Inspired

For those who don’t know I am a bit of a cycling fan, ok that’s an understatement I am a huge cycling fan. I often joke that if I wasn’t a skier biking would be my sport of choice (although I don’t know how good I would be). In a way being a fan of road racing is easy for a skier. Our season ends just as theirs starts to get interesting. April is spring classic season, when I find my Sunday mornings are dominated by watching people race bikes on the narrow paved or cobbled streets of northern Europe. Since there aren’t any  channels that broadcast these races in Canada (not that I have channels anyway) I find myself watching them on a small pixelated computer screen which sometimes cuts out or during the most interesting part of the race will all of a sudden become dominated by some pop-up add telling me I have won a prize. Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just watch basketball or baseball. So being a cycling fan outside of the month of July is not easy, but I have to say the last few of weeks it was well worth it.

I would have followed the Giro (Tour of Italy) no matter what. Like I said April is for the one day classics but once May rolls around It’s grand tour season. The fact that this coincides with the start of training for us winter athletes is a nice coincidence. I find watching people hammer on bikes for hours on end to be good motivation. During the Giro however what is usually simply a source of motivation and entertainment quickly became a source of inspiration.

Our first camp of the year took place from the 16^th to the 28^th of May in Bend Oregon. It was an on snow camp. Every morning we would drive the 25minutes up to Mount Bachelor and ski on a ridicules amount of leftover snow all the while forgetting that it was May and summer in most of the world. In the afternoon we would do normal summer training down in bend. As is my routine every day I would watch the Giro while eating breakfast. Unfortunately I usually missed the end of the stages (our 8:00am departure time was generally some 15 minutes too early).

I took this picture on the last day of our camp. May 27th!!!! Decent amount of snow  eh?

I’m not sure if I ever really believed that Ryder would win the Giro. I have been following his career for about 4 years and have seen his steady progression from domestique to team leader, yet like many I never saw him as a potential grand tour winner. Maybe it’s because in my mind he just seemed like such a normal guy, very down to earth and real. In my head grand tour winners seemed to have some sort of quality or aspect that separated them from others and that somehow made them different maybe less accessible than the average person. It’s a difficult thing to explain. Ryder has always come across as a normal person who just happens to be a talented bike racer.

As our camp progressed and Ryder was asserting himself more and more as a contender for the overall win, I found my mornings were becoming more and more rushed. I was trying to maximize my Giro watching time and this meant rushing everything else I was doing. It wasn’t ideal, yet I couldn’t help myself. I have always been a cycling fan because I find the racing to be exciting. Of course I have always had my favorites that I would route for, yet if they didn’t win it wasn’t such a big deal, I cared mostly that the race was exciting and if my guy happened to win then that was a bonus. With Ryder however, it was different I really really wanted him to win.

The end of the 19th stage. The day that many (including Hesjedal himself by the looks of it) realized he could win the Giro

The last day of training on our camp also happened to be the last day of racing at the Giro. I managed to watch Ryder go through his first split point on the twisty technical time trial course in downtown Milan before having to leave for training. At that point he had already taken back 27 of the 31 seconds needed to win the overall. By the time I was putting my skis on for our last ski up at Mount Bachelor, Ryder Hesjedal from Victoria British Columbia had won the 95^th Giro D’Italia. Needless to say I was pretty pumped about that.

I really like this poster

I don’t know if the perception I have of Ryder Hesjedal being more of a “Normal Guy” is accurate or just something that I’m imagining. His win however has reminded me that all the athletes we see on TV accomplishing amazing feats are human. They are all blood flesh and bone like the rest of us. They have had good days and bad days, wins and loses. Of course this is something we all know. I suppose if I truly believed that anyone at the top of their sport had something that separated or differentiated them from the rest of the population (besides of course their drive and determination) then I probably wouldn’t be working so hard to get there.  This being said it never hurts to be reminded and in that way you never need to look far for inspiration.

This was taken on an afternoon run at smith rock outside of bend (opposite direction  as Mount Bachelor). Pretty  cool desert landscape.

That's all for now

Patrick