Long Weekend Riding
It’s looking like a warm and sunny long weekend ahead. So if you can tear yourself away from the spring yard work, come join your club for some solid endurance riding. Slather on the sunscreen, and fill those water bottles …
Ardrossan VSR Road RideOur Saturday ride will be the same as last week’s plan. Leaving the Ardrossan Rec Centre at 10am for a 60km loop through our latest (and older) Stage Race stomping grounds: https://www.strava.com/routes/13143060
Sunday’s plan is west of Edmonton, leaving from the Spruce Grove Tri-Leisure Centre at 10am. This is a challenging hilly 60km circuit into the Glory Hills acreage area north of Highway 16. Honestly, I think this is the only riding area in the Edmonton region where the hills truly go up before they go down. Not a river valley to been found in sight! Strava link right here: https://www.strava.com/routes/13311039
Monday is riders-option for now. We can discuss during this weekend’s rides where (and who) might be interested in a little extra riding volume on holiday Monday.
For members looking to really amp-up the volume this weekend, I encourage you to ride out to our remote starting locations. You can easily turn a 2hr ride into a 4+hr BIG RIDE that way.
Anybody Racing This Weekend?
The race calendar has two crits on offer in Calgary. And of course there is the perennial Bikes On Broadway Stage Race in Saskatoon. I’m not attending these events myself this year. But please do send me an email if you’ve made plans: coaching@velocitycyclingclub.ca . I really enjoy keeping up with the racing ambitions of our club members.
Our June 1-3 Climbing Camp is ON HOLD for now…
Jasper is basically sold out for accommodations. We’re looking at other options, like the Kananaskis area, including the Highwood Pass. A further modification would be re-scheduling this as a September journey, putting all of your hard-earned seasonal fitness to a final test of climbing in the Alberta Rocky Mountains.
Please watch for updates within the next week.
What About RMCC’s Road Festival on June 9-10??
This year Canmore hosts the Provincial Road Championships for all ability categories (Cats 5 through 1/2) as part of RMCC’s weekend Road Festival: a crit, hill climb and then the Provincial Road Championships.
Are you targeting a title in your Category? If so, with enough interested riders, we can make some coordinated travel arrangements with some car pooling and sharing of accommodations. Send me an email so I can gather your names into a separate email list. Please decide sooner than later! coaching@velocitycyclingclub.ca
Next Week’s Riding Schedule
Tuesday we head out from Hawrelak Park at 6:30pm again for our City Hill Circuit. 4x Zoo Hill, 4x Emily Murphy and up to 4x Fortway Road. Squeeze out the watts and heart beats as you jam wheel-to-wheel with your club mates.
If you haven’t heard yet, the club is hosting an ABA ITT using Sunnyside Road south of Bon Accord. So let’s get a headstart on the competition, and use this road for some Threshold/ITT-pace intervals.
This Thursday we’ll start at 6:30pm from the Edmonton Garrison, parking at either the Tim Hortons or Guthrie School, across the street. We loop basically north, warming up on less-traveled roads, to reach Sunnyside Road from its south end. Then it’ll be 4x 6min, paced at your 40km ITT effort. We’ll re-trace our circuit back to the Garrison.
Here’s the basic route: https://www.strava.com/routes/13311540. We’ll do our intervals back-and-forth on the south end of Sunnyside Road.
And there’s also the Thursday MTB ride leaving from Giant Edmonton at 6:30pm. Remember, even if it’s not raining, the trails need some time to dry before they’re ready to ride.