Pigeon Lake Road Race

First let me say, one of our team mates... Ernie, was involved in a very serious crash with about 15 other riders about 3km from the finish line.

He sustained some serious injuries and was sent via ambulence to the hospital in Wetaskiwin. I had only met Ernie for the first time this morning and having been involved in a cycling accident myself, my heart goes out to him and his family.

I hope he is doing OK and I wish him the speediest of recoveries.


It was a gorgeous day up at Pigeon Lake, light winds and brilliant sunshine. A beautiful day to be on the bike.

We arrived with plenty of time to check in, gear up and do a nice 15km ez warm up ride.



Our Category (Cat 5) was the last event of the morning so we were able to watch the starts of other Cat's. Mens' 4,3,1/2 and the women.






By the time of our race start, folks were pretty jittery and the nervous energy.. err excitement was palatable.



This was evident by the initial blistering pace

for the first 10-15 min. At this early stage the peloton was averaging in excess of 50 km/h .

After the first climb things settled down to a more steady pace ~ 45-50km/h and the attacks began.

Our plan was for Speed Theory members Kirk and Carl to lead off the front making attack after attack, pushing the pace and see if any other stronger riders would try to catch the break.

This is exactly what happened.

Those guys did an excellent job in keeping the pace high and forcing other riders to work extra hard to catch them.

I must digress a moment and say that this was the first road race I've ever done and had never ridden in such a large pack at such a high speed. Man what a rush!!

At about the 25km mark our team was well positioned at the front and Carl, Kirk, myself and a few other riders made a break.

We had about 5-6 guys with us and each taking ~ 30 sec pull then sliding back.

We were hoping for a few more chasers but none came so we eased up and melted back into the peloton.

Things got a bit hairy around the 35 km mark as many riders started getting tired and concentration began to wane. A few potential crashes were avoided but you could tell it was just a matter of time before something happened.

More "whimpy" attacks were made by other riders and each time at least one Speed Theory member was right there chasing them down. No one wanted to fully commit to a total break away.

Around the 40 km mark we were coming up to a 3km climb. It was a huge ass hill. The peloton slowed right down to a crawl (~30km/h) well at least it sure did feel like a crawl!

Folks were slamming on their brakes and again.. a few more potential crashes were narrowly avoided.. ug!!

Around the 44-45 km mark the" game plan" called for me to make a serious attack to kick up the pace as many riders would be fatigued from such a long climb.

I gave it.. balls to the wall.... and no one chased!! So I kept hammering. Finally after the peloton was spread out to a single line and a few guys caught up to me and I melted back into the group. I had done my part.

Around the 50m mark (1 hr 10 min) I was pretty cooked.

I had never ridden so far so fast before and my left foot had gone numb so I decided to power down and was dropped from the peloton. My day was done.

It's interesting how things sometimes work out because a short while later I came across what could mildly be called carnage on the road. Horrible to see so many riders down, even worse to see a team mate seriously injured. Luckily the first aid responders were there right away so nothing more could be done until the ambo's arrived.

All in all it was an amazing day and an amazing event. I've never had so much fun riding so fast with so many people before!

I learned heaps about race strategy and tactics which will (I am told) directly translate over to my triathlon cycling. Not the mention some serious fitness gains from today. 60+ min of threshold training. crickey!

Now I need to recover well this week as I have 3 weeks to prepare for my "A" race, the BG Edmonton World Cup Triathlon where I hope to win a qualifying spot for Worlds in Hamburg this Sept.

~la