Racing is my drug of choice

I was walking with my wife Colleen tonight and she asked me "do you have more fun riding with your friends or racing?". At first I couldn't explain it "I enjoy both" I said. But in thinking about it more I said "there is a feeling that comes with racing that never comes on the joy ride".

I wish I could capture how it feels mid-race, the feeling of flying through the forest - flowing from turn to turn, coming to an open section and standing up over a slight rise...holding momentum, building speed and then dropping into another section of single track - the forest flying by in a blur but yet being able to see so clearly the trail ahead. My body feeling truely like a machine, everything pumping, flowing, breathing...a dance of physics, mechanics and desire.

These words really don't do it justice. If you ride mountain bikes you probably have a sense of what I'm talking about. If you race you may know the feeling I'm talking about, but then again maybe it's different for everyone.

All I know is that it's a high like nothing else, and I'm hooked :)

Is Weave Racing the new Lance?

Yes it is true folks. Hot August Nights came, we rode and we won...again. Always nice to win, even nicer to win back to back. This year everything ran super smooth. I'll post a bunch of pics over the next day or so and write a more detailed description of events. I'm also trying to find a good place to host some video. Chris brought his camera and documented the whole thing.

Anyway, thanks to the Weave Racing team for everything. Ya'll rock!

So...is Weave Racing the next Lance? haha - let's see if we can do it another 5 years in a row!

Born to be a mudder

Hot August Nights starts tomorrow and it's been raining all night. Looks like we are going to get close to 50mm of rain before tomorrow morning. Should make the course a little slick in sections. No worries though, I'm a mudder. My brother is a mudder and our mama was a mudder. :)

The only thing that sucks about 24hr racing in the rain is trying to get clean and dry after the lap, it's damn near impossible.

Anyway, I'll be sure to have some stories and pics to post soon.

Wish us luck!

Hot August Nights is coming

Darrell (me) climbing in backwoods
Originally uploaded by dheaps.

This is a shot from Bromont of me climbing, I wanted to post something from this weekend...but I didn't bring a camera :). Rode the 4hr Tour De Hough on Sat. It was sweet. Today did about 2hr 30mins up at Albion. I can certainly say I feel a little whiped tonight. But...only one more weekend until the 24hr Hot August Nights - yeehaw!

Riding in the Jungle heat

Last couple of weeks has been hot, hot, hot. Since Todd’s wedding on July 8th I’ve put in some good weekends of riding. The biggest change this year has been longer road rides. The past two weekends I’ve done 120km (about 4hrs) + 2.5hrs of mtb on the following day. I’m trying to focus more on building endurance, over the course of August I’m going to increase the threshold workouts and look to extend the threshold time. My obvious goal is to be able to hold at 172 to 174 for 2hrs. I hoping the training during the summer should set me up nicely for the last couple of O-Cups.

Today we rode up in Albion, it was about 34 degrees. When we started at 9:30am there was a lot of steam in the woods, it was like being in rain forest. It didn't take long to have sweat pouring out of every gland in my body. At about 1hr 30mins I started to do 10-15min threshold bursts. What a great feeling when I open it up like that, focusing on flow and momentum. It's amazing how fast you can keep the pace when you focus on turning a slighty bigger gear.

I have to say that I'm really enjoying riding lately (although I can't remember when I haven't ;) I'm really looking forward to Hot August Nghts, coming up soon!!!

Anyway, all for now, I’ll post again soon.