Hamilton CC Newsletter

MARCH 29TH, 2002

An early Easter this year enhances the possibility of bad weather for our SEASON OPENER for bicycle road racing in Ontario.  Hopefully we’ll be lucky again; last year’s April 13^th event ran smoothly, with agreeable weather.

As you may recall, prior to last year’s Good Friday we were concerned about having enough entries to cover the costs, particularly the new police presence for traffic control.  Surprisingly, our total field of riders was up in 2001 to 235 racers, over the 190 from 2000 and 1999.  Because of this success, we decided to hold the event in Guelph again this year.  Our goals remain the same:

1.        for the Hamilton Cycling Club to ‘do our part’ for bicycle racing by putting

on  a good event for racers.

2.       maintain good public relations with the municipality, course residents etc.

3.       to at least ‘break even’ financially and hopefully raise some money for the club.

As usual, we count on club members to come out and assist at the race.  While ‘traffic control’ is in the hands of the police and the ‘Community Events’ group who marshal the course, we still require ‘our people’ for sweeping the course, putting up signage, parking control, registration, finish-line control, judging (‘pickers’ at the finish line), car driving (two cars per race), someone to prepare and hand out awards, a liaison person between registration and finish line, and people to sell coffee and donuts at our ‘snack bar’. 

Lots of organization has taken place at our meetings leading up to Good Friday and most of us on the club executive have key roles to play.  Hope you can come out and be a part of this event and help our club put on a good race!

                                                                                                            Rob

COMBINE TIME TRIAL ASSOCIATION 2002 SCHEDULE

by Ted Jukes, B.C.C.

Hello again one and all as we prepare for yet another season of cycling. After a few e-mails and discussions at all 2001 season club banquets we have finally come up with our 2002 season schedule. At a recent evening meeting in Milton the schedule was finalized as follows.

 No you are not dreaming, and no the above schedule is not a mistake. For the year 2002 there will be no 80 Km Time Trials on our schedule. After all the discussions during the winter and hours of negotiation (well 20 minutes anyhow) it was decided to remove the backbreaking (and other various aches and pains) dreaded 80 Km Time Trial.

The new format for year-end medals and trophies is as follows:

Cadets and Juniors must complete: Two 15 Km Events and One 40 Km Event in order to be eligible for the Cadet or Junior year-end awards.

All other competitor’s seniors and Veterans must complete Two 15 Km Events and also Two 40 Km Events to be eligible for the Senior and Veteran year-end awards.

Fees for each event will remain at $ 5.00 per event.

Again this year the host club will hold a prize draw at the completion of each event for all the competitors registered for the event.

For those of you that really feel you will miss that dreaded 80 Km Time Trial you are all invited to compete in any of the Brampton or Hamilton Club 80 Km Events. As a matter of fact all members of Brampton, Hamilton or the Oakville Cycling Clubs are invited to participate in any of each other’s club run non-Combine events.

This year each club (Hamilton, Brampton and Oakville) will present a Best guest award at their respective year-end banquets. This will be awarded to a member of Brampton, Oakville or Hamilton Club members for competing at one or more of the others ROAD RACE SERIES OF EVENTS.

HAMILTON CYCLING CLUB SCHEDULE 2002

PLEASE NOTE:  Other events may be added to this schedule.  If you have ideas for new events, please call with your suggestions.

Randy  519-442-2118

Rob      905-878-3971

Crash Course in Tucson        

                                                                                    by Fred Pepper

This February I had the opportunity to get in on a training camp and enjoy some cycling in Arizona. Mirek Mazur organizes a couple of camps a year, each for about a month. I limited my “vacation” to 2 weeks and Mirek found a spot for me among his group of about 20 elite riders. It was a great opportunity to see how people who are near the pinnacle of athletic performance live, and hopefully pick up a few secrets.

The desert was a real contrast to the rolling green fields of Southern Ontario. The only natural vegetation seemed to be cactus and the landscape looked kind of like a gravel pit.

Mirek has been going to Tucson for years and when I arrived and got organized he offered to take me for an afternoon ride while everyone else was relaxing. We rode across the city on streets with wide bike lanes, and soon were at a park. The Saguaro National Park is a conservation area of sorts and has an 8-mile loop of road in the desert. The road follows the mildly rolling terrain as it twists and turns past rock outcroppings and various types of CACTUS.  Mirek said that the road was a lot of fun, “you can ride it at full speed” but “watch out for the first hill, I had a Junior crash on it a few years ago”.  My trusty guide sped off, over the hill and into the park - I chased anxiously. “Wow” I thought “this is a steep hill”…“Mirek seems to be negotiating the hairpin right turn at the bottom easily enough”… “Gee I hope he keeps right so I can sweep around the outside of him”… well I knew I wasn’t going to die as I somersaulted over the handlebars of my steed. It all seemed as if it were in slow motion as I heard my voice scream in terror and felt sharp needles puncture my forearms and shins. The needles hurt a bit but I was OK – Mirek was not. It was either relief that I didn’t wipe out his new Colnago or possibly the sight of me going over the bars but he could hardly catch his breath between bouts of laughter. I was able to ride the bike back to the house but I had to replace the fork that Rob Cheskey saved in an earlier unpublished tale.

We had a pretty regular routine for our rides; we would all meet at 10AM and head out to various places around the countryside.  Probably the toughest ride was up Mount Lemmon. It rises to an elevation of over 9000-ft over 25 miles but the 14-mile mark (6500-ft) was plenty. I stopped at Windy Point after 1hr and 15 minutes of steady climbing, it was cold and I was aching from the relentless uphill grade. I vowed to lose some weight, get in shape and stop swearing out loud – boy it was hard. 

My food discoveries on this trip were the Burrito and the Smoothie. I did my best to tag along on as many trips for this stuff as I could. My competitive spirit runs through everything I do, and when Mirek said he ate a burrito named El-Gourdo I figured I could do it too. This burrito was huge, it came on a platter and weighed a couple of pounds. Beaten again! And this time by a chicken burrito, I’ll go back again to take another run at it but I have information from a very good source that Mirek did not beat El-Gourdo either.

A big highlight of my trip came on my last full day there. The time trial stage of The Valley of the Sun stage race was in Phoenix and I volunteered to help out. There were easily 500 competitors as it took from 9AM to 4PM for all of the riders to time trial with 30 second start intervals. What a scene! I saw Peter Mazur, Gord Fraser, Danny Pate, Genevieve Jeanson and Desi Desrochers to name a few. The course was  20 k out and back, it was 80°F and there was a slight cross wind – perfect conditions. There didn’t seem to be a lot of fretting about the latest UCI rules here or there as I watched people go off on some of the trickiest looking bikes ever to be in a wind tunnel. 

In closing I will tell you that this was the best cycling vacation of the several I’ve had. This one was unique in that it involved day trips from a single point, rather than Point to Point (Sault Ste. Marie to Gaspe for example) and I had a nice bed and hot shower every day. The companionship of the group of people I was with was outstanding, I lost a couple of pounds and felt my condition improve while I was there, what a great way to end the winter (early).

HOMETOWN – Paris, Ontario

RESIDENCE – Victoria, B.C., Canada

BIRTHDATE -  April 29, 1980

HEIGHT – 5’3”

WEIGHT – 108

NATIONAL TEAM MEMBER SINCE

Junior since 1995, Senior (elite) 2001

CURRENT WORLD RANK – 32, 4^th Canadian

COACH – Joel Filliol

WEBSITE – www.competitionzone.com/natasha.htm

TOP ELITE PERFORMANCES

·         1^st place ITU Guatemala 2001

·         1^st place ITU Puerto Vallarta 2000

·         1^st place Dannon Grenelefe 2000

·         2^nd place ITU Ixtapa 2000

·         2^nd place Pan-American Championships 2000