Cat 6 Racing - The Tour de Commute

Its the winter series on the roads of Vancouver now - entry numbers are down but the competitiveness remains the same. Are starting to formulate some rules around the etiquette of Cat 6 Racing - The Tour De Commute

Here is the first installment - Rules 1 to 6

Rule No 1 - Every Hill is a King of the Mountain
The polka-dot jersey can be lost or won at any moment. Its all about 30 second power and the top of any climb or even slight rise will demonstrate dominance

Rule No 2 - A Intersection Shall be a Neutral Zone
Nothing shows a lack of Cat 6 etiquette like overtaking in an intersection. If a rider has shown their dominance (or early departure) by getting to the light early to press the button then the least you can do is wait until the other side before you attack

Rule No 3 - There are points for style
Unlike lower forms of racing (Cat 1 to 5 and that PRO Stuff) style counts. Style is mainly epitomized by riding as fast as possible while showing an inverse level of effort. When overtaking others it is imperative that you keep your breathing to a minimum and if possible cruise past with hands off the handlebars even though you may be at your max heart rate.

Rule No 4 - Every Car, Truck and Pedestrian is Out to Kill You
It is just a fact of life - every time you go on to the roads you need to remember this rule. Stop signs, red lights, the correct side of the road and a basic respect for human life is absent out on the roads of Cat 6 Racing - Everyone is a winner by just getting to their destination safe.

Rule No 5 - Multi Stage Races
A stage is defined as a king of a mountain or race between intersections after a red light. Multi stage races are where combatants contest a series of these throughout a morning commute. Victory is defined by "dropping" someone at an intersection (Creating a break and getting through a green light before the "peleton" receives a red light. Very similar to the Paris Roubaix in 2006 - however running yellow or red lights to achieve victory is not recommended as it contradicts Rule No. 4

Rule No 6 - The Finish Line is where you make it
Just won a king of the mountain that you do not wish to relinquish, or a multi stage race (One that passes through multiple intersections were combatants had to come to a stop). Then conveniently attack then turn off to a side street once you have finished your attack (remembering to keep breathing controlled as per rule no 3)

Let us know if you have any rules to add - stay safe out there. I am riding the "snow bike" due to the cold and icy conditions.

Training Is the Fun Part! What a Weekend

Every now and then you have a period of 36 hours in your life that is absolutely awesome. This weekend was definitely of that variety. Sat morning woke up at 4 "stupid o'clock" am and headed out to the start of the Haney 2 Harrison Relay with our team from Speed Theory - The Speed Wrestlers.

H2H

Haney to Harrison is a 100km relay with a team of 8 ) My leg race report is at the bottom) and it was the first time I had got to do this event (Is moving next year so will be the last also). Awesome day which included some napping in the save on foods car park early on. Leslie was super nice in buying food on her drive out the condo at a more reasonable hour and that evening we had a spectacular dinner of roast beef and veggies. Hit up the after party for a little bit then headed back to get some rest ahead of Sunday.

All in all was awesome to hang out with such a fun group of people. One of the things I like about tri/running is the friends I have made and this was a good example of that.

The Bagel Ride


So Sunday was the bagel ride, if we could get Mike Adams back to Granville from Harrison Hot Springs (120km with a fair few stop lights (Means slowing to and accelerating from and stop), in under 4:10 then Murray had to buy him a breakfast bagel (Value $4). Rachel Kiers was doing a workout ahead of IMAZ so after the 30 minutes to warm up we sucked her wheel (hard to do) for her 2x40min race pace efforts and took the lead during her 15 minutes spin. Once we had got back to Haney (where Rachel's Car was) it was me an Mike.

We were hitting a little traffic and a few more stop signs but kept the work up. At about 93km or so took a 12km pull Fabian Cancellara style (basically until I blew) to make sure we got Mike as close as possible for the last 15km. HR avg a lazy 180 for this section and when I blew it was monumental, with that mike was on for his 30 minute Hastings street sprint to Granville. In the end he hit 3:28 for the 120km which given the amount of traffic and decelerations and accelerations required was awesome

After about 10 minutes of recovery the legs came back and I managed to roll over Granville about 10 minutes back at 3:38. Met up with Mike at Speed Theory and a breakfast bagel, 2 sausage rolls, can of coke, cookie and coffee later had replenished the system a little!!!

All in all this was the best training ride I have ever done - was a lot of fun, with friends,  hard work and how my riding needs to be. We actually went through 90km between 15km and 105km in 2:30:30 which considering the stop start nature of the ride is pretty damn awesome.

Thanks All

This ranks as one of my most enjoyable Tri/Running weekends ever and thanks to all who were part of it.
Looking forward to when off season is over and actually start training!!! I am not sure if you should have one of your hardest ever rides during off season but I figure if I can take this attitude to my sessions then 2011 will be a lot of fun.

Are officially getting back into the training game for 2011 this Saturday the 13th of November.

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My H2H Race Report - Leg 8

I was on the last leg so was a lazy 7 hours from the start before I got to run the leg which was 7.87km. I executed my race plan perfectly of going out at 5km pace and blowing up. The blow up came a little earlier than expected and came 9:20 and 2.75km in. At this point I was averaging 3:25 min/km. The next 4.1km did not come as easy and averaged 3:50 min/km, with about 1.25km to go I rallied and ended up averaging 3:33 min/km. Considering I raced Kona 4 weeks ago and have run 5 times since (Including the relay) was pretty happy with this as really had no expectations.

Was 4th fastest of 198 to run my leg (28:56) and as a team we came 18th overall (out of 198) and 2nd in the recreational division.