Upper Clements Wild Ride - More Valley Than Valley

Yo playaz, it's ya boy 'Chops postin' up with another story of how CSD's big guns blew a hole in the troposphere. Hold onto your Cytomax!

Martin, Christophe and yours truly blasted out of D-town bright and early, setting the car on auto-pilot (so I could send shit talking texts) for Annapolis Royal - a most quaint locale deep in the right ventricle of the Valley. Even the team car knew that today we were business men calling collect, as WOT passing ensured that those with kleenex in their rear window saw only a flash of number-plated carbon overhead before we blipped over the horizon a la Deep Space Nine.

Team Car 2, piloted by Quadz, carried The Grallerz - who's roadside enuresis wasn't helped by a departure early enough to permit a stop at JustUs! in Wolfville. Da Burge occupied the cockpit of TC3, with co-pilot Young Gun sitting shotgun and Robertson tail-gunning.

The course was directly across the road from the amusement park, and CSD made sure to thoroughly amuse the parking lot as we hauled in sideways behind Da Burge, popped the trunk, slathered the chamois cream and ran bass while airing up our tires.

I hadn't raced UC before this season, and I'd heard horror stories of the massive fall-line ascent that greeted lost souls as they sped off the start line. I was expecting a Martock-like death march, and warmed up in a panic as I thought TYG would be out for blood like Dracula with OCD popping SSRIs. I guess much of the climb of yesteryear was peppered with bits of new singletrack, as Sunday's course rocked harder than De Beers. The climb was about 10 minutes of middle ring for the A category, with two steep pitches interrupted with some false flat woods road and one section of singletrack. Following this was 15 or so minutes of awesome singletrack; "more valley than valley" is what I declared it by the day's end.

I was last getting to the line (nothing new) due to my massive warm up, and following our tradition of amusing bystanders and fellow riders, locked it up and slid in sideways between Da Burge and The Young Gun on the front row. People laughed. The Young cheered. 20 seconds later we were off and TYG actually let me take the lead. Da Burge tried to snipe the holeshot into the singletrack but I swerved at him like Maverick and reached for his front brake.

I led up the climb and into the singletrack at a steady pace, fully expecting TYG to gaze down at his kids' polaroid before punching the afterburners. Everyone was happy for me to maintain front-control, and I began yelling for Burgess (who had a bad climb), hoping my motivational messages would carry through the canopy and empower him to make contact. With Marty on my wheel shit talking flew into high gear; In the spirit of Chris Cornell I yelled back to him: "what does a rooster make?" (Martian/rooster cawing ensued). "What does a hyena make?" (Martian/hyena yipping ensued.) "What does a BURGESS make?" Martin began an infantile cry but was almost immediately interrupted by a stampeding Burge - the crew was back in formation.

Starting the third lap Jeff Sims of Hub Cycle (who's riding great this year) stepped up to the plate and smashed some fine china - leading up the climb. Reminiscent of Marty on a WBL, once Jeff found himself in front of CSD he hammered dangerously close to the Danger Zone, and came over the top with the tach buried in the red. I shaved a thorn bush and sniped at the apex of a left corner onto a false flat section of the doubletrack, and led into the upcoming section of single. In a clearly audible spasm of upshifting XTR, TYG was on my wheel in three or four heartbeats.

I put it down in the singletrack and we ran hard like Kowalski , quickly gapping a now-recovered Burge and co. With Lespy still glued on my wheel coming over the climb, I put everything I had into the descent and following singletrack, gaping TYG by a few seconds. Heading into the climb I knew his sinewy young carcass would catch me inevitably, and put it on cruise to stay ready for the devastating attack that would surely come. He caught me just before we hit the "halftime singletrack", but like a strangely patient piranha, let me set the (albeit recovery) pace. Tension was running high when we burst back out onto the climb, and TYG let a few more meters flow beneath our Crossmarks (hoping I'd cowl over in fear) before emptying his clip on the steepest part. He gapped me immediately, but I dug in, convinced I could go the distance and made it back on his wheel by the top. In classic Tomlin fashion I immediately attacked and took the initiative on the descent, and hammered with reckless abandon through all the singletrack. I'd joked about us coming to the line together halfway through, and it was looking increasingly like a two-up drag to the line. I hammered the big ring (heartlessly cross-gearing) with 500m to go and got ready to do what I've been doing best. I led around the final turn and then with only 75m to go we threw our javelins and clawed gravel.

Our loudest and bestest grrl held it down to smoke 6 big burly men in the B category, finishing 13th. Enid also held steady with The Corporal - propz. Honorable mention also gets thrown to our chief messenger playa. He threw a brick through Rob's Escalade to set the Halifax pecking order into a fury of beaks and large talons.

Thanks go out to Heidi for her gracious donation of mad photojournalism skills - you rock.

Till next time, crew. Stay strapped with stoke and keep your hearts dirty :)

-'Chops

Chops: 1:23:11
TYG: 1:23:12
DA BURGE: 1:27:08
Jeff Sims: 1:27:21
Marty: 1:31:50
Fast "Married Man" Eddy: 1:32:47
D-RAL: 1:36:35
Roberstons: 1:37;25
The Corporal: 1:42:25
French Connec: 1:43:37
Smyatt: 1:43:54
Quadz: 1:48:26

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Nations Cup

Its been another couple of weeks now of racing out here for Zach and I, heres another more formal race report update on things. We had a double weekend in BC 3 weeks ago, that was setting up very well for the team. Zach was in the early break and our guy Shawn for the finnish just sat in all day, I was covering moves till about half way when we started riding tempo to bring back the break and then I was on the front with Andrew Pinfold and some other teammates for quite a while, till there was a selection and I was the only one from the team left other then Shawn. Then 2 guys got off the front so it was back to the front of the group for me chasing with one other guy and when we hit the final roller I got dropped and cruised in just hoping Shawn had enough left to take Zach Bell for the sprint for 3rd but unfortunately another rider took him down with 300meters to go and so the team ended another race without the real result we have been looking for. The next day was a crit, the race was less attended unfortunately but looked like a good opportunty for us to get a little win. The race started well with Zach and Adam Thuss of red truck being the move, which was perfect for us to have the break one on one with Trek. Next Dave Vukets bridged up with me and Marsh Cooper, making it 3 on 2, not as good, but still okay, Zach and I were feeling strong so I thought it was still a good move for us. Then Jamie Sparling, another trek rider bridged up and it was 4 on 2, and a few laps later the attacks started the 4 of them constantly attacking for a half hour until Zach and I both got dropped from the break with Adam, leaving a break of 3 team time trialing away for the win, and us just getting in the top 5 with Shawn in the sprint, who had unfortunately been crashed again that day.
The weekend after we went down to Enumclaw, a classic weekend stage race on the washington calendar. I wrote a little report for the team website www.teamhrblock-kona.com if you would like a detailed race report, we had an okay weekend and got Cyrus in 5th overall I did finnish unlike the results say, far back though despite feeling pretty good all weekend, but I did a lot of work on the front in the road race and crit.
The tuesday after I flew to Quebec for the nations cup, which I was really excited for, doing a world cup race in your own country is an awesome experience I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately the morning I went to the airport I woke up feeling very sick with a fever, headache, bad cough and it didnt get any better by the time the race started on thursday. Its a bit of a wierd spot for such a race, Sanguenay kind of like Abitibi, you drive to Quebec city then head north through the middle of know where till you think your going to fall off the edge of the earth and then theres a town, with a world cup bike race. I was okay to sit in the pack on the flats even when it was going 60+ but we hit the first kom right after another climb. I started the first climb near the front so I could drift back but didnt get back up in time for the kom one and was just off the back over the top, but the commisaires barraged the caravan to make sure I never saw the group again and I was dropped for the day coming in out of the time cut ending my week just where it began. After the stage the director sent me to the medic who immediately drove me to the hospital where I stayed for 5 hours to get a blood test and chest x-ray without eating anything after the 140km stage. Luckily I didnt have phnemonia or bronchitis its just a viral lung infection or something that has triggered my asthma and made it a lot worse. I am getting better now, just have a bad cough, but am hoping to be well enough to race the BC cup this weekend in Kelowna. After that we are headed to Calgary for the Banff stage race next week, where I was really hoping for a good result, but now may just be looking to get some last minute fitness before flying back to quebec for nationals. This was another pretty unexciting report, I promise the next one will be more entertaining, thanks for reading.
Garrett