Welcome to Summer’s First Long Weekend

Coach Kevin is headed to the hot (hopefully!) Penticton region for some riding and relaxing with the family through the next 2 weeks (and 3 weekends). But I trust you’ve all settled into a great weekly routine riding with the club, and don’t need me specifically to lead the rides. If any of you are also headed Penticton-way in the next couple of weeks, let me know and we’ll try to connect for a ride.

Back here locally, we still have a good thing going on Saturdays at Ardrossan. Meet at the Ardrossan Rec Centre at 10am. I’ve still got the ride posted heading to Fort Saskatchewan, but take your group in whatever direction you’d like. Please keep the group sizes to around 10-12 riders each for maximum safety on the county roads.

Sunday’s ride will be replaced by the Canada Day Crit. If you haven’t entered, then take some time to do a little urban exploring. Ride on over to the Lendrum Community League building, which is in the centre of the crit course. The races follow a points race format where racers sprint for points every 4 laps. It keeps the event exciting from beginning to end!

First up at 9:10am are the Juniors. The last race is Men Cat 1/2 at 2:20pm. It should attract racers from all over Alberta, if not Western Canada.

With Monday also being a holiday, some of you may want to continue the group riding. Chat with your club mates over the weekend, and try putting together something a little extra on July 2.

Thanks to the Volunteers Who Made Race the Clock ITT a Success!

Chapeau! to your club vice president, Kevin Coghlan, for pulling off organizing his first bike race. With only a couple of SNAFUs, including a timing mess-up from our commissaires, the event was a success.

Full results are posted to the updated Race the Clock webpage. Check out the pictures at the bottom of the page of our club riders who raced – photo credits to Paul Ermantrout who tried to snap all the Velocity riders that were on course.

Criterium Racing at Castrol Raceway Was a Huge Hit Too

We got Tuesday crit racing re-launched this past Tuesday. More than 60(!) racers participated, which was a little unexpected due to the rainy-looking skies late Tuesday afternoon. I almost cancelled the event. Sure glad I didn’t, because the evening was fine! What a great event idea floated by club member Dayton Danielson. And with some further coordination from Paul Ermantrout and poster-design work from Aaron Mumby, the event came together.

One of the club’s long-time commissaires, Bernie Fagnan, did a great job getting the race formats organized, started and stopped. Thanks Bernie!

I’ve written a short race report over on my blog. Please click here to take a look.

I propose the event runs every 4th Tuesday until the end of the season. And we should circulate hosting duties among all the major clubs in the region: Juventus, ERTC, Pedalhead and of course ourselves.

Looking Ahead Past Canada Day

I’m keeping the club Calendar updated with our weekly rides. Please monitor Twitter for all cancellations due to weather. Generally, that means if there’s a 60% chance of rain (or if it’s already raining) expect the ride to be cancelled.

Tuesday returns to our Hill Circuit starting in Hawrelak park at 6:30pm.

Our Thursday 6min intervals continue next week, to keep your ITT racing legs tuned.

Life is short. Enjoy your ride!