Input wanted. Change to Wednesday's Hills.

[bill]

Hope everyone is enjoying the spring-like conditions or is it still winter????

As winter wanes and spring waxes into summer our numbers in the morning rides will likely begin to increase. As it stands now our hill days are attracting almost 30 riders which is great for camaraderie in the early morning but is causing some traffic congestion on Sinclair and confusion for cars at the 4-ways at Cadboro Bay Hill and Sinclair. In order to prevent a potential accident or confrontation with a motorist the exec committee is putting forward for your consideration some ideas on how to alleviate the congestion and prevent an issue.
A thought is to split into groups spreading out over the different hills. Here are two options:
1) - The A+/A’s go to Wedgewood first and do their repeats, then to Tolmie via Arbutus up Finnerty around UVIC to Tolmie for the remaining set
- The B’s/high school do the usual Cadboro, Sinclair and finish off at Tolmie.
or
2) The A+/A’s do what the b’s/high school do above but in the reverse direction with a slight change: Tolmie, Cadboro then Sinclair
- The B’s Do the usual Cadboro, Sinclair and finish off at Tolmie.
Please give us your opinion by Monday April 11 so we can get things set before there is a safety issue.
1 - tell us if you want to make this change
2 - which of the options listed do you prefer
3 - do you have another suggestion. Please succinct.

The Execs

[barton bourassa]

As a B hill climber, I am good with either 1 or 2, staying with Caddy Bay, Sinclair and finishing on top of Tolmie. Sounds like it is really up to the As if they want to do this in reverse or Wedgewood.

Thanks,

Barton.

[JohnT]

Good topic Bill (and exec.),

I've always felt that a nice thing about Wed hills is that we don't break up into A and B, but I also agree that a change is needed. One possibility is to just move the whole operation to Mt. Tolmie. Another idea is to find a route (even a loop) in the Uplands - it would be essentially the Caddy Bay climb, but off the beaten track. If we abandon Sinclair, we should give that truck driver (tractor trailer that always seems to overlap with our repeats) a TS present - he's been very patient with us for what seems like years.

JohnT

[jeremy]

I vote we just stop doing hills altogether, because let's face it ....... Hills suck!!

[leftcoaster]

.......almost 30????

I think I counted 11 this week......

[leftcoaster]

if the problem is Sinclair (quite a narrow road), we could either:

i) skip Sinclair altogether

ii) move the A/A+ Sinclair to Wedgewood. It would keep the volume down on Sinclair. or maybe...

iii) skip Sinclair and do an extra Caddy Bay and Tolmie...

[Josh.E]

2 words:

1) mt
2) doug

[Brian S]

Mt Doug?
Or given the election we could

Observe (a) tory

Wednesday afternoon repeats of that particular hill were quite delightful until is started #%@^&ing hailing!

[Lister Farrar]

John wrote: If we abandon Sinclair, we should give that truck driver (tractor trailer that always seems to overlap with our repeats) a TS present - he's been very patient with us for what seems like years.

+1

Caddy Bay seems ok to me. It's pretty wide. We just have to be careful at the intersection at the top, and be polite at the bottom. (Btw, I never did get why folks ride into the intersection before turning. That's confusing. Maybe U turn before the intersection?)

Sinclair is narrow, but I haven't felt at risk; we get passed quickly on the way up because we're going so slow, and we are going as fast as traffic on the way down.

Different groups on different hills could work, and a's and b's (do we really have to go back to "A+" again?) is one way. Another is to split it by something else, (carbon vs fully ferrous ?), or some other nonsense split so we find oursleves not always riding with the same folks.

While we're at it, how about a different day once the VCL starts? Does anyone who races wanna do hills the day they race? But I suppose we do have the farm team option.

On the other hand once the weather improves we could get a lot of people with cabin fever out and might need a plan be for congestion. Thanks for posting Bill. Sorry I'm not much help.

[AlW]

Here is a couple of routes that I've done on my own in the past. They'll be familiar to everyone as they involve roads that we pass on our regular rides. They're also circuits, which reduces the monotony a tad and also eliminates the need to do u-turns in intersections. More importantly, they're close to my house so it's easy to bail if the suffering becomes excessive (is that bad?)

1. Balmacarra loop. about 1.6km with a 400m climb at about 8% average. 3-5 minutes per lap.

balmacarraloop.jpg

2. Ash loop. Everyone's favorite climb.

ashloop.jpg

3. Infinite Loop of Ultimate Suffering. So named by Ze Commadant of Team Naked. Go here http://teamnaked.ca/?p=67 for his imaginative description.

[Paula]

Last Wednesday there weren't many of us, but there were a lot more cars and it is getting a bit dicey (the mother in me). I think it is great that this is on the exec's radar and you are wanting to make a change before something happens.

What about Arbutus as an option in place of Sinclair, or for 1/2 the group?

If we want to divide differently than As and Bs (and Cs), we could mix it up each time. Okay, is that too confusing? But it would provide variety.

[bill]

Thanks everyone for your input. All are great ideas and I believe that all could work but I feel we need to start somewhere to help reduce the congestion. This will definately be a work in progress and will need some tweeking over the coming weeks. In saying this may I propose the following:

If we have less than 15 people all ride together and do what we (you as I have not been out for a while) have been doing. Once we go over 15 we break up into two groups as follows:

Mtn goats: Do the Wedgewood/Tolmie combination as above. 5 repeats each.

All rounders: Do the traditional: Caddy/Sinclair/Tolmie.

This way we all finish iff the repats on Tolmie as a group and head out together for coffee as a group. Try this tomorrow and let the Execs know how this works.

For Josh, feel free to go to Mt Doug

[jeremy]

I think it'll thin out now that the vcl races are back to wed nights

[Josh.E]

For Josh, feel free to go to Mt Doug

I was only 71% serious

[sylvan]

Mtn goats: Do the Wedgewood/Tolmie combination as above. 5 repeats each.

Is Wedgewood that horrific great honker at the 4-way up there past Caddy Bay, by the east end of Queenswood?

[leftcoaster]

yup

[Josh.E]

What about just doing tolmie laps? (laps not repeats, down to richmond and up cedar hill x rd). Go by workout time, not number of laps, end at 7:10-7:15 or something like that.

That would maximize everyones workout time a little better. All right turns, it would get very strung out so there'd never be a large pack anywhere on the loop, and we wouldn't have the whole A/B thing, which is kind of nice about wednesdays. As long as we stay single file on Richmond as a rule, it would be fine.

[barton bourassa]

I kind of like Josh's suggestion. It also gives us an opportunity to practice downhill. The nice thing about Tolmie is the variation of slope on the climb from Richmond to the top.

Barton.

[Greg Miller]

I like Josh's idea too. Only thing to consider is the turn onto Richmond from the hill. I have seen people take it way too fast and swing into the lane. Hopefully I will be back in town on Wednesday's soon.

[Dylan J C]

I think Tolmie laps would be great, just manage continuous laps for about an hour. It would make for some pretty good Newton Heights practice.