Tuesday Nighter World Champion

(Photo courtesy of Doug Brons)

Dave Groves hoisting the hardware for winning the Cat 4 season overall at the World Tuesday Night Championships. He upgraded to Cat 3 and won three races and was 3rd overall in that category as well. Awesome.

Claire Cameron won 7 races en route to securing the Women's season title with 39 points with Jenny Lehman finishing second overall with 14 points.

The Descent of Man

2011 Paris-Brest-Paris. This is what 1200kms in 71h 27mins will do to a Doctor... Awesome Ride!!

BC Cross Cup #1: Langley Cross Classic

Mighty Riders is once again proud to co-host with Team H&R Block the Langley Cyclocross Classic and opening round of the BC Cross Cup at Aldor Acres Farm on Sunday, September 4th, 2011. As in years past, all net race proceeds will be donated to the MS Society.

Come out to test your fitness on this great course with cash and merchandise prizes for all categories.

Draw prizes for all racers and volunteers will be awarded following the Elite Men's race.

For all of the race details including driving directions, start times, categories, etc. please check this link.

Any further questions, contact race organizer: bclement@telus.net

Golbeck at Paris-Brest-Paris

Our man Ryan is almost half way through the crown jewel of randonneuring, the 1200 km Paris-Brest-Paris. With 450 km behind him at the last control and 21.5 hours passed, he's on pace to finish within the 80 hour time limit.

** Update: 28.5 hours and 525 km... Go Ryan Go!

His GPS tracker can be found on his website here.

And to follow Ryan's official progress, search for plate # 1975 here.

Gent's Race - Mighty Two

Darrel and Ian also rode the Gentlemen's Race on Sunday... here are some words from Ian (with a colour commentary from yours truly).

In their first unsanctioned race, Ian and Darrel chose the scenic route, riding the Lions Gate over the East Side and adding 7k to the ride. Ian learned some new skills for descending steep grades—too bad he didn't learn them before descending Indian River Road for the first time. His rear tire locked up—and surely his sphincter puckered as well—as he left a skid hole a fixie kid would be proud of on his tubular tire. Threadbare but still holding air, he managed to ride the thumper for another 60k without incident and they finished the race.

Two Mighty teams, two Mighty results. Good work boys!

Gentlemen's Race

As rumours circulated of a Gentlemen's Race over the past few weeks the Mighty crew looked forward to team bonding in quest of free beer. We met the rest of the early risers on Sunday at Spanish Banks for instructions and the revealing of our two checkpoints. 55 riders showed up which was about 12 teams - teams were 2-5 riders. First one back with pictures of the team at both spots would be the winner.

Pre-race strategizing with an Alleycat 'champion' and our leader for the day, Berryjuice.

Checkpoint #1: Pier at the bottom of Indian River Drive

Checkpoint #2: the END of the pier at Iona Pt in Richmond.

Lats with our winnings: 6 pack of Extra Old Stock, 4 Winning Magazines, and a Beer Trophy.

The checkpoints were the public pier at the bottom of Indian River Drive and the end of the spit out at Iona. The route was all up to us. The teams started in 3 waves, 9am, 9:15 and 9:30. We were off last and like most headed to the North Shore. After climbing our way out from Deep Cove we headed crosstown and were the only team in sight heading out to Iona. We ran into our competitors out there but they ran into technical issues (flats!) and we kept pushing on. Here is Andrew's Garmin of the race.

It was a great day for team bonding and we managed to come out on top. If you get the chance, ask Meat what a Polish paceline is... if he has recovered yet that is.

Midsummer Night's Cross

Haley in the lead.

Kicking off the 2011 Cyclocross season was a rare summer time race about an hour outside of Seattle - the Midsummer CX sponsored by Raleigh Bicycles and MFG Cyclocross. The course was technical, dusty, bumpy and exposed to a strong wind, placing a premium on power. Most impressive was the $40,000 in prizes which included pro contracts for the top man and woman rider.

The story of the day was Haley's Cat 4 women's win: She started mid-pack and quickly began driving the pace. By the end of the first lap, she had only one other rider contending for 1st and the two of them had a significant gap on the field. Later in the day Jay placed 8th in the Masters 40+ and Ashely was 17th in the Cat 4 Men.

Spectators and riders enjoyed a VIP catered tent courtesy of Raleigh which featured a delightful selection of burgers etc and included an open bar and beer garden serving up a local microbrew. Unlike most races, the booze and food was offered rather than procured by stealth and cunning. Not sure how the Mighty Army would have reacted! The beer hand ups from the VIP tent were plentiful and ambitious.

Next race is the Mighty CX at Aldor Acres, Sept 4th.

The bumpy descent.

A great picture gallery here.

Full results here.

(Write up courtesy of Jay/Ashley)

Fastest 300

Ryan continued his Rando exploits last Monday with the fastest recorded 300kms in BC's Rando History. He and his partner, Nigel Press, took twelve minutes off the previous fastest time. They rode 300k in 9:28 for a 33km/hr average. Crazy.

Check out his Garmin for all the ride deets. Here's his brief recap of the ride:

There were headwinds both ways, not as bad coming back, but the wind always seems to change midday so that its blowing west in the morning and east in the afternoon. So the only tailwind we had was going up to chilliwack lake.

We pulled Craig and Gerry for 120km and then left them at a control (we minimized control stops and were off the bike for just around 20 total minutes I think the whole day).

It got pretty hot in the afternoon, but we had a bunch of tree cover for most of the climb to chilliwack lake. We had our last water stop at around 225km into the ride after descending from chilliwack lake. I ran out of water 10km from the finish, but it worked out perfectly.

Post ride: tired but grinning.

Riding stoker on the tandem.

Inflicting pain on the others.

We need to get the four-legged Mighties doing this.

Le chien le plus cool du monde !