Here is a hilarious video commentary on Bike lanes in Vancouver. Thanks to Threshold for posting the original.

MIVA now has a Facebook presence, thanks to Doug Merrick of the Comox CC. You can use this to advertise group rides, meeting places etc. and to vent about any concerns you may have about mid island cycling in general. Go here.

For Kyle Waring's photos from last Sunday's Boxwood criterium go here. Thanks to Kyle for some great shots of the competitors in both events.

Mid Island Velo Association is planning to commence regular club runs in the next few weeks. The most successful regular recreational? rides run by many clubs always use a set route with a standard time and place to meet. Riders who miss the start can therefore meet with the rest of the group somewhere on the run. The route is chosen so that extra loops can be added for the faster/ fitter, more ambitious riders and a shorter, more direct route can be used by those who need to get home quickly or who are slower/less fit. Usually, a cafe or coffee stop is included at around the halfway point as socialising is a strong component of these runs. Many of the local riders, including a number of MIVA members, have their own favourite rides of seventy to eighty kilometres that include a variety of terrain, a few climbs and some flat roads.

Please submit your own ideas for a two to three and a half hour ride either north or south of Nanaimo  and the club's board of directors will pick  and adapt some of your suggestions to develop a couple of regular routes.

The first race in Mid Island Velo Association's 2011 series saw just thirteen riders show up as there were a number of other events on in Victoria and the lower mainland,The first race was a beginners one, with most of the experienced riders tagging along in the pre-race clinic to offer advice about tactics and safety.

Once the race started, the three entrants stayed together for a couple of laps, with Brodie Hay and then Colleen Wtorek making the pace and Sylvie Milman from Gabriola just managing to remain in contact. Shortly afterwards, the lead duo pulled away from Milman and she then rode alone to finish a respectable third at just a minute down.

In the final sprint, Wtorek proved to be the stronger rider and held off Hay for the win. As numbers were small, the two experienced categories were combined and the group started at a good pace and stayed together for the first four laps. Then the expert group led by Martin Macharek,opened up a gap and only O2's Simon Ciceri from the intermediate group was able to stay with them.

Malcolm Faulkner and Gary Croome of the intermediates were finally lapped with nine laps to go and by the end of the race were dropped again. Meanwhile, Ciceri was having a hard time staying with the experts but managed to hang on until the finish.

The lead group, composed of MIVA's Ray Wagner and Ian Smith, Dave Shishkoff and Martin Macharek from Organic Athlete, and Independent Derek Brain, kept up the pace and the lead alternated among them with no successful breakaways. They were still together entering the final lap and at the line, it was Brain winning comfortably from Smith, with Wagner third.

Thanks to our volunteers for ensuring a safe and well-set-out circ

uit and to Doug Merrick for commissairing and Kit McCaffery for doing registration

The next series criterium is on Sunday. April 10th. Most of the Comox CC riders promise to be there and we should have considerably more riders than this week.