This was my first outdoor fixie race and it was a blast. The weather was perfect, all the racers were in good spirits and it was well executed by Duncan Lewis. The night before the race it snowed, but by noon the road conditions were perfect and snow or ice wasn't a problem.
James Weeks, Lyle and myself had reconned the crap out of this race and experimented quite a bit, to come up with a solid route. This helped, but we still ended up having other racers following us, or choosing a route similar to ours.
The race started down at Granville Island and the three downtown bridges, Burrard, Granville and Cambie were the first to complete. The race started really fast and I knew I would have to pace myself or blow up and loose it all. By the time the three bridges were done, there was a lead group off the front. James and I had teamed up and took a lower route after the Cambie Street bridge, along Cordova as we found it was more direct. When we reached Commercial drive, the lead pack was merging with us, so we had chosen a good route that was paying off.
By the time we hit the north shore things had spread out a bit. We had a tough time finding the checkpoint on the North side of the second narrows, but it was fair game as most people lost a bit of time here. It's a courier style race after all, so the unexpected, should always be expected, besides it's hard to be upset when there's the cutest dog in Vancouver greeting you.
The muddy paceline along the low road in North Van was pretty good and we were increasing our gap. At this point we had Mike Sidic, Cody Callon, Lyle, James and myself cooking along. Getting closer to the Lions gate, Lyle dropped off the back and James got a flat. As I was teamed with James, I stopped to give him my 15mm. I said goodbye to James and tried to get back on with Cody and Mike. The rest of the race was done solo and I got to Super Champion thinking I was done. Nope. We had to run a couple blocks away to another checkpoint and rhyme about boobs. My rhyme was (editor approved!):
Boobs are really great, I love 'em in my face.
If I could hang them on the wall, they'd be all over the place.
Whatever the hell that means. Anyways, the run sucked as much as my motorboating skills and I think we all felt like dying after the whole thing was over. In total there were 27 racers. Here are the results:
First off, give it up for team Canada:
Congrats Cody Callon for taking home first place.
Right behind him was Mike Sidic who wanted everyone to finish together. He coached me up the on-ramp hill heading northbound onto the Second Narrows bridge.
I placed 3rd.
Lyle placed 6th
Tim Wyatt placed 9th, going against the grain and taking Lions Gate before the Second Narrows.
Emily Willobee ended up midpack and was the only female racer. Props.
Matt Hornland was 10th and also contributed to the prizes by donating one of his hand made bike racks. Go Teen Wolf.
A big thanks to Duncan for organizing, the people who were stationed at the checkpoints and to Super Champion, Mighty Riders, Mactalla and Cantilever and Press for the prizes.
Thanks to Cory Grandfield for the photos. Thanks to Haley, Nik Cee and Duncan for coming up with the idea.
(Blog Post by T-Pick)
