Eric, Zach and I had a quick trip up to Calgary on the weekend for the Tour de Bowness, which takes place in a friendly neighbourhood that was long ago, gobbled up by the big city. I did this race in 2005 with Christ, Marsh and Sherby and it went pretty well for us. I promised Eric and Zach cowboy hats from Bow Cycle if they attended, so for them, it was a no-brainer.

We started off with a 3-up hill climb up Canada Olympic Park. It's only 1.3km but that just gives you a false sense of security. With about 300m to go, my legs were screaming. Zach proved the quickest on the day. I was 2nd and Eric, 4th. Thanks to my buddy Chad for setting the pace on the "lower slopes". And by the way, I figure Zach cheated. He also poured salt into the wounds afterwards when he told me to go on a diet.

For the criterium on Monday we raced around the biggest bike shop I have ever seen; Bow Cycle. This place is as big as an MEC. Two floors. It's enormous. Outside, Norco had the tents set up as did Shimano. So we had a nice place in the shade before the race. The La-Z-Boy guys drove out for this one too. We were able to break up the field after a bit and settle down to all 3 of the S-Team in the break along with Jamie Sparling (La-Z-Boy) and Jeff Bolstad (H&R Block). Eventually, the move split again with Zach and I up the road with Sparling, while Eric escorted Jeff back to the peloton. When the lap counter said 10 minutes plus 5 laps to go I attacked to start putting the pressure on Sparling. A lap later, they changed the counter to 15 minutes to go. So a little more work left than we thought. Jamie put up a good fight but eventually had to give in and let Zach ride away. I finished up 2nd while Eric won the bunch sprint for 4th. There was an omnium too and the S-Team managed to sweep the podium.

After the awards I had lunch with my family who drove from all over Alberta to take in the race so that was pretty cool. Later on, Eric, Chad and I ventured back to Bow Cycle to take in April Wine in concert. The shop had been nearly emptied of bikes for the show, which was in celebration of 50 years in service. The drum solo was the best part. The guy is in his 60's, did a hard-core solo for 15 minutes, blew himself to bits, and then came back for more. Awesome.

A big thanks goes out to Tom Bastable, the Alberta Norco rep. Eric's bike didn't make it in time for the hill climb so Tom offered up his Norco which was the same size. Bow Cycle donated some Shimano pedals too. Much appreciated guys. Hope to see you in '08.

There's talk of maybe adding a road race next year too. Sounds great. I hope the event continues to grow and that we'll see the emergence of an Alberta superweek in August. Come on Edmonton. Two weekends of racing and perhaps a mid-week event too works rather well in B.C.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 8:47 am and is filed under Draft, Jacob Erker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.