Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Winter track racing and the remainder of the 2014(-15) sesason.

The tail end of my 2014 season was quite busy with winter track racing. There was the Burnaby 4 Day, the UCI Milton International Challenge and finally the Berlin Six Day.


Kelyn Akuna and the crew at the Burnaby Velodrome have been doing a great job putting on fun and exciting events for racers and spectators alike. Their marquee event for the year is the Burnaby 4 Day. This year had one of the best fields in recent memory and a more 'Euro Six Day' feel. Each night of racing there was junior and lower category racing, sprint events, a stellar women's field and a crazy fast elite men's field that was based on two man teams and the madison. In addition there was music, food and most importantly lots of BEER.

The racing was fierce. I was paired with US road sprint superstar Tyler Farrar. Germany was represented by the super solid Schwiezer borthers, Michael and Christoph. Canada had the Flying Squirrel Jacob Schwingboth and Zach Bell. The event was eventually won by the other American pairing of Daniel Holloway and Jacob Duerhing who took a lap early of the first chase of the first night. My partner seemed to be having some difficulty finding track legs after some time away from a Velodrome and having come from off season with a big road season with MTN-Qhubeka coming up. I am already looking forward to the winter season at Burnaby for 2015-16!

http://www.dbcphoto.com/
http://www.dbcphoto.com/

The UCI Milton International Challenge was the test event for the Pan-Am Games to be held this summer in Toronto. the Velodrome was still just completing construction and the was just the 2nd event to be help at the facility, with Canadian Nationals happening just days before. This a beautiful facility with all that you would want in a world class velodrome. It is also the new home of Canadian Cycling. In the three days of competition I rode in the team pursuit and scratch on day one, the omnium over the second two days and finshed up with a madison following the omnium points race. I got to meet one my favorite track cyclists with awesome hair, Curt Harnett! He is involved with the facility and was also handing out medals. I ended up 2nd in the scratch and team pursuit and 3rd in the omnium.
photo: Jeremy Allen
 
photo: Jeremy Allen


Berlin...

Wow Berlin. Every year people ask me how Berlin was and I really have a hard time summing it up. Its Awesome, Overwhelming, Inspiring, Loud, FUN. I am so lucky to have ridden the stayer races at the Berling Six Day for the past three years. Going 80-90 kph behind big motors, racing against 7 other teams of cyclist/motors in front of 13,000 enthusiastic people every night for six nights in a row. its amazing. It is also really hard to return to reality afterwards!


2 comments:

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