MIVA CYCLO -CROSS CLINIC # 4 CORNERING, CROSS CAMBER TURNING, COURSE PRE-RIDE. The turn-out tonight was lower than usual and two of those present had to leave quickly. Topics covered included pre-riding the course and what to watch for, cornering faster, and cross camber turning. A chicane was put on the hill, with riders required to descend cross camber and make a 140 degree turn at speed. Most of the participants were able to negotiate the turn quite well and, on the fourth run and up, all had nailed it.

The 30 minute race included the chicane, three artificial barriers and a techical run through a bunch of trees. Paul Thompson took the early lead but was joined by latecomer Justin Mark on lap two. For a brief while, Kirby Villeneuve cruised out front but on lap four, Kyle Waring surged ahead.

As the second half of the race approached, Paul, Kyle and Justin started to ride away from Kirby, with Judy Villeneuve, Dick Jung and Cheryl Morch falling further back each lap.

At the front end, Justin stopped to tighten his seat bolt (he only finished assembling his bike that afternoon. Once the seat was fixed, he set off in hot pursuit of the leaders and was soon in contact.

With four laps to go, Kirby retired with stomach pains, leaving Paul and Justin to battle for the lead, with Kyle, who was paying for his earlier effort, a distant third and the rest of the field lapped.

With one lap to go, Justin was leading with Paul right behind him and Kyle soldiering on in third.Judy had just been lapped and Cheryl had caught and dropped Dick who had slowed to a crawl.

At the line, Justin finished first,with Paul four seconds behind and Kyle third at fifty seconds. As Justin had ridden a lap less than Paul, the top two positions were reversed.

MIVA WEEKLY CYCLO-CROSS #2, 120920 Beban park, Nanaimo

10 laps of a 1.1 kilometer circuit

The clinic was well-attended, with thirteen participants. Janna modified the format for the race and all participants agreed that, instead of giving points for finishing positions, everyone would get five points for taking part. As there is a geat spread of experience, this seemed very fair.

MIVA HILL CLIMB NO. 4, 12 09 22 Duomont Rd./Wiegles Rd. - 5.2km

The final event in the MIVA 2012 time trial series took place on the popular Duomont/Wiegles limb. This hill is 5.2 kilometer, with the really tough part in the last three kilometers. The first two km is a series of small roller coasters, with several short, sharp ascents.

First off was Abigail Hare, who has ridden all the hill climbs so far and shows steady improvement in pedaling technique and use of gears. Considering she is only thirteen, her twenty one minute time was excellent and just over four minutes slower than that of Patrick Burnham, who rides the MIVA time trials on a fixed wheel. Abigail's father, Jason, is working on his fitness level but still beat Patrick by over a minute.

A space of only twenty seconds covered second, third and fourth places, with Mark Wieler surprising us by posting second fastest time and third placed Kirby Villeneuve beating Lorrie Baildham by only four seconds.

The ride of the evening was by Doug Merrick from Courtenay who is at VIU for the Winter. He won by almost two minutes but his time of 13' 25” was nearly a minute and a half off Paul Auton's 12' 00"  record of last year.

With both the time trial and criterium series done, and cyclo-cross in full swing, all that's left is to calculate the series winners in each category.This information will be published shortly.

Thanks to Katy Condon and Paul Thompson, the College Drive Hill Climb went off without a hitch. Pity that more people didn't show for this excellent climb. Good to see Abigail and Aiden Hare out. Their regular participation over the last few weeks has pushed them up to the top of the series in their categories. Next Thursday is the last hill climb and also the last event in the 2012 time trial series, so lets see lots of entries for the Duomont climb. Registration at 6pm at Pleasant Vallet Community Centre, first rider off at 6.31pm.

MIVA was very well represented in most of the categories at the Gorge Park Cross on the Rock race on Sunday. The weather was spectacular and the course was challenging but not overly technical.  A write-up of how it went down, complete results and a link to a photo album by Patrick, can be found here in Pedal: http://pedalmag.com/?p=173458  

Next up is Cumberland!