder and I was down most of a finger nail. 4 or 5 riders also went down about 50m up the road. After I got home and inspected everything I noticed my front tire was ripped in two spots. I have come to the conclusion that there was something sharp like glass on the road. No idea why I went down so fast, I thought I would have been able to ride something out like that for a bit, as my tire was still on the rim. The people up the road were apparently brought down by Gaelan Merritt who flatted his tubular but was able to ride it out a bit and slow down before going down.

I refused the ambulance trip to the hospital because I didn't have my travel insurance information on me and I didn't want to make a shitty situation any worse. Robert Gutgesell's dad was following the pack and was able to give me a ride to where I was staying. I managed to get my stuff and Richard Bartolo finished cleaning and packed the car. We checked out and headed to Albany Medical Centre. I got great service here, as soon as I got there, they gave me some pain meds and I was given a room. I got sent for a bunch of x-rays and came back with diagnosis of broken scapula. Before I left they removed the rest of my finger nail, cleaned some of the wounds and stitched up my knuckle (you'll see why in the picture). Finally got to eat just after midnight after picking up the pain meds to get me through the next few days.

After getting back to Canada I got my shoulder re-xrayed and was told I was lucky the break was away from the ball and socket joint. Also it wasn't displaced so no surgery is required. Also now thinking the grass I sat in on the side of the road had poison ivy as my legs are now covered with a rash. Awesome, right? However, this is season ending for me as I won't be back outside on a bike for another month. Really sad to have my season end this way. I was excited for the upcoming race schedule with stage race in Mississippi Mills, maybe Green Mountain stage race, and of course the Centurion Prospects Challenge.

Really sweet to look at the garmin graph and see the steep drop off in speed at the end: here

Anyway, here are some pictures of the wounds. It could have been much worse so I will count my blessings.

My parents coming to get me in my hospital scrubs

Nice little flesh wound. Lucky for you the finger nail is covered. That looked nasty.

Some shoulder road rash, cleaned a bit

Full right side damage

Tour of the Catskills - Stage 2

Through the night I woke up a few times with my knee being sore, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to pan out. I had some spidertech tape with me so I threw it on a little before heading out. Today was the circuit race with a nice 1.5km climb on each of the 3 laps. Race was a little shorter than the tech guide said as I crossed the line with 107km. The scenery again was nothing short of breath taking (assuming you had any during the race to spare).  The start and finish was at Windham Mountain resort so it was a nice little punch to the finish, with a long gradual climb leading up to it.

The race started and the neutral start dropped us off a little before the climb. Pace was high on the first lap with lots of action going on in the front. The group split up a bit on the climb, but came back together on the long and fast descent. After you had enough time to recover from the climb the pace picked up again for the sprint points at roughly halfway through the lap. The roads were fast until we took a right turn back onto highway 23 where it started to go uphill again. The first section of this was the hardest as you sprinted out of the corner to be met with some little hills at a high pace that made the legs burn. For the first lap everything stayed together for the most part despite the attacks.

Heading into the second lap the climb was the same except I saw some people suffering on the climb that I didn’t expect to see. Once we got over the top I was with a small group including Merritt and Bird who paced us back to the group. In this I think I went into too much of an aggressive aero tuck and bent my knee too far (only gets about 90 degrees worth of bend right now on a good day, maybe should see a doctor). After that my knee gradually got worse as the race progressed.

After we caught on I found myself moved right up to the front of the group. I stayed there for a while until a flurry of attacks sent a bunch of riders past me. I struggled a bit as we turned onto 23 but caught back on.  We turned into the third lap and the pace was much more calm this time on the hill. There were a few riders that separated but for the most part the peloton stayed together. I was starting to lose my ability to put pressure on my left leg standing (I thought it was supposed to be healed!). I should have been closer to the front, but I was near the back when we turned onto 23. The pace was high as the group was working to chase down the break. I couldn’t stand to sprint around the corner and lost the group. I tried to chase and catch on but I was no match for the driven peloton.

The next 17km I was plagued with bad thoughts about the stage and the weekend, and whether I should even start on Sunday. As I passed the right turn for the circuit I noticed there was a crash in the group as there was a rider pretty scraped up sitting at the side of the road being taken care of by race vehicles. I rode the rest of the way up to the finish passing one more person on my way. Finished the day losing over 7mins on GC.

Afterwards I congratulated Merritt on his “fourth place” (results say otherwise right now but I believe him). Then Bruce Bird gave me some motivational words and I was feeling better. After doing some easy spinning, icing and some Aleeve, my knee was feeling good again and I am motivated to take the start tomorrow!

Garmin data: HERE
All the result links for this weekend are HERE

Tour of Catskills- Stage 1

I got driven to New York with my roommate for the few days away, Richard Bartolo. We managed to get out of Canada before the whole Burlington Skyway accident happened luckily. The drive took us around 7hrs from Hamilton with maybe one too many rest stops but it was good to get out and stretch the legs. After picking up some groceries we set out to find where we were staying. It is a little apartment atop of someone’s garage. I thought it was going to be tiny but once we got in the door it was quite roomy. The “high speed” Internet was at dial-up connection speed and only could get the Wi-Fi in one room. The U.S. text plan was a waste, as I had no cell service here. I was hit with a single bed for the next few nights, but hey racers are supposed to be known for being broke and roughing it, right? Finished the day off with a pre-ride of the TT course and race packet pickup. I unfortunately broke a spoke on my pre-ride so that meant no powermeter for the TT. The hills here are amazing and the scenery is outstanding. The one problem is that there are so many trees so it can be hard to get the views sometimes.

Car all packed up!

Some of the lovely scenery here in Catskills

First day of the race was a 16km time trial, up a gradual hill and back (but not all the way back down it). My knee is finally starting to feel good on the bike after messing it up in a mountain bike crash just over two weeks ago. I got to the “pre-staging” area, where I assumed the volunteer there was sending people up as their time approached as he was calling out times to go up every minute. My start was at 12:06, and he sent up 12:05 so I was ready to go. I kept looking at my clock and he said 12:07, so I sprinted up, worried, to the start line where they sent me off immediately as a late start. I was furious! There must have been a miscommunication of some sort, but it seemed like such an unnecessary way to lose 36 seconds as I was standing there waiting for the 10mins leading up to the start.

I started the TT off with anger and sprinted up the first few inclines before settling into a hard pace. They say go harder on the uphill so I kept my heart rate around 4-6bpm above normal. Before the turn around two guys passed me. It didn’t feel great as I was giving it everything I had but I kept pushing through. I was happy to see the turn around as it meant I was well past halfway time-wise and it was downhill the rest of the way. Running a 54-11 I was able to keep the pressure on the pedals when the speeds got over 60km/h. I passed one of the guys that got me on a downhill. I was feeling good! I think I got too excited as my legs were starting to call it quits on me and I could feel my pace ease up a bit. The guy passed me one more time but I kept him close right until the finish. I congratulated the guy after on a nice TT, then went to shift into my big cassette when BOOM! Chain skipped off the cassette into the spokes, snapped two spokes and the derailleur hanger, and bent the derailleur cage pretty good.  At least it happened once I finished… After arguing with the commisaires about my start time (to no avail), the race director was nice enough to give me a ride back to where I was staying because my bike was obviously unrideable (I biked to the start line).

Derailleur shouldn't be there...

After this I realized I needed wheels to race on for the next two days. I headed to the local bike shop and they fixed up my powermeter wheel on the spot and I left them my zipp wheel to fix overnight. These guys were awesome and saved my weekend. I am sure I could have gotten a wheel from someone but this mentally helped me. Stay tuned for next two days of reports and more photos once I get home to good Internet!

Nice cloth numbers pinned and ready for stage 2!

Pictures!

No racing for a while unfortunately, but training harder than ever! I took this lapse in racing to save some funds for a low end DSLR camera (student loans are next on my payoff list). So hopefully I will be able to post up some nice pictures for you guys to look at. I will get my brother trained on it so he can get some shots when not busy in the feed zone. Seems like a hassle to carry around, but I might occasionally post up pictures of locations I ride past that I really enjoy the scenery of. Stay tuned!

Obviously had to test the camera with a bike shot!