Ready for K.O.M.?

He Might only be 2 1/2 years old... but my little guy was sitting on the steel "bike" outside Olympia this week going "Pedal, Pedal, Pedal...". He also looks so grown-up with the Tims cup holding my Peugeot.

Kudos to the "new" Raphael Gagné!!

No, I'm not talking about the Canadian Pro MTB racer, but rather the FUTURE Canadian pro! The youngest member of the Body Driven Club, Ralph started racing last spring on a 33lb hardtail. His enthusiasm and enjoyment of riding and racing was hard to miss. He came out to as many races as he could, since he was still 16 and had to get rides from his folks. Whenever we would prelap, Ralph would try to go harder than everyone else. Panting and red, we'd try to remind him that this wasn't the race yet, and that he should just relax, learn the course, and try to conserve his energy for when it counted. Obviously the kid is competitive! On our annual trip to the Maa Daa Hey trail, he did his best to keep up, but nearly passed out several times, and eventually took the last morning off to recover. There were a few times we thought he wouldn't make the trip....

Enter the NEW and IMPROVED Raphael Gagné. He's been training with Team Manitoba since last fall. He's Dropped (or at least appears too) 30lb or more. What's left is a developing machine with pure potential. And, Yesterday, at the Grand Beach race, he got 1st place in the sport class, beating out a large field of riders!

Congrats Ralph on serious dedication and drive to really make a difference!!

MB Cup#1 Grand Beach

Thanks to Olympia organizers Ian Hall and Hal Loewen and all volunteers for a great start to the 2010 MTB race season. It was wet, it was cold. Turnout was great and the racing was even better. Post-race specialty sandwiches and fruit were awesome!

GPX INfo.
Vertical up: 1082.7 ft
Vertical down: 1079.4 ft

Mission Accomplished

Mission: First trail ride of the year
Date: March 22, 2010
Ride time: 1.5hours

After hearing that some of our friends had actually ridden trail at BHP this past weekend i just had to ride it for myself! 8 wonderful degrees of awesomeness (for this time of year), lack of wind, and nice sunshine made for great riding weather. The trail was nearly free of snow, and there were only a few sections of standing water. Albeit fairly damp and muddy, it was still drier than that infamous WNS race last summer.... the one with the funnel cloud, hurricane-like winds, falling trees, torrential rain... etc.... remember that one?

I capped my ride off with a quick 12k loop of the BHP loop. I was going for a fast cadence. I ran the loop at about 31km/h, not much to speak of, other than that it was on my single speed MTB with a 34/16 ratio! Yeah, I must have looked a little funny! Oh well... mission accomplished.

Biking On My Mind...

Yeah, I've been doing it all winter, but as the snow starts to melt it takes on a new meaning!