Bloomer Park

I spent last Friday in Bloomer Park, Rochester Hills, Michigan. In the afternoon, a few of us did some team-pursuit training. In the evening, racing started. There was a Canadian invasion with 4 teams coming from FCV, and I was partnered with Jason King, of Oakville. This was the third of their Friday night Madison series.

The racing started with a one-mile scratch race for each partner, then a 50 lap Madison, then a miss-and-out with everyone, and finally a 100 lap Madison.

Jason King did the first scratch race, attacking a bit too early and getting swallowed up by the pack with about half of a lap to go. I won my scratch with an attack over the top with one lap to go.
In the Madison, we played it conservatively, and that didn't pay off. Team Euro (Daniele DeFranceschi, Windsor, and Nick Console, Rochester, MI) took a lap.
In the miss-and-out, I was eliminated early when I got boxed in the sprinter's lane. Jason King, however, raced extremely well and came second to Daniele.
Going into the final Madison, we were in a solid second place. We ended up going for all the sprints, knowing that team Euro wasn't going to let us take a lap.

Final standings had us in second place with 88 points and Team Euro in first place with 99 points.

My next big race is the International 3-Day (http://www.nas-track.com/velodrome/pages/vabp-raceevents.htm#nt3day) in Bloomer, where I will be racing with Daniele.

Good luck to Trek-Store riders at CHIN tomorrow, and happy Canada Day!

K-Dub

Before the race, I was a bit anxious about doing that climb 28 times, but to my surprise the pace wasn't too bad. For most of the race, I was either on the back, sitting in, or on the front, covering moves, and praying for them not to stick. With about 5 laps to go, the peloton split, with about 10 riders in each group and 3 riders off the front. At 4 to go, a prime $35 prime was announced. Being the broke student/cyclist that I am, I decided that might be a nice time to go off the front. Within a couple of kilometers, I couldn't see the peloton. With 3 laps to go, I had my own follow car. I knew then that the last 20 km of that race were going to hurt. I ended up staying off the front, and finishing in fourth place. This was my best result on the road yet.

My next race is tomorrow. I will be racing Madison in Detroit. Let track season begin!

Videos

Forgot to mention...

The top video on the side is me doing a team pursuit in Los Angeles, trying out for the National team. I am the one in red with a white disc wheel.

The bottom video is Springbank, where I smoked a curb and ended up flipping over my handlebars.

Albion Hills and Niagara Classic

First Post!

My name is Stephen Meyer. I grew up in Dorchester (near London), and now I am in mechanical engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton. I have been racing road and track for about 3 years now.

I did my first mountain bike race ever last Sunday, and it was quite an experience, to say the least. I have been on a mountain bike 3 times in the past 5 years, only doing this race in the hopes of qualifying for Team Ontario for the Canada Summer Games. I borrowed my dad's Trek 8500. It is still a really nice bike despite being almost 10 years old. In the very first lap, after a fast, dry downhill, I hit some thick mud, and launched myself into a pond next to the trail. I ended up in water up to my neck. I decided to call it quits after two laps when the leaders started to lap me. I am glad I did the race, but I'm not sure if I will do another this year. I will just stick with the mountain bike on fun/recovery days.

Yesterday was the Niagara Classic. This course is extremely selective, with the most recognisable feature of the loop being the big climb to the finish. It was pretty cold on race day, and very windy. This resulted in some serious gutter action on the back stretch, causing one crash that I narrowly missed. I ended up getting dropped from the group on the ninth time up the hill, out often. I ended up four minutes behind the peloton, fifteen minutes behind the leaders. This put me in 34th place (out of 34 finishers and 65 starters haha).

I'm not sure yet what my next race is, but here's to flatter races to come!