I had a pretty good workout yesterday, so the legs were feeling a bit… not heavy, but definitely feeling that I had worked them. That said, I do loves me the Richmond races and it had been nearly a month since the last time I lined up for a race so I was itching to get back into it.

The race starts and immediately is off quicker than any of the other races that had happened thus far. Everything was getting chased down, but unlike some of the other races, that didn’t stop anyone from trying, which was awesome. By the time the first prime was called, my legs were feeling pretty good and I made a concerted effort to, not win it, but stay within close striking distance in case anyone went off the front immediately afterwards. Someone did, but it didn’t last long. I hit the front *very* briefly and then drifted back.

This continued to repeat itself. My secondary goal for the evening was to take one of the primes as I’ve never done that either. Coming into the front stretch I was on the outside in the wide right hand sweeper, unfortunately, the entire race drifted to the left and I found myself up against the yellow line. I feel very strongly about these things and eased up, waiting until things opened up again. By the time the prime sprint was down to the three or so that were in contention, there were only a total of six riders in front of me most of whom were looking a bit blown.

This situation had worked well for me before, so I took off on the back stretch. A lap time that had gotten me a ten second gap six weeks go gave me a whopping 2-3 seconds today. One guy (from the largest team present on the day) did bridge up, but I wasn’t really sure if he was chasing or bridging. After another half lap it was clear he wasn’t going to pull through, so it didn’t seem worth it to blow myself apart for another 10 minutes with a tiny gap. I eased up a bit.

Almost not enough, the race promptly surged as the most aggressive rider of the night hit the front again. I went straight to the back. Fortunately, it eased up then, one more surge and I would have been completely off the back, I needed the time to recover.

Fast forward a few more laps, more aggressiveness and nothing sticking. I’m mostly recovering from my 3 minute adventure as I only ever have a few matches to burn. The plan now was ‘long sprint’. As we came around that wide right hand sweeper, the field drifted towards the outside. I noticed a familiar jersey sneaking up the inside and it looked like he had found a nice little hole. I followed and, when he drifted slightly towards the middle of the road, I just started accelerating in a straight line.

It was good enough.

All in all, pretty exciting, that was the first time I’d ever really sprinted in a race against other guys who were also sprinting. Generally, I try to sprint when no one else is.

It was fun, and I can totally see the lure to being ‘the sprinter’ and surviving until the end and then unleashing. We’ll see how it goes though, I suspect I’ll continue poorly timed attacks because riding off the front is ‘fun’.

Some stats: My attack lap was 1:53, essentially the same as the first lap in the solo break from a few weeks ago. Average lap times were on the order of about 2:04 so several seconds faster than the previous races. I do enjoy faster races, assuming I finish them. Average speed for the race was just a hair over 39km/h.

Richmond Coastal Challenge, May 27, 2010, C race. Cool and a bit breezy but otherwise a great night for racing. I got there nice and early for the 6:30 start only to find out that the start was, in fact, at 7pm. Ten guys starting, a couple who recognized me as ‘Cannondale guy’ from two weeks ago and mentioned they’d be watching me. That’s cool.

So the race starts, a Devo rider and someone else go off the front almost immediately. A couple of other guys follow, but the two get serious and are off on their own. They take the first prime and are holding a fairly steady gap. The field is not working well together to pull them back, but since they are not really getting further ahead, I’m content to sit at the back and keep an eye on things. A couple of laps later, the gap actually starts to go out a bit again so I work my way into the rotation and when I hit the front accelerate a touch. Two goals: One, bring the race back together. Two, stretch out the legs of everyone a bit.

I got a bit carried away and twenty seconds later had a tiny gap. I eased up, so did the field behind me. In the interest of punishing this kind of behaviour I stood up and crossed the gap, leaving the pack behind. They accelerated and a lap later, as I was coming off the front of the break, the pack rejoined.

A couple of laps later, another prime was called. The Devo rider took it and when he had a gap, continued riding pretty hard. I bridged up to him and when he pulled off, continued onwards. Unfortunately, I think he was blown this time. I eased up a bit but ultimately it all came back together again a half lap later. Four to go.

The next three laps were slow. Really, really slow. My plan was for the last lap heroics so I was content to rest and recover. This was solidified as I had decided that even if I wasn’t going to win, a fast last mile would at least make it a bit safer, so I was going to pull the entire time. The two short breaks had gone well and I felt pretty good. 50m before the start/finish line on the bell lap I sprint as hard as I can. Someone yells something to the effect of “Get on his wheel!” but no one does. I got a few seconds on the field almost immediately and by about halfway through the lap it was clear to me that this might work.

Glances back on the corners showed that the field wasn’t really closing in. 300m to go and I peek and see someone coming across the gap. My brain was totally fried so I took another look to confirm a couple of seconds later. Yep, definitely one dude coming quickly but not fast enough to catch me. Damn, I’m going to win.

Numbers (I need to get a power meter…) : 53km/h to get the gap, up from a ridiculously slow 33km/h or whatever we were going at the time, a pretty decent jump for me. 1:47 for the last lap, which works out to about 43km/h average. Last lap was something like 40 seconds faster than the penultimate and a personal record on the course for me in any situation. New max heart rate of 196.

Realizations: Winning hurts. Granted, a 2 minute max effort is always going to suck, but that was undoubtedly the sharpest pain I’ve ever felt on a bike. I was seriously concerned shortly after the line that I might not be able to stay on the bike. As it was, I did a ‘lift one fist 6 inches above the handle bar’ victory salute, then was too scared to take the hands off again for a solid two minutes.

It was awesome. Taking a week off due to work concerns, but with a mountain bike race this weekend and one or two crits next week, I’m pretty excited.

Coastal Thursday Nighter – May 13

Fifteen or so starters. I arrived at 6:15 due to the website claiming a 7:00 start time for the C racers. That was incorrect, nothing like lining up to a < 30 minute criterium with no warmup. Supposedly I wasn’t the only one who got mixed up and the field was a touch smaller than it should have been.

So we’ll assume 15 starters. Fourteen different jerseys in the race, the only two guys who appeared to be on the same team were both in white jerseys, we will call them White1 and White2. No one else really mattered in this race.

We take off, my plan at this point is to spend the first several laps warming up, then see how it goes. Specifically, I intend on sticking with the lead group the entire race if possible and then attacking with about 1km to go and seeing if I can hold it. Two or so laps into the race, White1 takes off on a solo adventure. White2 works his way to the front and rides at a comfortable tempo. Twoish laps later, White1 takes the first preme of the race. White2 is still pulling and since he’s actually going at a decent clip, no one really steps in to help out. Another lap or so later and the guy out by himself sits and up and chills at the back of the pack for a while. White2 is *still* pulling.

Six laps to go and the bell rings for the second preme of the race. Coming onto the the front stretch, the pace gets high and the two white jersey guys are right at the front, drilling it. The leadout pulls off and I’m pretty sure his teammate snags the second preme. I accelerate fairly hard to stay in the slipstream and am sitting in about fifth place. Tactical thoughts at this point are: White1 spent time off the front and mixed it up in the sprint. White2 pulled a long way and also mixed it up. I bet they are kind of cooked and no one else is doing much.

Screw it.

Out of corner two with just under 5 laps to go, I slide out of the line to the right and start accelerating. When I pass #2 in line, someone yells something about someone going and I stand and sprint hard. I jump somewhere a bit above 50km/h and then sit and ride hard. By the 4 to go board, I’ve got 10 seconds on the group. At 3.5 to go, I make the conscious decision to try to stick it out and get into my survival pace.

I get a maximum of about 15 seconds, 10 of which is eaten up on the penultimate lap and am caught with about 300m to go. Straight back through the field and off the back.

According to the computer, the first 1:40 of the attack was at an average speed of 45km/h and the entire 10 minute duration of the thing was about 39km/h, which is pretty damned good for me. Definitely wouldn’t have stood up to a larger field, but with the small field it almost worked.

One thing I noticed though: Pretty much everyone hangs out at the start/finish line. The first time across alone, there was a bit of clapping. Second lap, a bit more. by the third lap that I was out in front, it seemed that there were a lot of people getting pretty vocal, which was awesome. Sort of a, “Huh, he’s not giving up, I didn’t expect that.”

Campbell Heights Classic

A fun course. Two short climbs, one really steep and the other merely steep. Most of the rest is flat to gently downhill. This was also my first ‘real’ cat 4 race with, according to the results, 28 starters. For me, this race comes down to 16 climbs and how many of them I can get over while remaining attached to the front group. The number was 10. On the sixth climb up 184th Street, I blew up and probably dropped 30 seconds during that 300 metre stretch alone. I kept going and was swept up by the grupetto and finished the race with them.

Plus sides: When I did get shelled, the lead group only had 13 guys left in it, including me. So I did hang in longer than more than half the field, which is a decent sign I suppose.

Also of note, this race did include the longest sustained, “Holy Crap we’re going fast” of any race I’ve been in thus far. After climb 1 of lap 4, we went to ludicrous speed for the better part of a lap. This reduced the field down to the mentioned 13 from whatever it was previously. In the cat 5 races I had done, this kind of acceleration happened, but it would last for a minute or two, not several. This lead to possibly the most pain I have ever felt on a bike.

Well, that or the crit, that didn’t feel overly good either, but it mentally feels better if you’re off the front as opposed to clinging on for dear life.

So that’s three races in a row where I finished off the back for whatever reason. Not for lack of trying though.

Armstrong Road is a short road of about 3km in North Langley. About half of that is smooth, good pavement, the other half is rough and bumpy. Over the first 2km or so, it raises 80m in 3 stairstep pitches. 12%, 10% and the last, on the bumpy pavement is something like 8%. This feature utterly dominates the Armstrong Road Spring Series race.

Not being someone who handles sustained climbs very well, I expected this race to be over fairly quickly. The last truly hilly races I had done, admittedly a couple of years ago, the Ottawa Grand Prix in Gatineau Park generally ended up with me being shot off the back on the first major ascent. I saw no reason why this race would be any different.

The race starts at the top of the course. A straight downhill gets the speeds up nice and  high. A sharp right hand bend into a further downhill. This next stretch is great fun as the road lazily winds down the hill. Bottom of the hill is a hard right, then onto the flats for a couple of kilometers for a few turns. After River Road, you take a turn to the right and head up the hill. The first pitch is the steepest and it tops out with a long false flat. Then it kicks up again. The second false flat is short and is noted by the road surface going from great to horrible. One more climb and then the finish line.

I started out at the front intending to remain in the top ten or so places as long as possible. Going into a climb at the front means you do get a bit of a chance to drift back and use a touch less energy. I hit the hill in about 8th place and to my surprise stayed there. A couple of attacks went off and various people ramped up the pace to bring them back but nothing doing.

I could have been done after that first climb. My heart rate was in to the mid 180’s for most of it, which is well into the not sustainable level for me. If the remainder of the climbs were this fast, it was just a matter of time.

A couple of laps later, a couple of guys rode a fairly serious tempo up the hill. I basically hung on for all I was worth to a chase group and we all came in contact again on the final uphill before the finish line. I was sitting in about 10th place, looked behind me and saw nobody. Great, I was in a break on a climber’s course. This was going to end well.

Due, I think, to some poor rotations and some serious effort on the part of the remainder of the race, the pack made contact again about 5km later at the base of the climb again. I made it to the top in the main pack again, but at this point, 4/7 climbs through the race, I could tell that I was getting into trouble.

I was shelled on the second pitch of lap 5. The lights went out and I lost 50m in probably a minute. What remained of the pack slowed over on the bumpy roads, and I closed most of the gap, but I never actually got back on. I very, very seriously debated climbing off the bike there, but decided I’d at least ride to the corner where I parked, which was about 800m past the finish line and flat/downhill.

“Well, I only have to go up that hill two more times, there are some other dropped guys ahead of me to maybe ride with and I can totally bomb down this descent with guys flagging me through corners. Yeah. I’m going to finish this race.”

So I did. Rode hard on the flats, survived up the hill and bombed the descent. It was awesome.

Placed probably around 20th, based on the size of the peloton that went up the road. 40 starters so that’s pretty good. Considering I spent some time in a break and was riding at the front until said lights went out, I’m pretty happy with the whole thing.

Team Escape Velocity puts on a series of races every spring, the aptly named Spring Series. The first race is a nearly flat 4 corner circuit race in Langley. Specifically, this. Last year’s race was marked by sleet and snow towards the end of it. This year, the forecast called for rain ‘in the afternoon’. I don’t want to give too much away here, but the forecast lied.

Let’s start out with a quick overview of a lap of the course: Go straight with a tailwind. Turn right onto a slightly narrower road. Enjoy a crosswind from the right for a minute or so, then turn right again onto a yet narrower road. This is also dead straight, but undulates slightly with a dip down most of the way through it. Turn right yet again onto the narrowest road in the race, which is also entertainingly the worst pavement in the race. Be bumped and jostled and lose 10m or so of elevation and turn right one final time back onto the front stretch.

I should have remembered this from last year, but the C race at least plays out in such a way that positioning is very important. With the yellow line rule in effect, there consistently is only one good place to move up significantly per lap, coming out of turn 4, onto the front stretch. Generally out of the other three corners, there is the usual acceleration out of the corner, then it slows right down again. As soon as that happens, the pack bunches up and there is no room to pass. The front stretch is a bit wider and takes closer to a kilometer before this happens, so moving up pretty much needs to happen here.

As for how much? Based on the numbers I got from the race, there were consistent accelerations nearly up to 50km/h out of the corners. This slowed down to below 35km/h on much of the rest of the course. What this actually meant was that the accordion effect was somewhat mitigated. Even at the back where you slowed down for the corners, you did not need to hit it too hard to stay on as the field slowed down significantly on a regular basis.

As for my race? The plan was to tailgun for much of it, getting a decent interval workout at the back. If I could position myself well, then try attacking on the last lap or two. I couldn’t position myself and a couple of crashes in the dying moments of the race did not inspire me to take further risks on the wet roads. Finished in the middle of the pack which did break up somewhat in the final metres.

All in all? I’m somewhat happy with it. It’s pretty much the flattest road race of the year for me, which is theoretically good for me, but not terribly exciting. Next week is the Armstrong Road course, which is dominated by a fairly serious climb every lap.

Roughly 500 routes, 8700 stops, 126000 trips and 3.4 million timepoints at those stops. Not a whopping amount of data, but enough to start having some fun. My initial plan was just to be able to plot the stops for a given route onto google maps. That’s done in it’s ugly glory at my stopfinder. If you want to search for a 1 or 2 digit route, put in the leading 0’s. Sorry, haven’t done that yet.

My next steps are going to be to publish a number of primitive operations on the data with results in JSON format. Things like ‘closest stop to lat,lon’, ‘how to get from stop x to stop y’, and other similar sorts of things. The idea being that if I can build up a suitable library of common operations on the dataset, any future ideas that do come to mind should be relatively easy to implement.

That and if anyone does want to do some data mining, well, this is an option. I’ll post any updates, formats and that sort of thing on this site as I work through it. In general, the services will be pretty much simply URL based and will return raw JSON. Nothing special, but fairly easy to parse and work with. I have a relatively irrational dislike of XML which I will probably get over at some point, but it will take someone making a very good argument.

Ottawa has a great series of races each fall and while I knew it was something special, I had hopes that Vancouver would offer a similar number of races. As it turns out, there are a bunch of races, unfortunately, 4 of the 6 in the Lower Mainland are on two weekends as opposed to spread out over the season. Alas.

On the plus side, it’s easier to pretend you are a Serious Bike Racer when you have back to back races, which was kind of cool for me.

Race 1: New Brighton Park

Tough, tough race – Google Earth

Start was paved and slightly downhill into a paved hairpin. Bunny hop up a curb and into a narrow, muddy climb. No need to run up this one. Some up and down twisties then a double barrier for running. Up over some more grass and into some very tight, massively off camber corners where speeds dropped to below walking. Couple more corners, then some deep sand, more grass, two very short steep climbs, if it had been wet, both would have been run-ups, but as it was, riding was possible. Down to more sand and a giant step, then a final climb onto the pavement again.

Tough for me mainly as there was effectively no place to recover. I’m a decent technical rider, but I need to have short sections to ease up for a bit and bring the heart rate under control for a bit. Otherwise, it’s a more pure form of suffering which does not bode well for me. This was the case here. The course was, despite some short punchy climbs, was relatively flat, so there were no extended downhills to ease up a bit. To use some retarded sport dude statement, I was deep in the hurt locker the entire race.

Placed near the back of the pack. On the lead lap though.

Race 2: Vanier Park

More my style and possibly one of the most fun courses I’ve ever raced on – Google Earth

The start on this one was across a flat, hard packed and very bumpy grass field. Quick dismount to get up 6ish stairs and back on to climb up alongside the Planetarium. Winding climb up through the trees, not too steep, but in some thickish grass so it was somewhat of a power climb. Off camber hairpin at the top to drop down to the main part of the course again. Over a bridge and then continue the descent through some fast sweeping corners. Deep gravel hairpin, then some more twisty grass stuff and a couple of barriers on a steep uphill. From there, into what was called the maze. 4 back to back tight hairpins, 2 very off camber. The last part of the course was a hard packed mud out and back and a fun steep downhill into a right/left/right before the finish line.

The nice thing about this course, aside from the lack of places where running was required, was that there were places to recover. The relatively long downhill beside the Planetarium allowed for a few seconds of respite, which I need badly in a ‘cross race. It showed. I finished just behind someone who was nearly 3 minutes ahead of me at New Brighton. I was 2:30 behind the winner at Vanier and more like 6:00 behind the winner at New Brighton. Ended up 14th out of about 40, so not terrible I suppose.

What did I learn here? Not much. I don’t do well in road races that have lots of climbs as I am not terribly good at them. That said, climbing in a ‘cross race seems to be good for me. It means there will be recovery time later. Still, was well above the halfway through the field point at Vanier, so I’m taking that as a good sign.

So it is, but actually stating that, or anything along those lines? Way to kill the team, boss! (See Peopleware)

That said, quality assurance, quality control, QA, call it what you want, but it’s one of the more misunderstood aspects to software development. Oh sure, everyone knows that they need to do more QA or better QA, but lip service is about all that is ever paid towards it. I am notably not including in my ‘everyone’ those who feel that QA can be completely automated. You guys are wrong and I’m going to leave it at that. You also may think you don’t need to do it, see this article for some classic arguments against that fallacy.

I’m not going to go into depth about QA, how to do it, best practices or anything along those lines as I’m fairly unqualified. That said, I’m not really qualified to talk about anything, but that doesn’t really stop me.

QA is a processes, not a task

This particular fail case is something I’ve seen in multiple organizations now. The most obvious symptom of this is when management has decreed that there is a block of a few hours set aside to ‘do QA’ on an application with a few hundred known use cases. Another obvious indicator is when other employees are volunteered to do a few hours of QA on top of their normal job. Think you’re going to get good results from that?

The root cause of this failure is simply not understanding how QA works, so let’s walk through it a bit. In a very broad sense, the general list of tasks for QA is something like this:

1. Go through the basic cases

2. Go through the corner cases

3. Go through obscure, known failure cases

4. Exploratory testing

5. Automating 1, 2 and 3.

So, how does this fit into a day of work? Let’s find out:

First off, we’re going to go through the basic use cases for the application. Then, there is a pile of corner cases that are pretty valid that need to be checked out. Then it’s time to check all the really obscure, but horribly embarrassing failures that have been seen before. From there we can finally…What? You changed the code? Okay, first off, we’re going to go through the basic use cases for the application…

Interruption here! “Silly tester,” says the savvy developer, “You only need to re-test the parts of the system that were changed.” Nice theory, but wrong in many, many ways. Simply put, if this was the case, testing outside of developers would never be needed. That generally goes well.

Back to the task at hand, do the basic cases, do the corner caWHAT? Changed again? Basic cases…

The real job of QA starts at step 4, which we haven’t even seen yet. Exploratory testing is finding the embarrassing defects before they get out into the wild. A good tester at this phase is going to break your application in ways you haven’t even dreamed of. In ways that only 0.1% of your users would ever try to do. Of course, if 0.1% of your users do it, and you get 10k uniques per day? That’s 10 people per day that are going to hit this embarrassing bug that how could you possible let into the wild and I’m taking my business elsewhere right now as I obviously cannot trust you with my data. And if one of those has a blog? Heh. Have fun with that.

So the epic fail with having 16 hours scheduled in to test your quarter million lines of code application? If you’ve got bug fixing going on at the same time, any of your competent testers will never get past step 1. Any testers that listen to the savvy developer, or worse, are the savvy developer will miss basic cases and you deploy with fundamental breaks.

The purpose of QA is not to have someone say, “Wonderful developer, your application is perfect!” If I hear that from a tester, I assume the person isn’t doing their job very well. QA should hurt your feelings. Assumptions you made should be laid bare and justified or thrown out if incorrect. This is often the last line of defense before your customers see your application, take it seriously.

This probably isn’t a surprise. I also like working and earning money so I can do fun things like eat and ride bikes. When you do not live in the same place that you work, there is a certain class of individual who enjoys bikes and feels that one of the better ways to travel from home to work and vice versa is with said bicycle.

This is the subject of today’s chat.

When I moved to White Rock, I knew that I would most likely be riding my bike to work on a regular basis. I did the usual searching via google and came to the conclusion that not too many people commuted by bike from my neck of the woods to Vancouver. The distance was mildly intimidating, from my work location in Gastown, I was looking at somewhere in the ballpark of a 60km ride one way to get to work. This isn’t an everyday ride for someone like me.

Fortunately, the bus system in the Lower Mainland is pretty good. Bike racks that can take two bikes are found on all buses, which is a great shortcut. My commuting career started by taking the bus to just over the Oak Street Bridge and riding from there. Later I expanded to routes through UBC but knew I was just delaying the inevitable and had to make the attempt to ride the whole way. I have now done the White Rock to Gastown ride enough times that I can make some recommendations to anyone who is interested in doing the same thing.

First, some links:

Cycling Route Planner

White Rock -> South West Vancouver

The Cycling Route Planner is a great resource for general cycling routes. However, I would note that it is far better suited to getting around Vancouver itself. The suggested route it comes up with from White Rock is a bit questionable, though certainly plausible.  The second link is my usual route to get from here to there. Once I hit Vancouver, depending on how I’m feeling I will go through UBC or directly up the Cypress bike route and over the Burrard Street Bridge. There is lots of information on riding around Vancouver, so I won’t talk much about that right now.

This is my getting to work route, coming back would be mildly different to avoid some of the left turns. Starting off, going down 152nd Street to 40th Avenue and turning left, while slightly further than going down King George, allows you to skip the King George/Hwy 99 overpass, which is not the most entertaining of options. The right lane does turn off, which means that a merge across is needed. Not a problem, but sometimes it’s a bit more stressful than I really need at the start of the ride. On 40th, once you hit King George, take a right to the Colebrook road offramp thing just before the overpass and then a left on Colebrook itself to go under the bridge. Colebrook goes along the flats and ends with a right turn and then up the hill. Stay on this road until it ends at 56th Ave and take a left there. Down the hill, take a right on Scott Road and the first leg is done.

I should note that the Colebrook route does involve a 500m long climb at something like 12%. This is a much less busy route than taking King George up to Hwy 10, but it’s worth pointing out. If that kind of hill does not appeal to your knees, continue straight on King George, go through Hwy 10 and use the crosswalk button to cross King George. The left turn lights do not turn for a lone biker, so it can be frustrating if there is traffic, but no cars turning left with you. Take Hwy 10 to Scott Road and take a right. There is a pretty big shoulder along here.

Scott Road, when I ride to work on it at around 7AM is not terribly busy. Your mileage may vary. Take Scott Road to 72nd, up and over the hill and left on 72nd. 72nd -> 116th Street and right. 116th Street is a bike route and is fairly pleasant. Up to 84th and left, finally down to Brooke Road and a right. Take Brooke down to River road and when traffic finally breaks, hang a left.

Depending on how you do this, this next little stretch can be a bit nerve wrecking. There is a lot of truck traffic along this road, though it is wide enough, it does get tight from time to time. If you are a confident rider, as you go under the alex fraser bridge, merge into the car lane to take a left on Nordel. If you’re a bit more timid, there is a crosswalk that I have used on particularly busy days.

From here, get yourself over to the parking lot of Planet Ice through the industrial park. From there, the walkway up to the bridge goes from behind the building. Stay to the right as you enter the parking lot and you can’t miss it.

The Alex Fraser Bridge itself is pretty self explanatory. You can’t really take a wrong turn up there. Once you have come down the other side, you will end up on a sidewalk with an off ramp to your left. The easiest way to do this next bit is cross the off ramp over to the lights, then take a right across the crosswalk. The little path continues on the other side and takes you over another bridge and then down some entertaining switchbacks.

At the bottom of the pedestrian walkway, you want to follow the little bike path away from the road that you are now beside. This bike path puts you into a dead end beside an off leash dog park. Start cycling down the street while keeping an eye open to your left. There is a bike path that goes over Highway 91 and you want to take that. Coming down from that bike overpass, take it really easy as you are going to take a very tight turn at the bottom and go in the opposite direction. This path spits you out on Westminster Highway.

Take a left on Westminster and the first right onto River Road. Enjoy.

Once you’re on River Road, there isn’t much else to say. Essentially the next 15km or so is straight with a couple of right turns. (And one left at a T intersection, but right is an obvious dead end, so it’s not hard to get). The new bridge over the Fraser River, accessible from Van Horne way is not something you will miss as you continue, take that over and you are into Vancouver.

Well done.

A few last points, unless you really have to, I’d suggest staying away from the Heather Street bike route during the school year if you commute in the mornings. There are several schools and associated dangers with parents randomly stopping to drop kids off. Fun times.

Lengthy, hopefully useful for some of you. Cheers.

The Chicks Cycling Club hosted what is best described as a mass start time trial up Cypress today. How could I say no to that? I did my research on the course and decided that at a steady grade of 5% my cassette that was currently on the bike was going to be suitable. Extended stretches of 7-8% would have led me to switching cassettes for better climbing.

It turns out that you should not believe the Internet.

My measurements of the race showed that there were a couple of false flats totalling something like 2km over the course of the race. This means that instead of 700m of gain over 12km, it was more like 700m of gain over 10km. Uh oh. So when it was all said and done, the average grade of the real part of the climb was about 7% with smaller portions reaching 8-10%. So I totally had the wrong gearing. That said, I’m not trying to say gearing had anything to do with my slowness. That’s all in the legs.

The announcements before the race made it clear that this was not a road race, despite the mass start and that it was a time trial so treat it like one. In a TT, the idea is to keep a steady effort the entire way as that’s the fastest way. So we roll out and a bunch of the guys at the front were sort of looking around. Uh, guys? It’s a TIME TRIAL. So I just settled into my pace and pulled the slackers for the first km or so until they actually started racing at which point I was promptly dropped. I did what I wanted to though, kept my heart rate pretty much pegged in the high 170 range for the thing, which was pretty much my goal.

All in all, I’m glad I did the race, coming down that hill afterwards was awesome. Don’t think a hill climb TT is really going to help my most common race of the year though, flat industrial park crits. Ah well.