Well Christian's got big news - he's landed himself a stagiare deal with Team Garmin-Chipotle presented by H3O (whew, that's a mouthful). We couldn't be more proud and happy for Christian. It has always been our goal to develop Canadian Cycling and our own talent. Ideally that means our team grows at the same rate as our athletes, but if we can't do that we are proud to see them move on. (more…)

St. Georges, Quebec. Well Christian did it, he's won his first national championship as an elite at only 23yrs of age. Just like Cam did last year. Today's race was pretty intense, as we suspected it would be. It was a large field and a relatively short course at only 9.8km around with a steep hard climb each lap.

This was the same course we did on stage 5 in the Tour de Beauce, so we knew it well. We were very worried about the course, but it was also very suited to our abilities. With the heat and the distance though… you never know what is going to happen. The plan in races like this is really kind of simple-you do what you can, work the numbers. (more…)

Most people can recall a humbling moment, that moment that can just suck all the confidence out of you like the Hoover 3000 working over those crumbs in you carpet. That moment, more like moments, is kind of what I’m experiencing right now at the Tour de L’Avenir. Not that I ever thought I was some amazing angel of the mountains who danced up the hills, but on a good day when I’m not suffering from a problem where my left leg gets numb and I seem to loose all power in that leg which has been hampering me since the time trial, I don’t reckon I’m to bad, then we hit the mountains here, where it seems a rider who could normally throw down some solid attacks in north America is doing everything to hang on as these guys drive up the climbs. One on hand it’s not too bad for one day in the mountains with these guys, but the way they seem to just keep going faster every continuing day is what amazes me most. Having made the GC split a few stages ago where we took over six and a half minutes on the field I figured chances weren’t too bad for finishing within the top 10. Well this were the humbling moment comes in, over the last 2 stages numerous riders have been clawing back that deficit with quite some efficiency, in particular one Spanish rider who 2 days in a row has made the long break away stick with full teams like Rabobank and Germany chasing all day. Yesterday being the most impressive of his escapades where he went basically off the gun with a French rider never to be seen again, the impressive part was it was going so hard off the gun that the pack was reduced to half its size within 15km and they just kept pushing up the gap to a max of over four minutes and from all accounts the French rider was sitting on for the finishing circuits, at least the last 30km. Huh. That’s humbling. Another humbling moment was the Russian rider, who usually rides for Tinkoff, who rode the front for about the first 50km on his own, the pack single file behind with a steady stream of riders getting dropped. Again: huh. Richard if you’re reading we definitely need to do something about my training, more intervals or something I don’t know, though riding with more than one legs after the other seems to go lifeless might be a better place to start. So today is the third and what looks like the hardest day in the mountains to come, three cat 1, one cat 2 and two cat3 climbs, don’t know how much more humble I can get but I guess we’ll see today, maybe I’ll be coming home a monk. Oh la la. Ciao
The Young Man

Ever been to France? I have been maybe even to much for my own good. I think France is one of those countries you either love or hate and having done almost 6 months worth of projects over here I am really leaning towards the latter. After 5 days of racing here at the Tour of L’Avenir, the U23 version of the Tour de France, its been nothing but crosswinds and crashes and I am actually looking forward to hitting the hard climbing days in the Massif Central over the next 4 stages. There is no doubt that these are going to be some of the hardest days of racing I’ve done but at least then when the guy in front of me blows if much easier to close the gap then when its going 60kph in the crosswind with a train of orange Rabobank boys going like it’s the last 200m of a race instead of the 165km still to go. The country side of northern France just seems so desolate, its not really forested, not really cultivated, so spread apart and provokes a lonely isolated feeling. Usually I really don’t mind living in the country and actually prefer it to city life but here it’s just to much, I need internet. When you on the road during a big tour all you do is eat, sleep, bike, repeat. You are always trying to get the maximum amount of recovery so there is no walking around town or the hotel even, the only walking I do is room to massage, room to food, room to van. So with all this feet up time the internet plays a key role to keeping sane, keeping in touch with the outside world. During a stage race you really have no idea what’s going on outside your little bubble that’s the race, your reading material is the race bible, profiles, results and the topic of conversation most of the time is trying to predict what is going to happen the following day, though we’ve learned that here you may as well use the magic 8 ball to try to predict strategies. It really does get to be a bit to much biking and I think that’s another reason I really like to race with my boys at Symmetrics, cycling always seems to be a secondary topic of conversation at the dinner table and especially in the room which I usually share with Dwanyer. For that reason every time I get to call Amber it’s a real treat, where the only real talk of strategy is planning out our activities for when I get back and let me tell you that cant be soon enough, just 4 more stages at this race and couple timbit challenge races at worlds in Germany. Then who knows maybe a quick little vacation might be in order, still strategizing on that one. Ciao
The Young Man

I’m bored, beyond bored, I mean I’m writing a blog. Wow. I’m sitting in the airport in Frankfurt wondering what I would do if I came face to face with whoever booked this nice little flight for me. Its nothing like what the boys had to deal with flying down to Venezuela last week but right now six hours at gate A24 waiting for my connecter to Paris just really isn’t doing it for me.
Since Superweek I have been just trying to enjoy the supposed summertime weather, its still coming right? Most of my spare time away from training was all about having fun with my GF, Amber; it’s rare that I am around for an extended period of time so we took full advantage. First thing after Superweek we did a little trip to Victoria for a couple of days where I had to do some testing at Pac Sport, but biking aside it was great. The second night there we went to an amazing Italian restaurant tucked in a back alley where Amber had a rich salad of spinach topped with Duck Confit and I enjoyed an amazingly tender Veal Medallions with roasted root vegetables and veal jus. Oh and can’t forget the tiramisu for dessert, don’t worry we shared it. What we enjoyed most at this little hide away gem was the fresh bread with an olive tapenade though ,diced olives and roasted red pepper drowned in olive oil, still trying to get it the same at home think I’m getting close. That was followed the next day by a trip to the museum to see the Titanic Exhibition, it was pretty cool stuff, and they even had a huge iceberg in one room.
Next was a trip back to back home (NB) for my brothers wedding and let me tell you it was definilty something special. Where I grew in Sussex NB, covered bridge and dairy town capital of Canada, you went either of two ways growing up, you became more of the redneck hick type with your big loud 4×4 truck with muddin tires and the quad in the back or you became the more normal civilized type. He went the first, myself, I like to think going the latter and apart from the same parent we don’t really have that much in common. But he still is my brother and was definitely making the trip and with Amber there its always good, plus we got to see my sister’s first child at only a month old as well as my brothers first child born just two weeks before their wedding, kind of weird being an uncle. Anyways so the wedding was interesting my brother wore jeans and cowboy boots, his wife also sporting cowboy boots with her dress, got to get reacquainted with all my brothers hick friends who used to harass me in high school and we enjoyed our share of the 165lbs whole pig on a spit which was amazing, made sure we got the best part, the tender cheeks. So with my brother and sister now both married I am the only one that remains and comment of the weekend was the good old “so I guess you’re next then, eh?” “When you getting hitched?” even a few drunken “don’t ever do it, your brother is screwed” ok sure but is his best man suppose to be saying that. The best comment was one that Amber overheard about herself while I was getting some family photos done “looks like he went and got himself a preddy little thing from da city”. Ha-ha, just find that funny because when you tell somebody from Vancouver that you live in Langley they can’t believe you would ever live way out in the “country” like that, “do they even have running water way out there”. The rest of our four day trip was spent doing a bit of hiking; ATVing and eating amazing home cooked food including Amber’s first lobster experience. She wasn’t much of a fan of putting a live lobster in boiling water though, all in the name of culinary delight though I convinced her.
It always seems like home is the place to go to really recharge the batteries, good food, no distractions and blissfully quite. So when I got back it was time to get back at the training to try to conjure up some form for the last half of the season which after weeks of uncertainty now looks like this. First the Tour De L’Avenir, getting a bit nervous for this one not even gonna lie, followed by Road Worlds in Stuggart Germany, then a quick shot home for the season finale of Veulta Chihuahua in Mexico. But all this training in the past few weeks doesn’t mean we weren’t finding the time to indulge in our favorite pastime, dressing up and going out to expand our culinary palettes, with two more fine restaurants off our goal of eventually hitting every fine dining experience in the Vancouver area. Off the list now are Don Francesco in Vancouver, where we enjoyed pistachio encrusted rack of lamb, veal stuffed ravioli and Vancouver’s best tiramisu, again shared ha ha, and Pearl in White Rock where we enjoyed the six course tasting menu, that one is going to have to get its own little write up. I love food. Ciao
Christian