Twelve women participated in Saturday’s Bike Skills Clinic, instructed by Glenowyn Carlson (Victoria) and assisted by MIVA member Charlene Stewart. During the morning session, riders increased their confidence and bike handling as they worked through various skills such as tight cornering, emergency braking and riding shoulder to shoulder. After a healthy (and delicious) lunch, juice and goodies from Good Life Juice, riders headed out for Part II – pace lines and climbing. This amazing group of women tackled every challenge given them - well done!
It was a hot evening yesterday at the 15k Errington Time Trial. We all enjoyed the change of scenery and the flatter course made for some fast times.
James Sage continues to dominate the men with a time of 21:06, and Janna Gillick was the fastest woman at 23:05. Janna also took home the Arrowsmith Cycles gift card for being closest to her predicted time.
The best modification of the evening was Luke Hubner’s surprisingly professional looking cardboard disk wheel!
Thanks to all the wonderful volunteers for guarding the side roads and ensuring the riders’ safety.
Next week we’re back on Nanaimo River Road for a tough 40 km TT.
We had twenty riders show up for a blustery night, with a strong headwind on the finishing straight changing the dynamic for the Aquarius Marine Criterium on May 7th. The pace started off fast and furious with James Sage attacking hard and going off the front three laps in. The headwind was too much for him to escape on his own and he was quickly brought back to the pack. From there on out the pace remained high with several unsuccessful attacks occurring, but the headwind made it difficult for anything to stick. As a result it all came down to the wire in a group sprint which was narrowly taken by Iain Hay, followed closely by Kevin and James.
Thanks to all our volunteers for coming out and helping to keep these events running so smoothly.
Volunteers
Larry Dicker
Brad Temple
Graeme Copp
Tony Adema
Peter Richards
Brian Kuhn
In other news…
Coming up this weekend is the Island Youth Road and Track series race in Errington at Englishman River Falls Park. If anyone knows of any youth interested in giving road racing a try, check out http://islandyouthroadandtrackseries.ca/ .
We’re also looking for volunteers to help with registration, marshalling corners, and hosting a post race barbecue. If you are available to help out please sign up here.
Registration opens at 11am in the Englishman River Falls parking lot, racing starts at noon, and everything should be done and packed up by 2pm.
Reminder; this week’s time trial is on Grafton Road in Errington. Please pre-register here
It was a slightly chilly evening for our first 20 km time trial this year. Twenty riders turned out to test themselves on the Nanaimo River Road course. Once again James Sage put in a great performance and was the only rider to come in under half an hour with a time of 28:33. The fastest woman was Tamara Zavarise with a time of 37:15.
Matthew Lamb suffered a puncture within the first kilometer, at least it wasn’t too far to walk back.
Thanks as usual to Patrick and also to Shepherd and Charlene Stewart for helping with the start.
Twenty-four riders took the field last night. There was a huge turnout from up-island, with the Riverway Dental contingent out of Courtenay, along with two riders from Campbell River. Two riders from Cycle Therapy in Duncan topped off the out-of-towners to have the locals outnumbered.
Janna suffered a mechanical on the first lap and unfortunately had to sit out her first MIVA crit of the season.
After the first two laps the pace picked up sharply with an attack from the Riverway squad stringing the pack out on lap four, which is where we saw the first rider get dropped. Several laps later the pack regrouped and stayed together for the most part. Halfway through the race the pace started to break apart as one by one several riders fell off the back in response to attacks from the front. With 5 laps to go Gary Macgregor from Riverway went off the front and looked to be able to hold pack off. However, somewhere on the backside of the third to last lap the bunch caught Gary and much to our confusion at the finish line Eric Rush also in Riverway kit attacked and went off the front. Eric managed to hold the pack off and soloed the last two laps to victory, with Iain Hay out-sprinting Nathan Walsh for second place.
Many thanks to the volunteers:
Brad Temple
Larry Dicker
Mary-Jo Mace
Liz Halloran
John Kinos
Glen Gordon
Video courtesy Glen Gordon