A few weeks before the 24 Hours of Summer Solstice, Juliette and I (Team Wanderlust) joined True North (Mari, Dave, Jennie, Anana, Adam and others) at Albion Hills to pre-ride the race course. This is the video of our ride. The music is Pedal Pusher by the Toronto rapper Abdominal from the album Escape From The Pigeon Hole.If you like it, you can buy it on Amazon, just click the link.

Its been a week since Juliette and I raced the 24 Hours of Summer Solstice solo and we are still recovering. We have been sleeping and eating constantly, and the feeling still hasn’t come back in several of our fingers and one of my toes.

It was a hard race this year, but thankfully we had a wonderful support crew. Juliette’s parents flew over from England to help. Our friends Tecla and Paula were there for us and my Dad and Doris cheered us on. There is no way I would have made it through the night without their support. They took us under their wings, fed us, pushed us and cheered for us. Even through the thunder showers at 3 AM when I just wanted to stop, they were there for me and kept me plugging away.

It is only because of their support that Juliette and I did so well. Juliette finished in 3^rd place and I managed 1^st place. The rest of Team Wanderlust did great to. Tim came in 6^th in Solo men and Matt/Peter came in 7^th in Tag Team.

At the finish, I was only 1 minute and 27 seconds ahead of the second place solo. I started the last lap thinking that I was 15 minutes ahead of him, but then when the course came out back near the start a few minutes later, everyone was yelling at me that he was only 2 minutes behind me and going hard.

I put on the speed and gave it everything I had. After riding the course 17 times previously, I had every line, log and corner wired and despite having been on my bike for nearly 24 hours, I rode the lap perfectly and had nearly my fastest lap of the race.

In these races, as long as you come in under the 24 hour mark, you can go out again for another lap. I came in at 23:59:46. I was spent and didn’t have the heart to head out again, so I stood in the timing tent as everyone counted down the seconds until noon. Thankfully, Dave Stowe didn’t make it through in time to go out again and the race was finished!

Everything seemed to go really well for me this race. I paced myself really well, trying to stay in heart rate zone 3 and below for the entire race. I stopped for a quick bite to eat and more water every two laps. Every four laps I stopped for a bit longer and ate as much as I could. I don’t think I took in enough calories to cover the 15,000 that I burned during the race, but I never felt overly depleted.

The hardest bit of the race was through the night. It rained hard and several sections of the course were unridable. I plugged away at it though, walking and slipping my way through, riding what I could, but always moving forward. Finally, at 4 AM I fell asleep on my bike several times, crashing a few, so I stopped and slept for an hour.

It was the fact that I kept plugging away at the course through the rain that moved me from second place into first. I was tired when I started riding again in the morning, but I was in first place, well ahead and moving fairly quickly. Dave was better rested and was slowly gaining on me, but I managed to hold him off to the end. My only mistake was stopping to lube my chain right before my last lap. It was grinding badly and I was worried about it, but that allowed Dave to catch up nearly 15 minutes and nearly cost me the race. I can see now why many of the other solo riders had multiple bikes.

In the end, it was an excellent race. We had some high calibre competition that pushed us beyond our limits. The challenge, weather and adversity as our advantage.

As our new Wanderlust shirts say,

F=EA²

Fun equals Effort times Adversity squared.

Once again, I need to thank our wonderful support crew. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to do this. Huge hugs and thanks to Don, Carrol, Tecla, Paula, my Dad and Doris, we owe you so much.

In five days, Juliette and I will be racing the 24 Hours of Summer Solstice, North America’s largest 24 hour mountain bike event. For people unfamiliar with the concept, we will get on our bikes at noon on Saturday and start riding laps around a 17.5km technical mountain biking course at Albion Hills, near Bolton, ON. We will be up against some world class athletes, so the race should prove to be fun and challenging.

We will continue to ride through the night and into the next day, finally finishing at noon on Sunday. At the end, whoever does the most laps wins, so the idea is to keep going as much as possible, and only stop when absolutely necessary. We will eat and drink on the bike and keep going through the night without sleep.

The only way we can do this is with the support of others. We will be going fairly batty by about 3am and it is our support crew that will feed us, encourage us and keep us going. Thankfully, we have one of the best support crews around. Juliette’s parents are arriving from England tonight and will be there for us through-out the race. My dad and Doris are also coming up to cheer us on on Saturday and two of our good friends, Paula and Tecla are also going to be there to help.

Today we are mourning the passing of the van. I signed over ownership tonight and we will never see her again. Once I finish this post, I will sit down with a beer and remember the good times we had together. I am comforted knowing that she has gone to a better place though, where she will be fully restored and live forever in a beautiful new incarnation.

Excuse me while I dry my eyes…

It is Bike Week in Burlington from May 31 to June 8. Today is Bike to Work Day, so show your support to everyone out on their bikes today. Saturday, June 8 from noon to 3 pm there are bike related activities and a community barbecue at Central Park.

The weather is finally warm and it is sunny despite the forecast. I hope to see you out there on your bike.

It is official, I finally put the van up for sale today. I love the van and it runs great, but I just don’t drive it now that I am biking everywhere. I will be sad to see it go, but I know someone else out there will love it as much as I do. If you know that person, get them to give me a call at (905) 633-8027. At $6,500, it is a steal.

When the van goes, it will be the end of an era. I think I will start the new era with something like this.

As a condition of being granted the 2008 summer games, China promised the IOC and the International community that it would make positive changes in its human rights record. As soon as it was awarded the games, China turned its back on those promises and began to crack down even harder on what it considers subversive elements. Most notable is the recent crackdown in Tibet, but it extends to Internet censorship, their strong support for the brutal Burmese government, jailing of journalists, executions of Muslim Uyghurs for “separatism,” and arrests of members of the Falungong to name a few.

While the Olympic games are supposed to be free of politics, China has made them a political issue. China is using the games to legitimize its government on the world stage. China has also made human rights promises related to the games which it has not kept.

I don’t believe that there is the political will for Western nations to outright boycott the summer Olympics like they did for the 1980 Moscow Games, but I do believe that we as citizens have an obligation to register our protests in any way that we can. As such, I am doing the following;

• Actively avoiding all media coverage of the games,
• Where possible, boycotting companies that support the games or advertise at the games,
• Writing to companies that I am boycotting telling them why I am boycotting them,
• Writing posts like this and discussing the issues with as many people as possible,
• Signing petitions like these to boycott the opening ceremony and to register my wish that China improve its human rights record.

None of this is in any way a reflection of my support for the athletes, nor will I think less of those who participate. I just won’t be watching.

How do you feel about this? Do you think I am being unreasonable? If you also feel the same way, what else can be done to register our protest? Let me know, leave a comment.

Juliette and I are both feeling a bit stiff and sore after racing the Opus Spring Epic, part of the Dukes Epic 8 Hour series race on Saturday. The premise of these races is that you ride for 8 hours straight and try to complete as many laps as possible. Whoever completes the most laps in the least amount of time wins.

The course this year was a blast with more great single track riding than I expected. As always, it started with a long climb then quickly got into fun twisty riding. There were some great technical downhills, enough climbing to keep you honest and some fun, fast riding.

Despite starting the race with stomach problems, both Juliette and Tecla did great, coming in 6^th and 9^th in Solo Women respectively, both with 11 laps. I managed to squeak into 4^th place in Solo Men 40+ despite some strong competition this year.

A big thanks go out to the True North racing team for their support and encouragement during the race. As always, they are a great crew to ride and hang out with. Congratulations to Mari Evans and Jennie Jackson who came in 1^st for female tag-team and to Dave Dermont for his 1^st place in male tag-team.

Juliette wrote a great race report on her blog and Jennie has a report on the True North racing blog. Head over and give them both a read.

Next up is the 24 Hours of Summer Solstice in 4 short weeks. I’d better get training… To keep us motivated, here is a video from last year’s 24 hour that I found on YouTube.

Set to coincide with the Canadian Environment Week from June 1^st to 7^th, is Commuter Challenge Week. Commuter Challenge is a national program that encourages Canadians to walk, cycle, take transit, carpool or tele-work instead of driving alone to work. Cities across the country are getting in on the action by planning events and support.

To get involved, register at the Commuter Challenge Week web site, then check out your local city for a list of scheduled events. For those of you around here, check out the pages for Hamilton and Toronto.

May 26 to June 1 is also Bike Week in Toronto. See their web site for a list of events that you can get involved in.

What are you going to do for the Commuter Challenge? Let us know in the comments.

I have uploaded several pictures that Dave Unrau took at the O-Cup in Albion Hills last weekend. With his permission, I uploaded a few of his photos of us and friends to the Spring 2008 Photo Album. There are great shots of me, Juliette, Tecla, Mari, Dave, Jennie and Eva. Check them out.

If you want to see more pictures from the race, check out Dave’s photo album with hundreds of great shots from the race.

I have also uploaded a video that I took from the race and I have found another video on YouTube of a younger category. It has more of the singletrack sections, so it is fun to watch.

Thanks to Dave for taking the photos and for letting me upload these great shots.