An Atomic sprint for ultimate place

Following my enjoyment of the Gastown Grand Prix I decided to get straight out there the next week and enter a criterium myself. It was considerably shorter thankfully - 25 minutes plus two laps. It turns out the professionals had made it look easy. 

It's incredibly hard to keep yourself going at full capacity for that long. I was riding for 30 minutes total with an average speed of 24mph and I still didn't manage to keep in with the group. I lost them going uphill round a corner about 3 laps from the end.  

It ended with me and a fellow team member going for an uphill sprint finish for penultimate place. I got ultimate place by a wheel! I think I'm going to need some practice. May be racing again tomorrow, and definitely next Tuesday. 

Here's me with my new number. 

On a connected note I've joined a cycle racing club called Atomic racing. They are a pretty strong bunch and I've already racked up about 350 miles with them over 4 Saturday rides. 

 

On my second ride they started 'coursing' which as you might guess is sending two riders out in front (with a 30 second head start) as 'hares' to be chased by the pack. It was a flat course, probably about 3 or 4 kilometres long. I was chosen to be one of the hares and we were working together to push as hard as we could - I developed an inability to breathe at one stage but we escaped the pack by a clear margin. Great fun. 

All in all summer in Vancouver is incredible, so far this week I've cycled 140 beautiful sunny miles.