Canadian Master's National Road Race Championships

[mfarnham]

Dammit...you've just blown our budget for Post of the Year engraving expenses!

Awesome story, Andrew. This is why we ride.

Martin

[Ann]

The official photos from the Road Race are up. There are some GREAT ones of TS and Victoria Breakaway riders!

https://tlbvelophotography.pixieset.com ... ationalrr/

Rolf, can you do your thing and add them to your new site?

[Rolf]

Wow. They're gorgeous! (I'm glad to see I'm not the only one run amok with filters; this person really likes smoothing and the "vignette" effect. )

I'm a little hesitant to copy them over wholesale to our own gallery for the Road Race, if only to be respectful of this pro photog's rights. (Though I already grabbed a few of the initial ones. )

Maybe I'll drop them a line. They do offer them for free download right now. If they plan to only have them up for a short while, it may be good to have the ones featuring Tripleshotters preserved for our own future enjoyment.

Thanks, Ann.

[AJ Neale]

There are some great photos!

[AJ Neale]

Dammit...you've just blown our budget for Post of the Year engraving expenses!

It's early in the year Martin! If my post "sticks", feel free to change it simply to: "We".

Thank you for your comments all. I'm glad the story meant something to you, because it sure did to me.

Andrew

[Heather Simo]

So it is pretty hard to follow Andrew's report, which is 100% GOLD! But here is a brief attempt to convey my gratitude and overall experience racing at Nationals, proudly wearing my new Tripleshot kit.
Keep in mind that really a TT is basically get on your bike and ride. No strategy other than keep pedalling!
I had pre-rode the entire TT course only once, as it was a real slog and made think "ohoh". Actual race experience very different! It was so fun to be on that gorgeous closed course, with virtually no wind! I had no trouble staying focused, and though the only faces I recognized were Paul C at the turn around (speed nearly zero) and my lovely sis-in-law Terry S near Hollywood, I certainly heard all the "go Tripleshot" or my name being called, and it was awesome:).
I was really happy with my effort regardless of the outcome, so the jersey was a total bonus! The words of Peter Lawless kept going through my head, advice I had sought out a couple of years ago before my first TT out with the Sidney Velo group... "at every/any given moment, you should be going as hard as you can at that moment". The times I caught myself not pedalling or thinking about letting up, those words really helped.
Thanks to Isaac for the wheel loan (he claims they are magical) and to the whole cool club for the course marshalling, encouragement, training company and entry support to help get more women out there.
It would be great have more orange out there next year:)

[John D]

Note to Martin: if we're looking to save some coin on this year's post-of-the-year (i.e. after breaking the bank on engraving last year's brilliant polemic from Alex) we could just distill Heather's observations down to this: "Keep in mind that really a TT is basically get on your bike and ride. No strategy other than keep pedalling!"

As my old analog telephone answering machine used to say after inviting users to leave their message "Remember - brevity is next to godliness."

J.

[Rolf]

Another great tale! Thanks, Heather and Andrew, for sharing your experiences so eloquently.

It felt extra special to cheer you on in our new kit, Heather! It’s good to know our generous sponsors observed your successes over the weekend (and the increased visibility of the kit, both on the road and in photos etc.) and that they hopefully felt both justification for and a return on their investment.

There’s something so inherently tribal about sharing a uniform appearance. Each time that blue and orange flew by during the TT, I felt moved to my toes, and yelled that extra bit louder, while wearing the same colours. Time trials are rigorously individualistic: just your breath and your legs, battling the wind and the clock. But I’ve found wearing Club kit creates invisible lines, connecting you to every other Tripleshotter, surrounding you with a crowd of teammates, pulling and willing you forward.

It was still awesome cheering on TS members and friends who wore other kit (and who maybe trained with non-Tripleshotters—understandably since we don’t have a fully organized race team.) But with those riders I found myself rooting for the individual alone, devoid of the extra thrill of hooting and hollering at the same time for this fantastic social jewel of a community to which we all belong.

[Rolf]

In other news, the woman behind the beautiful official race photos from last weekend is a total sweetie and encouraged me to fill my boots with her images for our Club galleries.

Off to download and upload, download and upload...

[EricS]

Tammy Brimner (the photographer) is awesome. So nice, great shots, and is at so many races. Follow her on instagram at tlbvelo. If you use her pix anywhere, just give her credit.

Eric