Tactical and Technical Development

This message is brought to you by Denis and Black Fly Racing’s Bike Fitting and Racing Tactics Development Squad.

Do you suffer from lower back or knee pain while on the bike?

Does your neck or shoulders, arms and hands get sore even after an easy ride?

Do you wish your legs could produce power more efficiently?

Would you like to learn how pace lines and echelons are formed, and how easy it is to maintain high speeds without wasting valuable wattage or power?

If your answer is ‘yes’ to any of the questions above, then the Bike Fitting and Racing Tactics Development Squad can help. Our intensive bike fitting sessions can identify probable causes for soreness, pain and insufficient pedaling power; and various racing tactics can be taught to prepare any rider for personal success on their next race.

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Two choices at the Rouge: winding fire road or billy-goat up the side

Hills.

Spring time is their time.

An upcoming bike season always makes me think about how brutal and lung-busting the first few hills of the season always are.
Gasping, burning, seizing, and barfing are all likely.

Everyone's got their own hill. The hill that gets in your head days before you're even at the bottom. Who's already thinking about the Paris-Ancaster finish? Albion's Wall? Durham's Sneaky Valley?
Brimley for the roadie in you?

One of my favourites and most hated is the winding fire road at the Rouge (above). It never fails to kick my ass and with spring around the corner...bring on the gasping, burning, seizing, and barfing!

Much needed

Today was a gorgeous day. 4 degrees and sunny in the middle of winter. A long winter. A very long winter. Let's see, since mid November it's been consistently cold with lots of snow in Ontario, preventing us from exercising outside and getting in some much needed km's. Today, Stitt and I headed out to Toronto's Leslie Spit for a ride along the car-free roads and we enjoyed every minute of it - even though it was still only 4 degrees. Thanks for the ride, Ryan.

Curious on looker

{collective thought bubbles}
"where's the third placer?"
Oh, that would be us.
This photo, I believe, are our first ranked race (3rd in 8 hrs Mansfield). Clearly, we are anticipating being called on the podium. Arms being crossed to keep our excitement under control and all.
I think, this day was a pivotal moment for our team...silver and gold came right after.

What It's All About

I came across this picture from the summer of 2007. Ryan and Chris came down to Paris for a day of riding (and drinkin' apparently) I just thought it showed what riding is really all about for us - spending time with people we enjoy, our "family". I believe this was a trip to the famous Hydrocut! Thankfully, I remembered my gear that time (not just my bike), right Chris?

Ryan

A "Century" of Memories.

Finally, I have recovered my old hard-drive (after 2 years)! It's been collecting dust (much like my bike at this point in the season), and I've not been able to get any old pics from it. Not any more! I managed to clean up the drive, get some old bike pics, and escape unharmed throughout the entire process.

For me, this is cause for celebration and good reason to contribute my first entry to our wicked-ass blog (keep it up Mart!)

One of my favourite pics is the one above of Tonic, Mart, and myself following the completion of my (and Tonys) first century. It was an awesome trip from Port Dalhousie to Niagara Falls with a return trip along the Welland Canal. Truly epic! A great day of riding and proof for myself that over 4 hours of saddle time is a hell of a lot of fun!

Happy New Year everyone and I'll be sure to post more pics as I search through them.

Cheers.

Stitt

To Ride Or Not To Ride

Happy New Year! I've been itching to go on a ride for a few weeks now, and today seemed like as good a day as any. I mean it was only minus 8 degrees so why not, eh? So after one decides to go for a winter ride in Canada you must think about the gear you'll need. Let's see, I will require a tank top, undershirt, jersey, armwarmers, long sleeve jersey, wind resistant jacket, shorts, knee warmers, tights,wool socks - make that 2 pairs of wool socks, waterproof socks, winter cycling shoes, winter gloves, neck warmer, balaclava, helmet and glasses. I weighed this stuff and it totaled 8lbs! Was it worth it?- of course it was.

Tour de Hogtown

November 5, 2006. Toronto. I found this picture of me and Brenda (taken by Dwayne) riding along the Bloor Viaduct on a nice fall afternoon a couple of years ago. It reminds me of how good the bike lanes in the city are - don't get me wrong, they could and should be much better but they're not bad. On average, without leaving the city, you can ride 50kms or more and 90% of that riding is on bike paths and bike lanes. And during this time of the year there was hardly any other people out there. Bliss.

ZM Turkey Cross

October 12, 2008. Toronto. This is a great event for us who live in the city because we can simply ride our bikes to the race. No waking up at 6am and driving across the province. Instead it's at Cedarvale Park and is fast becoming the most popular cross event on the circuit. This time I wasn't able to duplicate my top-10 from last year because I got a flat on my last lap. But I did finish. It's always a fine line picking tire pressure in CX races and I probably had a little less than I should have. Lesson learned. Denis and JohnL were also there jumping on and off their bikes in this crazy sport. Here's some more photos : Marty, JohnL, Denis, Marty, JohnL, Denis, Marty, Denis, and JohnL.

The Squeezer 2008

September 28, 2008. St. Catherines. We weren't planning on attending the Squeezer this year because we were expecting our baby around this time. Instead, Justin raced into the world 3 weeks early so we were able to drive down as a family and participate in the festivities. I must say it's very cool to have your child waiting for you at the finish line (even though he was sleeping!). Most of us were there and after a few flat tires and broken chains (Tony & Cam), we arrived at the finish line to have some well deserved snacks and drinks. Oh devil!

 

I see a Black Fly!

24 Hours Hot August Nights 2008

Clockwise from top left:

1. Denis
2. John L.
3. Dean
4. Muller
5. Jon
6. Tony
7. Marty
8. Pete

August 23-24, 2008. Albion Hills. First, sorry guys about the blurry images, we're working on that. So, we had another successful 24 hours spent racing the trails of Albion. This year we missed Mr. Stitt who was out with an injury, but he'll hopefully be back racing with us in 2009. As a sub for the squad we had JohnL. and not only did he smoke the course but kept all our bikes working great. As a whole, we had 9 riders doing laps until Sunday morning when our faithful ringer Denis came in and helped finish off the event. We improved for the second year in a row by coming in 11th out of the 75 teams. Dare I say top 10 next year? For more pictures, click here.

Lake to Lake 2008

June 15, 2008. Niagara. We're back! I don't think I've mentioned that they always run this event on Father's Day. How appropriate. It was pretty cool this year being the defending champs and all but we weren't quite able to repeat our awesome performance from 2007. Second place was still very good, though. It proves we're a force to be reckoned with in future L2L's, that's for sure. We also had an honourary Black Fly in our group in Laura who had a fantastic race and came within seconds of winning the overall women's title. Once again, nice work out there guys!

Ride for Heart

June 1, 2008. Toronto. Only once a year do cyclists in this city get a chance to ride on the most flowing, widest, and smoothest bike path in the city - the Don Valley Parkway. And of course it's for an amazing cause, being heart and stroke research. Last year Brenda and I took to the highway and this year me and Stitt rode on the DVP. I consider this ride to be one of the highlights of the season and I can't wait to introduce it to as many people as possible in the years to come.

Spring 8hr at Mansfield 2008

May 24, 2008. Mansfield. This has become one of our favorites. Mansfield is a really fun place to ride, with some great trails and tough hills and it's not 24hrs long! Even though we weren't able to duplicate our podium from last year we were challenging for it all day and eventually finished in 4th - only 47 seconds out of 3rd and just 1:14 out of 2nd - and that was spread out over 8+ hours. Awesome effort!

Paris-Ancaster 2008

April 20, 2008. Another version of Ontario's Paris-Roubaix had our numbers reduced due to a (planned) explosion of babies. A lot of tired mommy's and daddy's couldn't make the trip this time but will definitely be back in the years to come. You guys missed out because they didn't include the hill this year... just kidding, it wouldn't be the same without that damn hill. For those of us who went we couldn't have asked for a nicer, spring day.

Clockwise from top left:

1. Marty climbing the hill.
2. Dean climbing the hill.
3. Thomas climbing the hill.
4. Enjoying a well earned meal.
5. A visit from the neighborhood Muller's at the start.
   
6. Denis & Marty.
7. Back in Toronto with their dirty bikes.