New Sponsor- TRIWAY

Proper bike fit is one of the single most important things for a competitive biker. When every pedal stroke counts its nice to know you and your bike are operating at 100% efficiency.

The past two yrs I have been lucky enough to have had Luke Way fitting my bikes for me. Luke is a fellow Jasperite who now lives in Calgary and operates TriWay bike fitting. His setup is second to none with lazers, live video feeds, wattage meters etc. When I leave his place I know my bike and I our working at optimum efficieny and I have one less thing to worry about for the yr. Thanks Luke!

Check out his site at http://www.triway.ca/


After last weekends sub-par results my perfectly fitting road bike and I took on the local race scene in Victoria on Sunday. I was a little nervous going into the Newton Heights hilly criterium as the course is just over 3 minutes long and half of that is a steep climb. Doing 15 laps of the course is the equivalent of doing 15 x 1.5 min max intervals with 1.5 min "rest" between.

Not too keen on doing an interval session I attacked on the first lap and set a high tempo for the race. Too my suprise nobody followed and after 13 laps I lapped the field and took the first victory of 2010! A low key local race is nothing to get to excited about but its definatly a confidence booster to know that the winter training has been effective thusfar.

Race Weekend

Cracckkk!! That was my shin hitting a cut off log
on a fast decent during the first XC race of the yr in Port Alberni last weekend. 3 seconds later I picked myself up off the ground and looked down to see a ostrich ready to hatch out of my leg and blood flowing freely. The pain was at the level of whole leg numbness which is scary as I wasn't sure if things were broken down there or not. Luckily things were alright although there was a good limp for the next couple days. First and hopefully last DNF of the yr.

The day before was a 120 km road race in Vancouver. The legs felt good but I'm pretty sure guys were peaking for this pre season training race. My goal going in was to empty the tank. Managed to do that in the first 10 laps through various poorly time attacks and chasing down breaks. Forgot to eat, cracked and then spent the last 2 laps hanging on for the bunch sprint. My elephant sprint came out and I finished 28th out of 35 or so. Pretty stoked to cream 7 pack filler roadies.

After the race weekend I headed up to Campbell River to ride with racer bud Simon Tremblay. Simon had the week off from fixing helicopters so we spent 3 solid days ripping up some great singletrack in the area. Cumberland, Forbidden Plateau, Campbell trails... Definatly some of the best kept riding secrets in BC. Riding road bikes is cool if your going some place but theres really nothing like ripping through the woods on some tight singletrack.

Last night the 3 week road trip came to a hault as I pulled into my bros place in Victoria. Pretty stoked to dump my travel bags upside down and start to set up base camp.

Hell ya Canada!

Canada is unreal. Getting back in time to catch the final weekend of the Olympics in Vancouver was even more unreal. The amount of Canadian pride shown and the party in downtown after the gold medal hockey game was out of control. There are good parties everywhere but this one was in its own league. It made Carnival in Panama look like a small town high school party. Good Work Canada! 14 Golds is going to be tough to match.

With the Olympics over it was off to the mtns to visit the folks. Theres nothing like home cooking or sleeping in a room filled with fresh Canadian air. Central America is awesome, and I hope to continue to use it for my winter training grounds in the years to come but everytime I return to Canada I am overwhelmed just how huge and amazing this place is.

Last Sunday my mind was hurting as it tried to grasp the beauty of skiing 55km around the Tonquin Valley loop of Jasper with Jasper Ski gurus Dave Mcdowell, Tony Jones and friend Lilla from Nova Scotia. Skiing below 10 000 ft snow clad peaks, touring over a high mtns pass and ripping 25 km down a river through tight singletrack ski trails has left my my mind spinning after the previous 4 months in the jungles. A few days later we skied up a local river canyon, broke a ski, fell in the river and howled with wolves 200 ft away. Unreal.

The weather is another story. It has been nice up here but a few days ago I hopped on the bike for the first time in 10 days to start up the training again and had a bashful time to say the least. With 2 inches of fresh snow on the ground, just enough to cover the glazed ice trails it turned into a bruising day. I crashed more times in the 3 hr ride then I have in the past 4 yrs combined. Two of them were gooders. Crashing on an old injury riddled shoulder from hockey wasn't ideal. The one that hurt less physically but more mentally was standing going up a hill, having the bike slide out from under me and falling backwards on my head. It felt like getting laid out in center ice by a 220 lb d man after a suicide pass. When I finally made it back home I was feeling like Ovechkin must have after our Candian Junior team rag dolled him in the 2005 World Juniors.

The last week was highlighted with a road trip through Western Canada's major cities with Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver on the list. Had a great 150 km ride through the foothills of Calgary with Ultra endurance crazy Dallas Morris last Sunday. Last time we rode togethar it was 2am in the morning and Dallas was shouting at me to cowboy up as I was curled over my bike trying to lay an egg during the 24 hrs of Adrenaline Worlds.

Back in Vancouver now, living out of the truck for a few more days. Things are starting to smell a little funny in there. Usually the first sign its time to set up camp somehwere and get things back in line. With my bro out in Victoria with an empty bedroom available I may have a solid home for a while.