12 day road race starting on wednesday... (http://www.vueltacostarica.com/vuelta2009/)
http://www.tourdequebec.com/article.php?sid=150
Living with 4 teamates from Quebec, training in 28 degree temps.... good times.
Getting ready to roll...
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Tour de Panama
Post La Ruta is a weird time as the body and mind experience an aftershock something like what a drunk experiences when they try and sober up. This year the days of post La Ruta started in the small village of Puerto Viejo on Costa Ricans east coast. This town has a plume of marijuana smoke coming from it with everyone and there dogs trying to impersonate Bob Marley. The overall attitude is “nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.” Pretty much the reverse motto of La Ruta.
On our second night we headed off to the beach to get away from the reggae noise and check out the crashing waves. After 4 minutes of tranquility we were ambushed by 8 policia with machine guns as they figured 4 gringos on the beach must be smoking the ganga. I couldn’t stop smirking at the robo cops as they tried to act tough. I thought it was a goodtime given I was probably the only person in the whole town who had never smoked marijuana. I wasn't too sure about the history of my friends but we all escaped without incident. I have nothing against marijuana or people that smoke it. I figure it has a much better overall effect on society then alcohol but nonetheless I rather get high off my bike. After an unsuccessful search, the robo cops wandered away rattled. I’m pretty sure they would need the whole Costa Rican police force to deal with the weed problem there.
Having enough of that gong show we headed off too Bocas Island in Panama for Spanish school and living on the ocean for $10 a day. We learned some very important Spanish phrases which will come in handy.
“A donde Chica’s picante?” and “Bueno Culo”
This Panama island was a proper place to relax although the weed was still everywhere. As we walked down the streets the locals would walk up to us saying their three words of English “weed, weed, weed”. After the 8th time of this I confronted one of the weed men and tried to sell him pills of vitamin C which I had in my pocket and hassled him till he walked away. This tactic probably wouldn’t last long before we got into trouble but we were scheduled to ride off the next day so we made full use of it.
The 110 km ride inland Panama is epic as it tours along Panama’s poverty stricken Caribbean coast and then climbs over the continental divide through lush jungle. The last two yrs I did this ride it went somewhat smoothly with no confrontations. This yr I was being told it was dangerous and not to do it alone. I figured info coming from drunken American ex-pats wasn’t legit so I headed off on my ride. Three km into the ride a man in the ditch began yelling at me while whirling his machete overhead. Ten minutes later 8 seventeen yr old punks walking down the highway with there hats on backwards and skull t-shirts tried to stare me down. A little later I stopped at a store for some water and 6 punks surrounded my bike and tried to look tough. I bought a bag of M&M’s to share with the punks and pretty soon we were friends. Seven hrs later I rolled into the Lost and Found hostel unscathed and still a firm believer that people are good wherever you go in this world.
After two nights of Snoreathon in the 13 bed dorm room I talked my friends Jeff and Karen from New Zealand into moving onto the quite mountain town of Boquete for some proper rest. 2 days of riding later we came on the peaceful little town. What we didn’t know was that it was Panama’s independence weekend and they had set up speakers throughout the town to insure everybody was involved in partying till 4 am for 3 straight nights. Night 1 we gave in and headed down to the party where we found a no cover charge, no liquor charge party zone. This = trouble. We couldn’t understand who would give away liquor in these quantities for free but nobody complained.
Trying to fight off a cold and a still a little fatigued I headed for Costa Rica the next day as I signed up for a road race called the Vuelta de Costa Rica which needed proper training. As the daylight faded I opted to hop on a bus so I could meet my Tico friend Ronald and his family at there cottage on the Pacific Coast for the weekend.
Buses are a great idea but I have a long history with them and we don’t get along. This bus was no different as there were over 70 people on the 50 seat bus. After standing in an aisle smelling BO for 45 minutes people began complaining “Much Frio, (were cold)” and everybody started to close the windows. “What??? You guys are drunk, this is a Much Sauna.” After another 10 minutes of dripping sweat and trying not to puke from the twisty pothole ridden road I got off the bus at the next stop which was very soon given we were on the milk run. It was dark out and my 7 hr bus ride only lasted 1.5 hrs so I had no clue where I was but that bus was a rolling gong show that I had no interest in being involved in. I spent the night in a ½ star Chinese hotel, woke up at 6 am and rode 180 km, close to my friend’s house and received a nice surprise as Ronald and his girlfriend Angela gave me a ride the last 20 km of the way. The next two days were spent getting a 100% pure Costa Rican sunburn, practicing my hammock swing and tossing peanuts to crocodiles.
Since then things have been calm as I have rented an apartment close to San Jose for the month and have settled into a proper routine of training in the mornings and studying to be a nutrition consultant in the afternoons. Looking at ridiculous weather reports from Canada I’m content as I transform from a mountain biker into a road racer for the 12 day Vuelta de Costa Rica starting on the 16th. I will be racing with the Tour de Quebec team from Quebec. Apparently the race has around a 50% attrition rate and theres National teams from Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala coming. Not too sure what I've signed up for but my friend Ronald has been looking after me and has been showing me how the Ticos train down here (25% climbs, 25 km climbs up volcanos and high end bike skills in an attempt to survive on the roadways.)
On our second night we headed off to the beach to get away from the reggae noise and check out the crashing waves. After 4 minutes of tranquility we were ambushed by 8 policia with machine guns as they figured 4 gringos on the beach must be smoking the ganga. I couldn’t stop smirking at the robo cops as they tried to act tough. I thought it was a goodtime given I was probably the only person in the whole town who had never smoked marijuana. I wasn't too sure about the history of my friends but we all escaped without incident. I have nothing against marijuana or people that smoke it. I figure it has a much better overall effect on society then alcohol but nonetheless I rather get high off my bike. After an unsuccessful search, the robo cops wandered away rattled. I’m pretty sure they would need the whole Costa Rican police force to deal with the weed problem there.
Having enough of that gong show we headed off too Bocas Island in Panama for Spanish school and living on the ocean for $10 a day. We learned some very important Spanish phrases which will come in handy.
“A donde Chica’s picante?” and “Bueno Culo”
This Panama island was a proper place to relax although the weed was still everywhere. As we walked down the streets the locals would walk up to us saying their three words of English “weed, weed, weed”. After the 8th time of this I confronted one of the weed men and tried to sell him pills of vitamin C which I had in my pocket and hassled him till he walked away. This tactic probably wouldn’t last long before we got into trouble but we were scheduled to ride off the next day so we made full use of it.
The 110 km ride inland Panama is epic as it tours along Panama’s poverty stricken Caribbean coast and then climbs over the continental divide through lush jungle. The last two yrs I did this ride it went somewhat smoothly with no confrontations. This yr I was being told it was dangerous and not to do it alone. I figured info coming from drunken American ex-pats wasn’t legit so I headed off on my ride. Three km into the ride a man in the ditch began yelling at me while whirling his machete overhead. Ten minutes later 8 seventeen yr old punks walking down the highway with there hats on backwards and skull t-shirts tried to stare me down. A little later I stopped at a store for some water and 6 punks surrounded my bike and tried to look tough. I bought a bag of M&M’s to share with the punks and pretty soon we were friends. Seven hrs later I rolled into the Lost and Found hostel unscathed and still a firm believer that people are good wherever you go in this world.
After two nights of Snoreathon in the 13 bed dorm room I talked my friends Jeff and Karen from New Zealand into moving onto the quite mountain town of Boquete for some proper rest. 2 days of riding later we came on the peaceful little town. What we didn’t know was that it was Panama’s independence weekend and they had set up speakers throughout the town to insure everybody was involved in partying till 4 am for 3 straight nights. Night 1 we gave in and headed down to the party where we found a no cover charge, no liquor charge party zone. This = trouble. We couldn’t understand who would give away liquor in these quantities for free but nobody complained.
Trying to fight off a cold and a still a little fatigued I headed for Costa Rica the next day as I signed up for a road race called the Vuelta de Costa Rica which needed proper training. As the daylight faded I opted to hop on a bus so I could meet my Tico friend Ronald and his family at there cottage on the Pacific Coast for the weekend.
Buses are a great idea but I have a long history with them and we don’t get along. This bus was no different as there were over 70 people on the 50 seat bus. After standing in an aisle smelling BO for 45 minutes people began complaining “Much Frio, (were cold)” and everybody started to close the windows. “What??? You guys are drunk, this is a Much Sauna.” After another 10 minutes of dripping sweat and trying not to puke from the twisty pothole ridden road I got off the bus at the next stop which was very soon given we were on the milk run. It was dark out and my 7 hr bus ride only lasted 1.5 hrs so I had no clue where I was but that bus was a rolling gong show that I had no interest in being involved in. I spent the night in a ½ star Chinese hotel, woke up at 6 am and rode 180 km, close to my friend’s house and received a nice surprise as Ronald and his girlfriend Angela gave me a ride the last 20 km of the way. The next two days were spent getting a 100% pure Costa Rican sunburn, practicing my hammock swing and tossing peanuts to crocodiles.
Since then things have been calm as I have rented an apartment close to San Jose for the month and have settled into a proper routine of training in the mornings and studying to be a nutrition consultant in the afternoons. Looking at ridiculous weather reports from Canada I’m content as I transform from a mountain biker into a road racer for the 12 day Vuelta de Costa Rica starting on the 16th. I will be racing with the Tour de Quebec team from Quebec. Apparently the race has around a 50% attrition rate and theres National teams from Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala coming. Not too sure what I've signed up for but my friend Ronald has been looking after me and has been showing me how the Ticos train down here (25% climbs, 25 km climbs up volcanos and high end bike skills in an attempt to survive on the roadways.)
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A Story about La Ruta
When it was snowing and minus 10 in Canada La Ruta seemed like a good idea. While pushing my bike through gongshow mud for 1.5 hrs in plus 33 temps with humidity on day 1 with Costa Ricans sprinting pass me I began wondering why I thought this was such a good idea. Racing day 1 of La Ruta with improper training is about as smart as sticking a metal fork in a socket. I like sticking metal things in sockets though especially in Costa Rica. Midway through the day was a tour de france type climb for 22 km over a mtn. Ben Sonntag from Cannondale had some troubles in the mud as well and caught up to me half way up the climb. He probably had the 3rd best legs in the race this yr. I tried to keep up to him for 15 minutes, blew up for the 3rd time on the day, got passed by 4 more riders and was soon pretty much over the race and began looking for ice cream. Half way down the back side decent Rune Hoydahl ripped passed me asking "What are you doing"? "Looking for a ice cream I shamefully replied". He shook his head and continued on his rampant decent. Having a World Cup downhill winner rip past you doesn´t happen often so I put my ice cream aspirations on hold and took to eating his dust. For the last 3 hrs of the day we road togethar. We made good riding partners as we were both suffering hardcore from being 165 lbs riders from snowbound countries trying to keep up to a bunch of freakish mountain goats. At one point we met a car head on and I was about 6 inches from being the rocketeer. Thankfully I am use to dodging two hundred pound defenceman and made a finesse move to the lefthand ditch. Hoydahl was impressed.Day 2 is probably steeper then M-ount Everest. I road hard staying in 13th place, just behind the lead group of 12. Decending down the back side of Everest I caught up to 3 riders including Bishop who had took a wrong turn. Riding with Bishop we caught up to a Costa Rican taking a feed from his car and holding on for an extra ride. A little after he took some pills from the car. With the race organizers stating that anyone receiveing help outside the feedzones would be disqualified Bishop and I reminded the Tico of this and he had a spaz attack and began riding into Bishop. Bishop told the guy if he ran into him again that they were going to get off there bikes. The next 10 minutes included being run off the road into a front yard, having gum spat at us, being called ass holes by 5 guys supporting the rider and finally Bishop sprinting off to get away from the unright Tico. A little after I was gaining on my friend before he took a short cut. At the finish line there was a confrontation as I wanted to jersey the guy but his support crew stepped in and his sister sweet talked me out of it.
Day 3 Bishop ripped over the Volcano with Tinker and would get lost going down the decent and would eventualy finush 10 minutes behind a Tico that knew the way. I spent the day riding in 11th, 15 minutes behind the lead group and 15 minutes ahead of 12th place. On the decent I made it to 8th before disintegrating my back brake and eventually finishing 10th. Decending Costa Rican roads with brakes is sketchier than Guatemalan street food and without brakes its pretty much suicide as dogs, cars, kids, chickens and donkeys are all over the place. At the finish line I talked to Bishop to see how his day was. He responded "Great, I still have control in this uncontrollable environment. I knew coming in that racing down here was full of suprises and I´m just running the course.¨ Pretty solid words to come from a guy who had the legs to win the race but had mechanicals, route finding problems, and ticos trying to fight him.
Day 4 is a day for the diesel engines. With my legs coming around I managed to get over the first two climbs of the day with the leaders and was stoked to get down to the flatlands to give some payback to the climbers for making me suffer for 3 days. Unfortunately I bent my front derralure on a fall and then proceeded to crank my chain around my crank and bending a link on the chain. The next 30 minutes included 2 broken chains, a ripped off front derrailur and a bent rear derrailure. I was soon back in the 40´s riding a 3 speed. I caught riders for a while but then a Tico sped by me motor pacing behind his support vehicle and I got rattled. This wasn´t proper racing so I changed tactics on the day and slowed down to help American Louis Kobin. Louis was in 2nd overall in the womans gc and needed to gain 5 minutes on the Costa Rican that was winning the race. Apparantly the Costa Rican had two male riders helping her and a support scooter throughout the race. After my experiences at La Ruta over 3 yrs I decided it was time for a whitie to get some help and let Kobin draft off me for 80 km to the finish. She was riding well on the day and may have taken over the lead anyways but this way she won by over 23 minutes.
In the end La Ruta is always a great adventure. I will probably be back for more but it will either be as a reporter as an end of season cool down or possibly with a support crew and proper training to try and even a few scores. For now it is off to Panama for spanish school so I can learn new trash talking words.
In the end La Ruta is always a great adventure. I will probably be back for more but it will either be as a reporter as an end of season cool down or possibly with a support crew and proper training to try and even a few scores. For now it is off to Panama for spanish school so I can learn new trash talking words.
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