T-Bones Rare

This past weekend was the inaugural Banff Bikefest consisting of a time trial, criterium and road race held in Banff National Park. As the road race was by invite for elite teams only I participated in the time trial and criterium.

The time trial course was the Lake Minnewanka loop a nice scenic course. If you’re paying attention to the scenery though, you won’t be riding as hard and fast as you could. The official race package had all kinds of warnings about wildlife as a hazard. I was wondering during registration for the race why they didn’t give us all a can of bear spray just in case. Any how when I rode the course on Friday the only wildlife I had to worry about were some mountain goats on the road, about 30 or so of them. In addition I found out later in the evening I rode the course in reverse. So there I was thinking there was going to be a nice descent down a 10% grade, opps. Below shows the course route and elevation profile and as you’ll see the first hill is a rude awakening.

The morning of the time trail it was quite cool out, around 4 degrees, but it was shaping up to a nice day. The event organizers had gone all out in setting things up. A race announcer, finish lane blocked off from traffic, count down timer at the start, and excellent holders. My plan of attack was to spin as easy as could up the main ascent and not blow my legs in the process, thus saving them for a powerful descent back into Banff. That more or less meant using the “granny gear” 39×23 for the attack on the hill. I was passed by my 30 second man, Mike from Speed Theory, before the hill, but I was expecting that. However I caught my 30 second man and a couple of the women riders and was not passed by anyone else. I felt that rode a fairly good race but was not expecting the result I got, 2nd place with a time of 34:01.9 minutes. So I grabbed a few more points in the morning. There were even podiums with the winners getting medals and first place finishers getting stuffed huskies.

The evening was the crit, and again the race organizers out did themselves. Things started off with the Little Crit involving kids younger than 12. It was great to see even a couple 2 year olds on trikes having a blast pedaling or foot pushing their rides down the street. The announcer did a great job also. Following the young kids, the adults had a fun with cruiser crit for two laps around the course. IT was funny to see people learning about aerodynamics the hard way, umbrellas are definitely not aero.

As I was warming for my race on the rollers, a bunch kids had gathered with their adult shepard and bombarded me with questions like, how do you stop, why are doing that, what does my gel taste like, can you fall off etc. They also showed off their medals and stuffed huskies to me.

After a few laps around the course I had a quick chat with Rob from Speed Theory about a strategy for the race, basically sit back in the middle of the pack for the first half and then try to break things up a bit. AS we came around the neutral lap he changed his mind and said what about just going for it right off the start. Which he did and managed to keep up for a about 4 laps and then got dropped and eventually lapped. So much for plan A. I ended up drifting back, and back and back and then I was fighting on my own, not really going according to plan.

For a while it almost looked like I would be able to bridge and get back with the pack but I just wasn’t able too. I even thought about dropping out a couple of times. But on each occasion the people cheering me on in corners made me determine to stick it out until the final lap or if I got lapped. As it turned I got lapped about 25 minutes or so into the race. It was tough to see the pace motorbike go by me, and to see the race leader out on his own. I watched the rest of race with great interest as the lone lead rider, Jason Myslicki, ended up lapping the main field with two laps left to go. A great performance by a kid on his first sanctioned race, he really chewed everybody else up.

So it was great weekend of racing and the organizers pulled off a really successful event by getting the community involved and participating. Lots of fun had by everyone. p\Performances wise, I did better in the time trial than I expected. As for the crit, it was some good anaerobic conditioning for me. I was a bit disappointed but sometimes you just have take the event for what it is and move on.