Thursday, June 30, 2011

Hornby Island Super D and Overall XC

This past weekend I raced the Hornby Island Super D, but unfortunately not the cross country due to a injured knee and cold. I got second overall in the Vancouver Island Cup Intermediate Men XC, which is pretty good considering that the points from the best six out of nine races are added up, and I was only able to make it to four. The Super D went really well as it was my first race of that kind. I placed third by less than four seconds in Intermediate Men and learned a lot! The course consisted of classic Hornby smoothness with a stretch of grass field at the end making for a fast enjoyable run.

Fraser


Fraser Ullstrom

Andrew Gower

Fraser Ullstrom

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Good Luck Simon!!

Team Member Simon is on the National Development team.
"Packing the bike today, heading out tomorrow! Back in two weeks."
GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, SIMON!!!

Cardiac Classic, Burnaby

(above: Andrew Grant)

4 Trail Eatmore Team members represented at the Cardiac Classic BC cup this Sunday. 3 Grants and 1 Wakeling. Not many people showed up to race with but it was still a good day.

(above: A. Wakeling)

Andrew Grant took a 5th in u17 men. Younger Brother James Grant took a 4th in u15 men followed by his even littler brother Mark Grant taking 7th in the same category. Wakeling took an automatic win as she was the only one who showed up to race in the junior women's category.

(Above: Mark Grant)

Shout out to all the parents for their support at the race for us on the weekend!!

(Below: James Grant)
Below: Yay the Eatmore Sprouts Mobile (Wakeling)
-Amanda Wakeling

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Hornby Island Island Cup Series Final


Yesterday I raced in the Island Cup Series Final on Hornby Island. With 1100 feet of climbing per lap and a fresh layer of nasty mud from the overnight and early morning torrential downpour, a fairly non-technical course turned into a race of attrition. I raced in the expert category and we had 3 laps of serious climbing to contend with. This ended up being the largest turnout for experts with over 40 expert racers on the start line. With the series lead tied for first place with David Huntley and Craig Gillett sharing the lead, this race would determine the series winner. Add to that mix, 5 factory riders from the lower mainland which upped the pace significantly. After the first lap, Stefan Widmer had an 8 minute lead over second place. In the end, Craig Gillett edged out David Huntley for the series points win coming in around 6th place with David 1 spot back. Stefan Widmer ended up winning by a significant margin. I was able to roll in around 12th place and had a really solid ride. This was an awesome event hosted by the Hornby Island community and my sons Carson and Luke came in 2nd and 3rd in the fun and entertaining kids race that took place as we raced. Luke managed to hang on to 3rd place despite having an early lead and ending up in a ditch.

David Damery

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

TB/ES in Europe?

Trail Bikes/Eatmore Sprouts team member Nigel Ellsay has been absent from North American racing this last month. Ellsay was competing and training in the heart of the road scene in Belgium, Holland and Germany from May 3rd to 30th with the Canadian National Junior Men’s Road Team. Let’s listen to what Ellsay had to say about his adventure...
Arriving in Tielt-Winge (“Ting-Wing”), Belgium was quite an experience for me. Having 2 new coaches, 5 new teammates/friends, overcoming jet-lag and trying to learn the way a country works can be quite difficult... Fortunately though, life goes on. I soon started to familiarize myself with Coaches Nat Faulkner, Matt Knight and athletes Alex Cataford (18yrs, Ottawa, Ontario), Oliver Delaney (18yrs, Montreal, Quebec), Simon Trivett (17yrs, Charlottetown, PEI), Ty Andrews (18yrs, Calgary, Alberta) and my good friend Jeff Doyle (18yrs, Victoria, BC).

We were all staying at the quaint CCA house in the center of Tielt-Winge. Tielt-Winge is located South-East of Brussels, in the Flemish are of Belgium and is a typical Belgian community with a grocer, bakery, pubs and an awesome deli.
After a few days of riding, learning some of the Belgian culture and eating plenty of yummy Belgian waffles, the weekend came and with all spring/summer weekends comes bike races! We were to experience our first 2 Belgian Kermises.
The first Kermis we rode started at 3pm (much more civilized that the usual 10am North-American start times) on a 10km course filled with small rolling hills, main roads and bike paths. At the start line we were greeted by 150 other juniors starring us down just as much as we were starring them down! This was going to be fun! A soon as the gun went off the winning break went off the line, and unfortunately for me I was 3rd row (of 25)! But we ended up with 2 boys in the break, well representing us and we finished up with a 6th place.
The second kermis we rode would turn out similar to this one.
The following weekend we headed over to Frankfurt, Germany for the 3-Ettapen Rundfhart a UCI 2.1 all juniors stage race. The first stage on the agenda was an 8km pan flat prologue. Regrettable for our team, we hadn’t bother bringing our TT bikes overseas, due to costs and we were forced to ride our road bikes with clip-on bars. After the TT I was sitting 66th overall, 1:05 behind the leader and 10 seconds behind Alex.
The next stage would turn out to be one of the most gruelling stages in my entire life; 110km’s of beautiful German Countryside filled with 2000m of climbing! I rode well and was dropped 1km from the final summit with Alex, unfortunately we were the first riders to reach the finish line from our team.
The following day turn out to be a rather boring day with all riders riding defensively, and the race finished with a bunch sprint
The final stage race on our hands was the 3 days of Axel Race in Axel, Holland. The racing in Holland would also prove to be the hardest racing I’ve ever. The reason for this, as any European racer would know, is because the flat terrains and wind in Holland combines for a whole lot of riding in the gutter.
The first stage had our first cobbles in it, with four 3km sections, and let me tell you cobbles can either make our break your race and for me and most other people these cobbles broke our races! During every cobbled section there would be a pile up of riders and riders would be all over the road finding the best line. Also, the entire race was in the gutter with 0 draft available to any riders, as the wind always felt like it was on our sides! After being dropped and chasing back through the caravan a couple times, I was finally dropped for good with fellow compatriot Alex.
The next day was a double day with a TT in the morning a road race in the evening. At the TT I rode well and placed similar the prologue in Germany, well down the results but still not too far off.
During the evening we started our 110 km road race, me recovering after having extreme stomach cramps all afternoon. Unfortunately for me after making the split in the first half of the race I was forced to retire due to more extreme stomach cramps. That would be the end of the stage race for me.
The next 2 weeks would be filled with trying to figure out my ailing health problems. Oddly enough I never found out what the problem was or what caused the awkward problems.
All in all I learned many things on my European trip, like how early you have to get to the start of a kermis to get a good placing on the line, how to live without mom for a month, I learned how to survive in Europe, how to race a European bike race and many other useful tools I couldn’t have learned through North American racing. I realize I still haven’t perfected all my new skills and still have a lot more to learn, but hey, everybody’s gotta start somewhere.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Vancouver Island Cup #8: Rumblefest

This past weekend I raced the Rumblefest XC in Port Alice and placed first in Intermediate Men by over 13 minutes. The course had about 1200 feet of climbing per lap and my category did three laps, so there was a fair bit of uphill, however the work was definitely worth the great ride down. Fortunately the rain held off, and the sun even came out, making good weather for the race making a good weekend even better.

Fraser


Thursday, June 9, 2011

AJ out East


I was out east in QC and ON the last couple of weeks racing Canada Cups, check out my blog if you want to find out how my trip went http://harmonycrusade.blogspot.com/

-Amanda Wakeling

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Tsolum River Road Race

This past weekend Andrew, James, and Mark raced in the 2nd Comox Cup race on the Tsolum River Road race course. The weather was perfect for racing:
sunny and about 20 degrees c. The A category was off first with a group of 16. Andrew raced in A and lasted most of the race with what was left of the pack(there were two crashes).
The B category was off next with a pack of 7 riders.
After 6 laps (62.2 km.), the race finished with a pack sprint. James took the sprint over Hugh Park and Rob Stabler.

In the C category, which consisted of 5 riders, Mark took the win and the prime over Ernie Klassen and Kia Van der Vliet.
Overall, it was a great day of racing, besides the two crashes.