Tripleshot Cycling

acrnrjf wrote:Back to Greg F's gif. I'm confused, does it mean we'll be bumping and jostling regardless? Or, does it mean we're all going to join Rolf and Alan and start cross-dressing? Please explain.

Its a metaphor for the Tripleshot club - we disagree and politely argue/respectfully disagree/constructively criticize, then get on with working together.

Hi Lister,

Given some of the earlier posts, especially John D's, I think it's difficult to justify a route involving Gordon Head Road. This route is familiar riding but is far from flat and has two troubling turns (on and off Cadboro Bay Rd). I think folks should give Andrew's proposed route some thought, and Rolf's.

That's my best shot at being of no help. And Greg, very nicely put!

John

Greg: don't give a straight answer to John's absurdist rhetorical questions. It just encourages him. Also: I thought your gif meant we split into factions, push Alan around a bit, and then perfectly synchronize, on his lead.

Just like his shapely skull, John's box is beautiful. Unsurprisingly, given his own strength-to-weight ratio, his suggestion features a lovely, small climb before the sprint along the Uplands Golf Course. The climb could be neutral, with a mandatory re-group after the second of the two Lansdowne stop signs.* That would leave a tantalizing little ascent to be in play before turning and hitting the afterburners. The first Golf Club driveway would then be nearly exactly the same distance as our current CHX finish after the turn off Henderson: 470m. The finish is flat, straight, wide, with few entry points. There would then be a nice recovery coast down to the hairpin and the speedy cruise past the Yacht Club before turning right again on Lansdowne. There are only three (3) turns—one is admittedly sharp, but the other two have dedicated merge/turning lanes.

(Jeez. Just thinking about changing things up like this makes me consider getting out of the trees and back on smooth rubber. Okay, not really.)

p.s. And in the spirit of being no help, here's another idea. p.p.s I hope nobody's surprised that 64.29% of participants in this thread are at least occasional cross riders. It's part of the fun to plan a route and think outside the box.

*John's route follows much of my teenaged, cycling paper route. When they put in those two four-way stops on Lansdowne, I thought it was criminal to break up that wonderful whoosh down to Beach Drive! John Olmsted was no doubt spinning in his grave.

Thank you Rolf for calling my box beautiful. Your box is beautiful too.

Question to Greg or Rolf. What would Camus say to the objection that some people live short and very happy lives? Can we find the answer here?

John

Nah, Rolf, I’d never propose violence on our resident hard-man ex-Navy scholar, Alan.

But should our dog, Smokey, ever meet Alan’s cat, Pfizer J. Johnson, fur may fly....

Of course we could always go back to the UVic ring road that we abandoned due to the proliferation of rabbits. Unlike this mornings ride, we would be finished before 6:40 and the early traffic. No stoplights, no sharp corners......

I know it's a circle not a box......

Today I rode four of the proposed temporary Tuesday routes: https://www.strava.com/activities/1376810060. They each have pros and cons which I will try to break down as objectively and without bias as possible.

Keep in mind the parameters we are looking for on the Tuesday "Speed" laps:
*Flattish
*Safe. Few cars/ pedestrians /driveways; wide roads
*Not disruptive to the community
*Few stop signs/ traffic lights

Also keep in mind that each proposed route has similar inherent risks (i.e. deer, puddles, falling branches) that are basically equal, so should have no bearing on the decision.

I'll go north-south.

#1 - Lister's Lap (Cedar Hill X/Gordon Head/McKenzie/McGill/Ring Rd. Sprint on Cedar Hill X)
*Flattish: Yes. Small rise coming onto McGill and small rise coming off of ring rd. No worries
*Safe. Few cars/ pedestrians /driveways; wide roads: Yes. Potential problem area turning onto McKenzie has very good visibility to the left, wide lanes with bike lane. Crosswalk at Midgard has decent visibility to left and right with a street lamp overhead.
*Not disruptive to the community: Yes. No driveways on the right, very few on the left.
*Few stop signs/ traffic lights: Yes. We would have to slow down coming off of McGill onto ring rd; there is very poor visibility to the left. That's it.
Pros: No driveways, wide roads, good lead-in for the sprint, smooth pavement, most streetlamps
Cons: none

#2 - John's Lap (Cadboro Bay/Beach/Lansdowne. Sprint on Cadboro Bay)
*Flattish: NO! Big down hill, followed by big uphill, with the sprint section in the middle.
*Safe. Few cars/ pedestrians /driveways; wide roads: Yes. Lansdown is a bit narrow, and the road is pretty bad condition.
*Not disruptive to the community: Depends how loud we are, lots of residences on Beach and Lansdowne.
*Few stop signs/ traffic lights: Yes. Exception being the very sharp hairpin turn onto Beach Dr.
Pros: Good long, wide, straight stretch for sprint.
Cons: Hairpin, too hilly, inspired by CX

#3 - Rolf's Lap (Beach/Dorset/Nottingham/Lansdowne/[Rutland]. Sprint on Beach just past Cattle Point)
*Flattish: Yes. Small rise on Dorset, rise on Beach leading into sprint
*Safe. Few cars/ pedestrians /driveways; wide roads: Yes
*Not disruptive to the community: Yes. Close to park land.
*Few stop signs/ traffic lights: Yes. Exception is turning onto Beach from Rutland where there is ZERO visibility. I propose avoiding Rutland, staying on Lansdowne until Beach, where there is very good visibility of Beach as we approach.
Pros: ticks most of the boxes, closer to coffee than the first two
Cons: uphill lead-in to sprint, poor-ish road conditions

#4 - Andrew's Lap (Beach/Newport/Currie. Sprint... ???)
*Flattish: Kind of. OBB Hotel climb is a bit of a grind.
*Safe. Few cars/ pedestrians /driveways; wide roads: Yes. Newport might be a tad narrow?
*Not disruptive to the community: No more than usual.
*Few stop signs/ traffic lights: Yes.
Pros: Fun to ride
Cons: OBB Hotel climb, no feasible spot for the sprint, errant golf balls, wind.

I would rank the options, from best to worst, as: Lister's, Rolf's, Andrew's, John's. Based on the length and location of the lap we would have to figure out how many laps to do to keep the distance similar.

John’s route is last? This is outrageous!

When Alan gets wind of this there’s going to be a giphy sh*t storm the likes of which this club has never seen. [Alan, please unleash your giphy sh*t storm, k?, please?]

Posterboy

p.s. Kevin, very impressive analysis.

Kevin L wrote: Cons: Hairpin, too hilly, inspired by CX

Love it.

wonger wrote:

Kevin L wrote: Cons: Hairpin, too hilly, inspired by CX

Love it.

Traitor!

Thank you, Kevin. Apart from the objectionable and wholly uninformed line above, I appreciate your valuable efforts.

In defence of John, who is part of the Triplecross menage a three, and a real scientist, I unleash a shitstorm of gifs...

For those of you who diss my cross-bro' John, I give you a little game of reverse bungie jumping:

And just a few more, to hammer home the message....and in reverence to the cyclocross obstacle known affectionately as the "birth canal"...

And to mansplain Alan, ex-Navy officer and former parachutist...

Jeez, Neptune, a little disagreement from the mortals and you gotta all release the Kraken on them and such!

<sigh...> guess I better whip out Medusa and restore their faith in Cxlympus again...

Alan, thank you.

This operation is going down in the anal’s of club history. Lets rendezvous at dark 6:30 and assess the damage.

John

Greg, this is for you ...

John, that was just baa-a-a-a-d.

Posterboy wrote:John’s route is last? This is outrageous!

When Alan gets wind of this there’s going to be a giphy sh*t storm the likes of which this club has never seen. [Alan, please unleash your giphy sh*t storm, k?, please?]

Posterboy

p.s. Kevin, very impressive analysis.

p.s. Posterboy: You can just write a kind request to the forum guru (Roland) and have your handle changed. But appreciate the sentiment. arncjfgmslkd or whatever was kinda hard to say.

Done.

Although knowing that I can request a change to my username on a whim, I feel sorry for Roland.

I was hoping for gianifiero

Anyone have an update on Lansdowne/Henderson? I'm thinking it's probably time for us to move onto our alternative route. I haven't been through there lately, but even if it's still technically open, I'm a bit worried about the possibility of mud, road signs, construction debris and other obstacles that might make the normal box risky. Also pedestrians might start treating the road as a sidewalk if traffic is down.

I have a proposal based on the above discussion. If someone sees that Landsdowne/Henderson is beautifully safe, post here. Otherwise I'll post the proposal later today.

Martin