Jun 21 - This past weekend saw Stevens Racing p/b The Cyclery ladies atop of two podiums.
Sue continued her dominance in the hills winning the first race in the "Northeast Bike Up the Mountain Points (BUMP) Series" (http://www.hillclimbseries.com/) held on Saturday at Whiteface Mountain, NY.
Sarah was atop of the podium at Ottawa Bike Race's Preston Street Crit in Ottawa, albeit it under some not-ideal circumstances. Once racing got back underway, a break formed that contained Sarah, Sophie and Trish and one 7th Groove rider. After strong work by all the Stevens riders, Sarah took the final sprint with ease for her first win of the season!
Next up: Rachel and Sarah are off to the Canadian road championships in Edmonton (Rachel will represent in the time trial as well) then several ladies will make the trek down to the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic in Mass.
Footnote: The report does not tell the whole story. There was an unfortunate crash in the women's race at Preston. Sarah managed to avoid it but Sophie and Trish did go down. They got off lucky relatively speaking with some scrapes, surface damage to the bikes and what seems to be the worst for them--a sprained wrist for Sophie that will be in a split for a few days. Allsion Lampi and Jen Stephenson were both ambulanced to hospital. Early reports are that both remain in good spirits but will need to take some serious healing time.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
First ever Gatineau UCI weekend now in the books!
June 13 - La Grande Visite de Gatineau est complet!Alot of preparation, both on and off the bike, went into this weekend for Stevens Racing p/b The Cyclery.In the end, it was all worth it. Overall great results for the team including a strong showing in the ITT on Saturday capped with Sue's 5th place finish and all riders finishing in the road race, albeit one only due to a puncture.
Kudos to the riders for their super efforts, support of each other and flashy presence for the team!
Final team results:
Time Trial - Sue (5th), Annick (23rd), Sophie (27th)
Road Race - Sarah (18), Michelle (29), Julia (30), Rachel (41), Leigh (42), Sophie (puncture)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Ready for the Gatineau UCI weekend!
The time is getting closer...as part of the weekend long Grande Visite de Gatineau weekend, the City of Gatineau and others are putting on two women's UCI events:- Saturday Jun 12 starting at noon, the Individual Time Trial (ITT)--a 17.7km out and back course where riders race alone against the clock, and
- Sunday Jun 13 at 1pm, the women's 99km all-together road race with over 80 riders from all parts of the world pushing their limits to be the ultimate winner of the tough, up and down and around course!
Stevens Racing p/b The Cyclery riders for this event will be:
* ITT - Sue Schlatter, Annick Dufour and Sophie Matte
* Road Race - Leigh Bianco, Julia Bradley, Sarah Coney, Sophie Matte, Rachel O'Reilly and Michelle Paiement
Support crew for the weekend includes: Nick Vipond, Directeur sportif; Kiwi Mike Leach, head mechanic; Paul Phillips, soigneur; and Tricia K. Spooner, team assistant.
Many thanks go out to Vince Caceres of The Cyclery and Peter Metuzels of Stevens Bikes for their on-going support of the team.
Check out details on the events on the Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117134681661422&index=1
Race course is in and around Blvd Allumettieres at Lac-des-fees and the Prom. de la Gatineau Parkway.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The "other" side
June 6 - Took another crack at that ‘other’ riding discipline (mountain biking) this weekend. This time it was O-Cup #4 in Midland, ON. A great race put on by Chico Racing and the folks at Mountainview Ski & MTB Centre. I missed out racing there last year and the only thing I really remembered from Provincials held there in ‘08 was stopping in the feedzone part way through the race to put armies on (who gets cold during a race in August!?). Poor memory aside, the 2010 Mountainview course was a lot of fun. Technical. Tough. The switchback single-track climbing made even more difficult with the wet conditions last week. Throw in some flat twisty stuff, a wee rock garden and some technical fast descents to round it out. The 1:30pm start was very fortunate with the weather with the rains stopping well before it was time to warm-up—only slick and greasy trails to contend with.
Despite a minor hotel ‘malfunction’ on Friday night when we arrived into Midland around midnight, the weekend sorted itself out and ran quite smoothly. Pre-ride quickly reminded me that mountain biking is more then just fitness – technical skills can be a big factor when the conditions call for it. Rob hitting the dirt about 5 mins into the pre-ride was a good reminder of that! First pre-ride lap was pretty slow with lots of thoughts of ‘holy cow, I could really wreck myself taking this stuff at speed’. But alas, another reminder: speed is your friend (most of the time!) with pre-ride lap number two and getting the ‘feeling’ of mountain biking again (having spent all week on my time trial bike in prep for the Gatineau UCI events coming up Jun 12 & 13th).
With pre-riding done, bikes cleaned and prepped for race day we headed off to “Mom’s” for dinner. Woah, I was FULL. Rob was in search for some ‘race-cream’ so we toured Midland, walking off dinner and checking out some pretty neat stuff – million dollar boats at the marina; snapping turtles, trumpeter swans (didn’t actually see these guys) and bullfrogs at the Wye Marsh; and one final stop to satisfy Rob’s craving, then back to the hotel for sleep.
Race morning was unrushed. Nice because I was pretty groggy from getting a full 9-hrs of sleep (and still being full from dinner – what do they call it, a ‘meat coma’??). Regular pre-race routine. To the startline on time (always a good thing). Super cheers from fellow teammate Sarah who was on site to support Codey and who lent a helping hand to Rob and me (thanks Sarah!). As usual, last off the line (man, I’ve got to work on that!) but thankfully NOT last up the start loop hill. Lots of bobbling going on. I did all I could to stay upright and keep the momentum moving forward. It seemed to work as I continued to move forward and make up spots. I did a bit of a cheeky move getting around the two Sue’s but I heard them say they were ok, so through the trees and forward I went and didn’t look back (well ok maybe a couple of times to see who was behind me but the course did allow for much of that – so much concentration needed to stay upright). Final lap was almost easier to ride with much less traffic on the trails. Came across the line to a smiling Sarah and Rob saying that only Emily and Amanda finishing so far. Timer Al slipped me a print out of the results and indeed, 3rd place! Yippee.
Despite a minor hotel ‘malfunction’ on Friday night when we arrived into Midland around midnight, the weekend sorted itself out and ran quite smoothly. Pre-ride quickly reminded me that mountain biking is more then just fitness – technical skills can be a big factor when the conditions call for it. Rob hitting the dirt about 5 mins into the pre-ride was a good reminder of that! First pre-ride lap was pretty slow with lots of thoughts of ‘holy cow, I could really wreck myself taking this stuff at speed’. But alas, another reminder: speed is your friend (most of the time!) with pre-ride lap number two and getting the ‘feeling’ of mountain biking again (having spent all week on my time trial bike in prep for the Gatineau UCI events coming up Jun 12 & 13th).
With pre-riding done, bikes cleaned and prepped for race day we headed off to “Mom’s” for dinner. Woah, I was FULL. Rob was in search for some ‘race-cream’ so we toured Midland, walking off dinner and checking out some pretty neat stuff – million dollar boats at the marina; snapping turtles, trumpeter swans (didn’t actually see these guys) and bullfrogs at the Wye Marsh; and one final stop to satisfy Rob’s craving, then back to the hotel for sleep.
Race morning was unrushed. Nice because I was pretty groggy from getting a full 9-hrs of sleep (and still being full from dinner – what do they call it, a ‘meat coma’??). Regular pre-race routine. To the startline on time (always a good thing). Super cheers from fellow teammate Sarah who was on site to support Codey and who lent a helping hand to Rob and me (thanks Sarah!). As usual, last off the line (man, I’ve got to work on that!) but thankfully NOT last up the start loop hill. Lots of bobbling going on. I did all I could to stay upright and keep the momentum moving forward. It seemed to work as I continued to move forward and make up spots. I did a bit of a cheeky move getting around the two Sue’s but I heard them say they were ok, so through the trees and forward I went and didn’t look back (well ok maybe a couple of times to see who was behind me but the course did allow for much of that – so much concentration needed to stay upright). Final lap was almost easier to ride with much less traffic on the trails. Came across the line to a smiling Sarah and Rob saying that only Emily and Amanda finishing so far. Timer Al slipped me a print out of the results and indeed, 3rd place! Yippee.
Time to head back to the road for a little while now.
Not sure that I would recommend racing on a full belly of all-you-can-eat roast beef buffet. Maybe it was the pound of pickled beets….should stick to just regular pickles! Looking forward to a few weekends of Ottawa-bound racing and ‘home time’ getting out for some long fun training rides. - Tricia K.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Killington Stage Race, May 29-31
After being canceled for 10 years, the Killington Stage Race was back for 2010. The race was a 3-day event in Vermont: a flat circuit race, a mildly uphill 17km TT and a road race ending in an 8km final climb.
Sue and Michelle drove down from Ottawa and Montreal, while Mel, Leigh and I headed out from the GTA. For us, the trip began with fitting 5 bikes, 13 wheels, 3 people and luggage into a station wagon. Everything fit surprisingly well, although we discovered the downside of the Ford Focus' great gas milage--a total lack of power. Nonetheless, we put our cycling tactics to use when passing other cars (slingshot from well behind, just like you'd attack someone in the a breakaway!) and made it to Vermont.
The circuit race was flat and fast, ending with a downhill (!!) sprint finish. Michelle was gutsy enough to get into the action and sprinted to 6th. The rest of us opted to stay safe (and not lose any GC time) and finished in the peloton.
Next day was the TT--which turned out to be 17k of headwind, in addition to the hill. Sue often flies under the radar by being very modest but extremely fast. Unfortunately (?) her cover was blown when she took the win, and finished 1 minute 22 seconds ahead of the next rider.
Michelle, Mel, Leigh and I finished 10th, 13th, 17th and 27th respectively. Very solid TTs, especially for Michelle and Mel.
The road race was the last day-- 99km with a mid-race QoM climb and a final 9km climb. Sue arrived at the start line in the pink leaders jersey (and possibly a target on her back?). The race race was pretty cool until the first QoM when the pack fractured. Sue was in the lead group and Mel and Michelle worked incredibly hard after the QoM to regain contact with Sue, and make sure she was protected during the rest of the race. Leigh and I also worked very hard, albeit at a slightly slower pace :)
I chased for what seemed like forever (and boy was I glad when I saw a slowing line of cars ahead of me--it meant I was approaching other riders!) Finally, by about 20km to go, most of the field had regrouped. There were a few joint Nano-Blur-Gears/ 7th-groove attacks which Mel and I worked to cover. The pack arrived at the final climb altogether.
Again, Sue showed her fitness, finishing 51 seconds ahead of the next rider to take the GC title! Mel, Michelle, myself and Leigh finished 14th, 15th, 24th and 36th.
All in all, it was a good weekend of results (GC win for Sue!!!, 11th for Michelle and 13th for Mel) and a good learning experience. It was great to spend some time with other team members and get to know each other on and off the bike.
--Rachel
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