DARREN COPE

Ontario Bill 74 passed its first reading in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on May 18th, 2010.  The private member’s bill, introduced by Parkdale-High Park MPP Cheri DiNovo, is intended to make Ontario’s roadways safer for cyclists by requiring motorists to give cyclists a wide berth when passing (between 3 and 5 feet depending on the motorist’s speed).  Fines for motorists breaking this law would range from $310 to $750

Please sign the electronic petition to support this bill – we need to make this law!

http://bill74.epetitions.net/

Please pass this on to all of your friends as well–the more signatures the better!

Today was my first real shot at the sub-hour 40km.  The bike was ready.  The conditions were good (sunny, not too much wind, perhaps a bit hot for my liking, but better than too cold!)  The question that remained was whether I was ready.

Yesterday was a slow easy ride on the TT bike to test out some position tweaks to the bars (wider at the forearms, and rotated slightly ‘in’ to give my thumbs a better spot to rest).  I’m sure I will continue to tweak the position, but it sure is better than the original setup!  I’m also considerably more comfortable on it than I was on Tuesday, after a few more hours riding it and getting used to how it handles.  Unfortunately, I felt terrible physically on the ride, so perhaps it wasn’t the best sign of things to come.  I had everything packed and ready for a quick getaway this morning, and was up with the alarm at 6am.

I arrived at the start (boat launch in Calabogie) and signed in before getting dressed and warmed up.  I was number 32 of 37 (I think?) on the day, so there was a very good turn-out.  This is especially true considering a few riders are in Sutton this weekend who may otherwise be TTing.

Like yesterday, I was once again feeling less than stellar during my warmup.  I had to really push hard to get the bike up to 40km/hr; not a good sign when you’re hoping to average 40 for an hour!  However, I figured that things could change quickly, so tried not to let it get to me.  I arrived at the start ready to go, and John and Bob gave me a good clean send off.

According to my very unofficial time check, I had gained ~30 seconds on my ‘minute man’ in the first 12km despite feeling fairly crappy.  I started to feel a bit better around km 13 or so, and in the next few kms I pulled in a lot of time and passed my minute man.  However, shortly after he passed me back, and stayed away for another km or so as we neared the turnaround.  I was thinking the turn around was soon, so thought it would be best to let him go through first before passing again.  I eased off just slightly to match his pace, so I wouldn’t be drafting and/or gaining on him just before the turn around.  After a couple more corners, it was evident that the turn-around wasn’t coming up just yet,  so I went by him again on a hill.  At one point, he was almost by me again, but I picked it up so he couldn’t pass.   At the turn, I was far enough ahead to not impede his turn (I am still taking the turn-arounds very slow on the TT bike!)

From the turnaround, the return leg is only 19kms, and has significantly more downhill sections, so it goes a bit quicker than the 21km first leg.  At this point, I finally started to feel fairly good, so tried to give that extra little push.  I knew from quick glances at my computer that I was not likely to break the hour mark unless I could really hammer the return leg.  I started passing some of the slower riders in front, and having the constant ‘carrot’ of the next rider always just over the next hill was a good motivator to push that little bit harder.

The last 15kms or so felt very long, with the last 3km being a complete blur. With 1km to go, I was almost completely spent, but had a rider in front to reel in to keep me motivated.

Unfortunately, but not completely unexpectedly, my time was greater than an hour.  01:01:14 was the official verdict.  Crap!  I’m not entirely unhappy, since I knew yesterday I was not feeling 100% physically, and that the bike is still new and is going to take some adjustment (both the bike itself, and my body to the new position).  However, my time was still 3:54 faster than a year ago on the same course, so there’s some noticeable improvement.  Whether that is due to the new bike, an increase in fitness, or a combination of remains to be seen.

As you can see from the graph, I was able to keep my heart rate fairly steadily in the 171-194 bpm zone (red band in graph), which is pretty much where it should be for a TT.  My average for the 40km was 174bpm, so towards the low end.  I’d like to see this a bit higher–which will come as I get more comfortable hurting myself for a solid hour.  I believe at this point that it’s a mental wall, not a physical one, so should be ‘movable.’   (Ignore the ‘greyed out’ portions of the graph outside the vertical red lines–this is my warmup/cooldown.)

For next time, I need to do a longer warmup, getting up in to zone 3 for longer to get the body awake and moving.  It took me 12km or so to start feeling decent today, and that could easily have cost me 1:14.

August 8th is the next shot at the hour mark, and I’ll be ready :)

Well!  Lots of stuff going on (as evidenced by the lack of updates to this site!)…

The 40km Project has been moving along nicely, and the bike has now been built up (thanks Shawn!) and ridden (once!)  I will continue to post updates about individual components as I have time, but we’ll skip ahead for now…

On Sunday, I helped (well, watched) as Shawn assembled the TT bike.  We got a rough fit-up done, and called it a night.  We figured since I had never ridden in the TT position before, we could spend 2 hours or 5 minutes, and still have to change it all after I rode it anyway.

Yesterday, I figured I’d give the bike a shot at the Almonte Bicycle Club 15km TT on Tatlock Road.  Since I hadn’t ridden the bike more than around the block, I got there early for some warmup.  I put in ~20km at a decent pace, and got a basic feel for riding in the aero bars.  I probably looked like a triathlete with my serious wobbles, but I hope to improve that with some more time on the bike!

The race went surprisingly well, with my final time ending at 22:01 (so close!) and an average speed of 40.88km/hr.  This is the first time I’ve ever cracked 40 in any sort of timed event, so I am fairly pleased with the time.  However, 15km is a long way from a 40, so I’m not quite sure I’m ready for that yet!  However, the gusty headwind on the return leg of the course made things tough, so perhaps on a calmer day I would have been faster!

A few minor adjustments to the TT position are required for sure; aero bars need to come out a bit wider at the arm rests, and need to be rotated inwards a bit I think.  Other than that, I was surprised with the fit..much better than anticipated!  I’m still not used to climbing on the bike (feels completely different than the road bike) so that’s another thing to work on.

Up next (if I feel like it) is the Calabogie 40km coming up this Sunday!  Yikes!  My first real shot at the sub-hour 40.  I will be going in with lesser expectations, and hope to be pleasantly surprised!  Wish me luck!

Here’s a slightly modified version of an update I sent to a friend about the Rideau Jamie Lakes Tour  2010.  I’m too lazy to type out the story again, so this should suffice:

Friday. Day the Zero. Worked until 4pm. Booo. Walked home. Beauty day. Packed up bike and assorted random gear into car. Waited for Matt to arrive. Loaded his bike into car.  Drove ~1 hr to cottage on Bob’s Lake. Drank beer, ate food, chatted with the lads (Jamie, Steve, Carl, Dave).   Sleep.

Saturday. Day The First. Beautiful Day! Quite warm and sunny. Very nice! A bit of a stiff wind, but it was a tailwind for the first little bit. We rode 193kms at a pretty fast pace.. stopped a couple of times for food, etc. A good ride. Got to the beer tent at Queen’s.. had a few too many beers.   To the hotel, where we were in and out in less than 7 mins (we were already 10 mins late for our dinner reservation…) Got to dinner at Frankie Pesto’s where our group of 30 had already ordered.   Was joined by the lovely Lisa, and then we ordered some food/more beer (yes, good idea, I know.) Ate some kinda seafood pasta thing that I recall being quite tasty. Went for Ice Cream at White Mountain.  Theeen.. after ice cream, decided to go for another beer. Yes, we are brilliant. Eventually, called it a night and got to our room for sleep.

Sunday. Day the Second. Woke up to COLD (10 degrees), wet (raining sideways), windy conditions. YAY! We had packed only shorts and jerseys.. great! We asked around our group and rounded up a bit of warmer stuff (not much!) and then stood around for a while before a restaurant opened. Some breakfast was destroyed, then we got ready to roll. I’m pretty sure the next 3 hours were the most miserable I’ve ever been on the bike. Damn cold, soaking wet.. windy .. awesome! My hands were so cold I couldn’t shift/brake, and couldn’t even get my waterbottle out of the holder to drink! Luckily, we had a couple of shortcuts that got us back to the cottage in 75 km, and we only had one mechanical (Matt’s broken chain!) on the cottage road.   We jumped in the lake fully clothed to wash the mud off and to warm up (yeah, the water was much warmer than the air!) then got some warm dry stuff on, ate some pizza, burgers, etc.  Drove home, washed the bike, had a shower.. went to bed!

Epic? You be the judge. Entertaining? Yes.

Sounds like many people made the trip back to Ottawa aboard a bus thanks to the OBC.  Lisa managed to make it back to Perth (averaging 30; well done!) and then got a ride the rest of the way.  Smart :)

Yesterday was a GREAT ride in SF.  I was feeling fantastic, so a few sprints were in order to mess with Ashby.  Sorry dude.  Once again Ian hung in all the way, which is beyond awesome!  The SS/Fixie apparently has an abnormal sized seat tube, so Greg had to order a seat post for me.  Hope to pick it up next week!

Tonight after work Shawn and I did a little photo shoot for the eBook.  He’ll process some photos, then I will get to pick the ones I want for the book.  The last step is to lay out/format everything how I want it, and then it’s pretty much done!  Stay tuned!  Here’s a teaser shot from the shoot:

Photoshoot Teaser

Sunday was was the first ever Dandelion Grand Prix, held in Oxford Mills as a part of the “Old Town Kemptville Dandelion Festival.”  I had done a short (10km) warmup prior to the race, and was able to get a look at the start of the ‘chip seal’ road that everyone had warned me about.  It didn’t really look that bad to me, since I’m used to riding on roads a lot worse than that!  The shoulder was a bit loose, so I made sure to keep away from it throughout the race.

I was in signed up to race the ‘intermediate’ race (5 laps of the 17km course, for a total of 85km), despite being called a sandbagger by a few people (who shall remain nameless…)  At the line, it looked like the right place to be, since Ian Fraser was lined up behind me.  I though “uh-oh.. I’m in over my head here… there’s no way I should be here, let alone in in the “Open” race!”  After a bit of a delay in the start, we got rolling 3 minutes after the “Open” group, and set off at a decent pace.  We had ~75 riders in the group at the start.  The pace sat comfortably at ~40km/hr for the entire race.  I kept waiting for an increase as the kilometers ticked by, but … nothing doing.  A few riders would get off the front by 100m or so and hang there a while.  No one would react; eventually they would tire and get absorbed by the group.

With one lap to go, another Independent rider asked me if I was racing with a team.  I replied that I was not, and he asked if I wanted to give it a go off the front with him.  I agreed.  I lead through the Start/Finish the last time through, and after the first corner we went!  However, my legs just weren’t there, and we couldn’t get a sizable gap at all.  We gave up fairly quickly, and went back to sit in the pack.  Coming up to the last couple of corners, with ~1.5km to go, I moved back up to the front in order to make if safely through the corners (There had been two crashed in our group, both on corners.)  I sat 6th or 7th wheel, and the pace finally started to increase a bit (not much mind you, and only now with about 1km to go…)  Sitting 6th or 7th, I was expecting people to start flying by me leading out their teammates/friends.  However, nothing was happening!  Soon we were ~300 from the line, and still no one was coming by!

At this point, I was a bit confused, and probably reacted slower than I should have…  I eventually decided I had to go (“Now or never!”) and gave it all I had.  STILL no one came by, and I realized I could crack the top 5.  I sprinted (I say that loosely, being far from a good sprinter) and placed 5th overall.   In the photo below (thanks Phillipa and Wayne for the photos!)  you can (barely) see me behind the guy in the orange kit.  Note that the finish line isn’t even in sight in the photo, so I’m not sure how much positions changed before then…but this is close enough :)  I was a bit mad to see how far back the rest of the group was–if I’d have known, I would have maybe given it a dig a bit earlier to get by the guys in front, rather than try to out sprint them!  Ah well.. live and learn!

Dandelion Grand Prix Finish Line

What you don’t see about 3 seconds after this is the guy in the orange kit almost riding me off the road after we crossed the line.  I had nowhere to go, as the shoulder was lined with spectators, so I yelled at him and he stopped forcing me over, but gave a “What?!?” kind of look, as if he was retarded and hadn’t noticed (or didn’t care) that he almost forced me into a bunch of spectators at 40+km/hr.  Idiot.

Full race results are up on the OCA Website.  Total time was 2:09:00, for an average speed of 39.54km/hr… so the race went much slower than I was initially expecting.  No complaints though!  A good day and a decent result… next time I have to be a bit more aware at the finish and things might turn out better!  Thanks to Mark and Ryan for organizing the race–I hope to do it again next year!

Yesterday was another great (and fast) ride in SF, and I picked up a free bike.  More about that later, as it deserves at least one post of its own!  Thanks Chris!