Sunday Ride

I drove out to Dundurn Castle on the morning of Sunday, March 25th, arriving at the "Pavilion" parking lot before 10:00 a.m.

The temperature was a chilly -7 or so, and mainly overcast; I doubted that many would show up. This was the fourth Sunday in March, and I doubted that anyone had shown up on the previous Sundays (bad weather) although I’m not certain of it.

I was sure Randy would show up today; we’d planned on it a couple of days ago . . . I thought.

So here it was, 10:15, and just me here. I waited ‘til 10:30 and got the old fendered ROBERTS out of my minivan. I was warmly dressed, and had been perusing a Hamilton map while waiting in my vehicle, so I had a plan. I would explore the Bayfront Park area and check out the roads at Princess Point, for starters.

Back in 1986, the Hamilton Cycling Club was all set to use the "Princess Point" course for the Good Friday races. The course consisted of a 2.5k loop on Longwood Road, Dufferin Street and Macklin Street, the southern part of the course being a residential area. I recall that Tom Liptrot, who had proposed this course, did a plebiscite of residents to get the City’s "OK" to use the roads. Needed to gain permission was less than 2% dissension . . .The poll of about 100 residents yielded less than 2% dissent, so we got the go-ahead.

The race never did come off, as this was the year where the O.C.A. insurance was not in place ‘til May. Would this course have made for a good Good Friday Road Race? Perhaps we’ll never know. The following year someone had a different idea for Good Friday.

The "Around the Bay" running race was happening this morning and I felt lucky to see the winner pass by, about 1 km from the finish downtown. The tall, slim Kenyan strode by like a gazelle as I watched. The second placed runner was three minutes behind!

Seeing this event, with the roads all shut down and countless volunteers ensuring everyone’s safety, made me realize how lucky racers are; to be able to participate in such an event and be "looked after"; to be able to focus on just running, or just riding or just skiing, knowing that you will get a placing and finishing time at the end. I wish all racers would realize that the burden of making any race successful should not fall upon the same people time after time; that each of us should feel an obligation to help out at events and "give back" by volunteering at a race, to keep racing going strong!

I wished I was with other riders, but still had fun. I did countless laps of the circular Bayfront trail, which we’d considered using for racing before. It was great fun riding it, but I can’t see using it for bicycle racing . . . too many dog-walkers and roller bladers and joggers. I explored

After about two hours of riding by myself I encountered Sue Trimble and her friend on bikes. (Sue is a member of Oakville Cycling Club and a triathlete.) I rode with them up into Waterdown, then they headed back to Oakville . . . they’d ridden out to watch the "Around the Bay" race. I did some more quasi-intervals on the 2k waterfront trail ‘til I had reached 80k on the day, then I called it a day.

Randy Brown and I met Wednesday morning, March 28th, in Guelph to deliver notifications about the race to all the residents on our Good Friday course. I found out that both Randy and Brian Chewter had ridden from Dundurn Castle on Sunday; they’d both parked their cars at the other parking lot, so we’d missed each other.

"It’s brand new! Now you can log in to share common interest cycling newsgroups, live chat sessions, post articles of common interest, answer polls, get the latest world cycling newsfeeds and so on.

For the time being anyone interested in cycling in the Hamilton or GTA west of Toronto is invited to join. You can set up your own profile limited to what you want people to know about you and you are on your way!"

What’s New

This is the entry page which consists of on overview of what’s new on the intranet since your last visit. You can do an opinion poll, post a note, find cycling newsfeeds from this page, to name a few.

The H.C.C. Community Intranet is in place to facilitate communication among Hamilton Cycling Club members – to arrange rides, lifts to races, to discuss equipment, club issues etc. so try it out – it can be a lot of fun!

There is a link to the H.C.C. Intranet on the Hamilton Cycling Club web site,

www.hwcn.org/link/cycling

www.communityzero.com/hcc

RANDY’S RIDE – held on April 29th, featured a hilly 40k loop from St. George, where participants had a choice of one or two laps. Over thirty riders, mostly from H.C.C. and O.M.C.A. (the Masters) participated.

B.A.R. EVENT #1 – 45K ROAD RACE

held Saturday, May 12th – 9:00 a.m.

On a cool morning I managed to get to the course at 8:00 a.m. The temperature was hovering around +14. I swept a couple of turns and put out two cones to denote right turns off Centre Road and Milborough Line. I returned to the parking lot at Balaclava School. The lot provided parking for lots of cars. Fred Pepper and son, Jamie, soon appeared. Jamie was Fred’s cheering section. Frank Morrow then arrived around fifteen minutes to start time and remarked he could possible make the podium. No sooner had he said this than Mirek Mazur and Sue Palmer-Komar rode in. Sue said she hoped to sit in a large group and seemed disappointed that she ’d have to put in more of an effort. She was ‘winding down’ before leaving for France and the Tour de l’Aude. Mirek suggested just going for a ‘ride’ but I insisted on proceeding with the race. After all we’ve had fewer.

We started up Centre Road into a brisk, cool wind from the north. I led the way and only Sue came around me for the first leg. I was thankful for this as I hadn’t a chance to warm up. The pace quickened on the Mountsberg leg with its short steep climbs. Frank and Mirek seemed to be fifty metres off the back as we turned onto the fast Milborough Line leg. Mirek was quickly back in the rotation but Frank must have thought, "So close but so far". We finished the lap in around 25 minutes and the four of us rode like a team time trial for lap two. The Milborough Line leg was especially exciting and fun, snaking through the turns at 50 – 60 kph. The trees almost forming a canopy over the road also accentuated the speed. On the last leg up Centre Road, Mirek turned up the power on the final climb and I had to ‘say see you later’. Fred and Sue were able to latch on over the top. They must have had fifty metres on me but I would never say die. I gave it what I had left including using my aero tuck on the downhill towards Mountsberg Road and was rather amazed to catch back on. I’m sure they were being kind but Fred later said it didn’t seem like they eased up. Down Milborough Line for the final time, Mirek pulled in his top gear for the whole approximately 6 kilometres. I was on his wheel and wouldn’t even try to come around at that speed. The Tenth Side Road stretch saw Mirek do another long, hard pull before the final climb. Heading towards the sprint, Sue had fallen back and Mirek too was not looking in contention. I gave it 110% to stay on Fred’s wheel and since the wind was from the right, I moved alongside on the yellow line but ran out of real estate. Fred, 1st; me, 2nd; Mirek, 3 rd; Sue, 4th. Frank finished a solo ride a few minutes back. Mirek and Sue rode off the long way home to possibly meet Chris Komar who was heading up towards the course. Fred, Jamie, Frank and I enjoyed a hearty breakfast at the ‘Texas Country Restaurant’ on #6. Frank was doing an O-Cup mountain bike race the next day at Kelso and Sue was off to France to do the Tour de l’Aude on the National Team. I was heading to a 76 kilometre Masters pursuit in Caistorville.

C.T.T.A. 80K/40K – Saturday, May 26th, our club hosts the C.T.T.A. 80k/40k event at SCOTLAND, south of Brantford, west off Hwy. 24 on Vanessa Road which runs SW to Delhi. We could use helpers for turnaround and timing at this (and other) time trial events. Please give a hand if you are able . . . thanks!

RANDY’S TOUR – to be held on Saturday, June 9th begins at Randy’s home at #1 Arnold Street in Paris.

SNAKE ROAD HILL CLIMB – Don’t forget our 5.5k ‘Snake Road Hill Climb’ on Wednesday, June 20th. Parking and Start are at Hidden Valley Park in Aldershot. Take Howard Road (north) off Plains Road to get to the park. The time trial is a mostly, but not always, climbing, twisting route up into Waterdown. We had a good turnout of H.C.C., Oakville and Brampton riders last year who toiled up the climbs, glided back down to their cars, and were nearly washed away by a ferocious thunderstorm which followed. We were lucky to get that one off!

TUESDAY CRIT - As of May 3rd – today – we’ve had the first Tuesday evening ‘crit’ event with nearly 30 riders! This series of races runs each Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. ‘til September. Sandy and I will do a registration each week and keep track of ‘points’ (with an updated chart on display each week) with awards held on the last Tuesday in August in lieu of a race. Points are awarded 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 for 1st place down to 5th each week, with all other participants receiving 1 point.

Note from Sandy: May 16th, 2001 - So far, we’ve had a total of 44 participants with the overall standings as follows:

1st – Mirek Mazur 15 points

2nd – Brendan Duff 12 points

2nd – Paul Rego 12 points

3rd – Stan Ambis 8 points

4th – Jeff Sharafbayani 6 points

5th – Greg Cavanagh 5 points

5th – Jason Valenti 5 points

THURSDAY TIME TRIAL – Thursday evening 15K Time Trials are underway at White Swan Road, west of Ancaster off Hwy. 2/53, which will be the regular home of the Thursday night events,

except for Thursdays designated otherwise on the schedule. Please check this so you don’t end up riding alone! By July 5th, we’ll have completed five of the nine C.T.T.A. events in the C.T.T.A. series. You only need to complete one each of 15k, 40k and 80k to qualify for an award.

Road Race Championship in ’81, ’83, ’84, and ’85.

We extend our condolences to Mike’s family.

Another Good Friday, same routine: pray for good weather, pray for good rider turnout, hope that Friday the 13th is not ‘bad luck’, breathe a big sigh of relief when it’s all over and everything turned out fine!

It takes a lot of preparation and planning by the H.C.C. Executive and particularly by the race organizer, and a TEAM effort by all involved on race day, for our race to be successful. And it WAS! Despite an increased entry fee, the riders came out - 45 more than the 190 entries of 1999 and 2000. This was more than we’d hoped for, to help cover the ever-increasing costs of putting on the event.

The big tent, for Registration and our Concession Stand, arrived late, and we were forced to begin registering racers by setting up a table outside. It was a cool, breezy April morning, fairly typical for this time of year, but not horrible - definitely not summer-like. We were faced with big lineups of anxious racers from the start (and this trend continued for most of the day!). Judy Daniel, Sandy and Marissa Cheskey took control, and were joined by Albert Penrose once we’d moved into the tent. Now in his mid-80’ s, Albert has helped out at our races as long as I can remember!

There were several new things for this year’s Good Friday. First of all, we’d procured a propane heater for the Registration area, which kept the toes and fingers warmer.

The ‘Community Events’ group, formerly known as ‘Community Communications’, did the job of course marshaling, as in years past. These people are all well versed in traffic control and first aid; they did a first-rate job, as usual.

For the Women’s race, a brand new trophy was unveiled. Named the Millennium trophy, we made it retroactive to last year (2000). The Sr.1/2 trophy sported a new ‘cup’ atop the wooden base bearing plaques dating back to 1952. We gave out club medals and cash prizes to the top finishers in each race.

The Guelph Mercury sent out a reporter who did some ‘in-depth’ interviewing and snapped photos. The paper gave us another good write-up. Martin Reid sent emails of the Good Friday results to the Spectator, Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Guelph Mercury and Toronto Sun The Sun & the Spectator published them the next day. Martin also snapped photos for the club web site.

Don Sloan took charge of coordinating the ‘drivers’ for the races. We needed a lead car and a following car for each race, a commissaire (race official) riding in the following car to control any shenanigans. The lead car was to ensure the roadway ahead of racers was clear of stray people, dogs, or whatever, allowing the races to proceed safely.

Frank Morrow took charge of marshaling the course, seeing to it that the police and the Community Events Group’ had things under control.

Fred Pepper helped George with signs, helped Randy and Chris Kiriakopoulos at the Finish Line, and recruited ‘line judges’ or ‘pickers’ at the finish line.

Peter Schouten helped in various ways, particularly with lap cards at the Finish Line. When I realized I’d forgotten my sledge hammer to pound the lap-card-holder into the ground, Peter piped up, ‘That’s okay, I brought one’ . . . I was sure impressed.

PETER MAZUR has signed a two-year contract with the pro-team MAPEI for 2002 and 2003, and is racing this year as an amateur, based in Belgium. His father, MIREK, is in top shape, breaking away to win the first H.C.C. Tuesday Night Crit. Race on May 1st, and then doing a speedy 20:53 at our first White Swan Road 15K Time Trial on May 3rd.

SUE PALMER-KOMAR won at ‘Paris Ancaster’, a quasi-road-mountain event which happened April 22nd. Sue was 18th overall in a field that included many top Ontario riders. Sue also raced in the Redlands Stage Race in California with her ‘Jane Cosmetics’ team. She finished 20th overall of 87 finishers and was 4th Canadian, behind race winner Genevieve Jeanson, Sandy Espeseth (9th) and Alison Sydor (13th). Other Canadian finishers were Chrissy Redden, Melanie McQuaid, Clare Hall-Patch, Leah Goldstein, Nicole Demars, Anne Samplonius, Erin Carter, Kim Davidge, Amy Jarvis, Stacy Spencer, Chloe Black and Stephanie Hammos. (Canadian Women’s bicycle racing seems to be alive and well!) Sue’s next ‘Jane’ project is the Montreal World Cup at the end of May.

Other H.C.C.’ers racing at ‘Paris Ancaster’ were HAROLD OSBORNE, DAVE HARRISON and PAT CONWAY.

DAVE HARRISON has raced ‘road’ at Good Friday and Springbank so far in 2001. He found the going tough, but had success at two mountain bike races this year where he was 3rd at Dagmar and 1st at Hilton Falls.

FRED PEPPER, ROB CHESKEY and CHRIS KIRIAKOPOULOS all raced (along with Dave H.) in the Master B,C,D race at Springbank. Rob got an 8th while Fred managed to get in a breakaway group and finished 2nd! This race was the first in the ‘O-Cup Road’ Series for 2001. TARAS KLEBAN had bad luck here, flatting TWICE in his race (Juniors). Taras also flatted at Good Friday. Better luck next time, Taras! HENRY DUDKO raced the Sr. III category at both Good Friday and Springbank. Unfortunately, Henry was recovering from an illness and had to pull out of Good Friday and he crashed at Springbank. Better luck next time to you, too, Henry!

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