Prep ride

Who would have ever known that there are more than one weekly world cup series in Ontario. Out of curiosity Tristan and I loaded up a couple bikes and headed south to see with our own eyes. It coincidentally happened to be using the 24 hour race course, 17 birds, 1 stone??? Not a huge amount of time for a warm up, I believe that the ride back in forth from the car twice was pretty much it. It was at a overly brisk pace of just above coasting speed. The famous Superfly himself attempted to organize and control the antics of the mass pack of anxious riders. Of course his (use your own description here) little dog did a better time throwing off his concentration than any of us.

Go time. Did I ever mention that I dislike the start loop at Albion. Why? Because it has climbs in it. It wasn't to bad tonight, with only 60-70 riders it wasn't to hard staying near the front to get a good position for the first climb. Now this weekend the effort for the same results will be elevated just a little, still,l deciding on who does first lap for our attempt to repeat last years results. I've left the decision in the hands of Tristan. He will make the right call.

It's been a little bit since I've had to pout a good upper end effort in, at first it took a few minutes to get the head focused. I wasn't overly killing it but settled into a pace that would be very close this weekends race pace. Things started to feel good, it helped having two working brakes. The climbs felt a little easier as the race progressed, the legs started to fire, there was no "please stop doing this to us" screaming out of them. What was also nice was the momentum into the climbs. The course has flow, it's possibly one of Sean's greatest creations to date. Of course the newly cut trails make for some great changes and the just added rolling bumps at for a bit of Joyride pump track feel. I like!!! Crossed the line smiling, 45 minutes,. this leads to a very quick lap. Figuring in the 42-43 minute mark for the course minus the start loop. Fastest lap will be a sub 40, this also depends on who is there, with a real World Cup next weekend and road Nationals this weekend the fastest lap may claimed by????

I will say that rain is needed on that course. Not to much, not to little, somewhere in the middle. Some chill easy days ahead, some bike prepping to be done. Some sleeping is very much needed. For anyone wondering, we will be squatting our transition site at the top of the start climb. There will be many members of AWI Racing in attendance. There will be noise, there will be drinking, there will be antics. Of course Tristan and I won't be included in them, we have a task at hand. 24 hours divided by 2 is 12, divide that by 2 laps is 6 times. Now adjust for shorter laps during the day then calibrate for the longer laps at night. Add in a little fatigue, total laps each will be, ok now I'm really confused. Think I'll get a coffee and think about it later.