Paris to Ancaster Race Report

This weekend I raced in Paris to Ancaster, a 60km bike race.  The course covered rail trail, single track, double track, and dirt road.  It also covered a surprising amount of mud, which was torn up by hundreds of bike tires.

In the race, there were three waves; each started about 15 minutes apart.  Being in the first wave meant less muddy riding, due to the fact that the course had not been torn to shreds yet.  My Dad, my Uncle, and I signed up a bit late, and ended up in the third wave.  This meant that the course was ankle deep slop in many cases.

Despite the sloppier riding conditions, I still had a blast.  I stayed with the other guys at the start, until the pack opened up a bit, then went on ahead.  By this point, I was forced to take of my clear glasses, which were covered in mud to the point that I was riding blind. The reason they had so much mud on them, is the tires of the people in front of me.  There was a constant barrage of water and dirt, that worked its way into our ears, eyes, and mouths throughout the race.

I was better equipped to handle this spray than most, due to the holes in my full finger gloves.  The holes meant that I had a semi clean finger to wipe my eyes off.  Like most things however, this luxury came at a price.  The holes could also get snagged on things, like the lever used for locking out your fork.  This nearly resulted in a crash on my part.

Speaking of crashes, I had two and a half.

The first, and most potentially nasty, was on the road.  I was cleaning the mud out of my eyes, so I could see again, when I bumped into the back wheel of another rider.  I promptly tucked in and rolled, and escaped the fall unscathed.  In about a minute I caught up the the guy, at which point he asked me if I knew who clipped his back tire.

I felt very embarrassed.

I explained to him what had happened, and apologized profusely.  He explained that he had stayed upright, and had been wondering if I had been okay.  We rode together for a while after that, until we got separated in some mud.

The half a crash was a simple flop, due to not getting my foot out in time.  Luckily, the mud that caused the issue provided a soft landing.

The third crash was quite picturesque.  It almost exactly mimicked the crash shown in the Paris to Ancaster promotional video.  It happened when I was descending the mud chute, and my front wheel dipped deep into a hole.  I promptly went up, and over, and down.

My Uncle, who had caught up to me at that point, asked if I was okay, then promptly left me, while I was still lying in the mud.  He also rode over a fallen guys leg, and spat on another racer.  He says neither were on purpose, but feel free to draw your own conclusions.
(fun as it is to berate my Uncle, he's actually a really nice guy, so please don't think poorly of him because of a series of humorous incidents)

After this last crash, I made my way to the final climb.  I flew up it.  I was in middle ring when everyone else was in granny, and passing people like mad.  I also was unable to shift into granny, which is mostly why I climbed it so fast.  There were also lots of people watching, so there was no other option but to suck it up and push to the top.

After finishing the climb, I rolled down through the finish line.

Now for pics:

Me on the left, and my Uncle on the right

The parking lot was packed with cyclists

One of the bike trucks.  

A lot of bikes in the truck

People huddling out of the rain before the start

The road by the start was absolute chaos, hundreds of cyclists and numerous
motor vehicles all mixed into a big mess

Lining up at the start, lots of chaos as riders tried
to find where they were supposed to be

Me post race, with my bike

My Uncle post race, with his bike

My Dad post race, without his bike

You can see exactly where the backpack straps
were on my Dads shoulders

Despite the clean teeth, my mouth tasted like dirt

There's a derailleur here somewhere!

Oh, thats why I couldn't shift into granny ring

Training Report

Today I did a half hour or so of easy running during track practice, and then went home.  When I got home, Dad and I  loaded up our cycling gear, and went of to Fanshawe Lake for a trail ride.

When we got there, I set my tire pressure, and did all the normal pre ride stuff.  Shortly after I got out of the parking lot, I crashed.  There was a sandy corner that I took too hard, apparently.  When I fell I got some road rash on my hip, some minor scratches on my right calf, and a fairly deep inch long gouge in my chin.

I immediately began bleeding all over everything.  I got blood on my bike, my shirt, and my pack.  Naturally, since I couldn't see how bad it was, I made a joke about hardcore cyclists using blood as chain lube.  I also apparently said some bad words.  We got the first aid kit out (its mandatory gear for life you know), and he patched me up.  He did a fantastic job actually, except that he used my helmet straps as anchors for some of the tape.  This meant I could not take my helmet off.  It kinda sucked.

The bleeding stopped quickly, and we continued our ride.  Things were fine until I got my first (of many) mechanicals.  During the crash my derailleur had become slightly out of tune, which drove me crazy for the remainder of the ride.

The next issue was going over a log, the nose of my saddle dropped.  I had been messing with a new seat position, and I had failed to tighten the bolt adequately.  I corrected this, and continued to ride.

There is a short road section linking parts of Fanshawe's trail system.  I locked out my fork for this section, and forgot to open it later.  As I rode a root garden, the shock was compressed, but not allowed to spring back up.  This became apparent when the tire started buzzing the bottom of my head tube.  I fixed the issue by opening the shock, which sprung back nicely.

My fourth mechanical was a flat tire.  I run tubeless, and the valve in my tire had become clogged with sealant.  So, as recommended by the bike shop, I applied alcohol.  This worked great, and freed up the valve.  It also spilled onto the tire, and dissolved a spot where the sealant had done its job.  This caused me a slow leak, which resulted in a flat which became un-ridable a few hundred meters from the car.  Instead of bothering with a tube and C02 cartridges, I just got picked up by Dad in the car.

The moral of the story is, always be prepared, and never make jokes about Lance.  He has some sort of cycling power that he will use against you, and your bike.

Anyway, here are some slightly gory pics.

Not a happy camper

This looks worse than it is.  

Some fun road rash

It almost looks like lips, doesn't it?  (insert joke about kissing the road)

All stitched up

There were mixed reactions at school.  Some people thought it was cool, some people mistook it for a goatee, and one person immediately asked "hows the bike?".

Training Report

Well, I ran around Fanshawe lake.  I have biked it numerous times, and run sections of it.  I finally went and the ran the entire 24 km of it.  It took me exactly 2 and a half hours to do.  I could have gone faster, but I wanted to hold off because this is the longest I have ran straight.  Its not much I know, but you gotta start somewhere.

Weather wise, it was perfect.  Temperatures were comfortably warm, without being crushingly hot.  The trails were dry for this time of year, which led to easy running.  I am excited to do it again, and longer distances.  I hope to do longer runs soon, which means I will be doing double laps before too long...

After I finished the run.

Thomass STARS Race Report

Today I raced in the Thomass STARS orienteering race, along with fellow Raid The Fridge members Roy and Chris.  Roy and I had done a bunch of these races before, Chris had only done one before.  Despite that we all registered individually, and each were issued Sport Ident chips, we ran as a team.  I acted as navigator, as Raid The Fridges main navigator had gotten married the day before and could not race today.

Chris, Roy, and I standing in front of the finish.

More of the same.

The course was mostly flat, with some small steep hills thrown in.  It was mostly on a well mapped set of trails, with some bushwhacking through open forest.  The trails themselves were frozen solid for the most part, with a few mucky sections near the numerous swamps.  The frozen dirt was excellent as far as traction goes, and my new Vibram Treksports were great on all terrain encountered during the race, with the exception of the ice.

The ice proved problematic.  It covered some sections of trail, making cornering treacherous, and running slow at best.  The people who had metal spikes in or on their shoe seemed okay, but we slid around.  On one especially slippery section I fell.  We were running along fine, in a single file line, when it happened.  I promptly found myself on the ground, and heard sliding behind me.  Chris (next in line) had witnessed my sudden loss of standing, and had slid to a stop (an upright one).  Roy was at the back of the line, and was fine.
At the end of the race I found that I had done a better job of injuring my self than I thought:

"It's okay" says Chris, "you iced it right away when you fell".

My navigation this race was far better than my footwork.  We hit all of the CPs, except for one of the two that we had the option of skipping.

We started the race by running a short, mandatory loop, that took us past where we would have to turn on our way to CP 1.  Following this loop, we made our way to CPs 1, 2, and 3, in quick succession.  On our way to CP 4, I made a the only error of the race.  We overshot by a bit (our standard mistake in orienteering races).  Luckily, I realized my error and we backtracked and found the checkpoint, losing only about two minutes.  After this we collected CP 5 and 6, then started the Thomass Box.

The Thomass Box CPs were in a rough circle, scattered over the whole course.  We opted for a clockwise direction, as it allowed us to scout out future CPs.  After collecting CP A-E (but not F, Roy and Chris thought it was too far away) we went back to CP 7, which was conveniently located right across the road from 6.

From CP 7 we went towards 8, along the same trail we used when looking for A.  It was here that talking the whole race paid off.  I was leading us in the general direction of where it was, and telling Roy and Chris to look for a depression in the ground.  Before I knew it, Chris was running off towards a depression to our right, that I hadn't seen.  I find it helpful to talk through my navigation, both so team mates know what to look for (eg. a trail that turns right, after we pass a swamp) and so that they can point out my mistakes.  CP 9 was very easy for us to find, as we had ran across it earlier.

After CP 9, the course designer obviously decided that there hadn't been enough climbing during the race, and opted to put all the remaining CPs on hills.  The two advantages too this were that you could sometimes see the next CP, from the hilltop you were currently on, and that I got to test the new Vibrams on hills.

After CP 12, we ran along a short section of trail to the finish.  When we reached the trail junction near the finish (which we had visited 3 times by this point) Roy and Chris told me too run ahead.  So I did, and finished shortly before a small herd of runners came pounding up the trail.

Overall it was a great race, very well set up and lots of fun.  We figured out that we ran about 8km (it would have been closer to 9km if we had added the Thomass box CP).  It took us an hour from start to finish.  They had cookies at the finish...

Two Sticks and a Peg Wood Joint

The other day I was watching a Ray Mears video on youtube, and he demonstrated how to make a really cool pot hanger for cooking over a fire.  In his video he used two forked sticks, cut so as to look like a fish hook as opposed to a slingshot frame.  The cool part was how he joined the two long ends together.  At first when he was working on it I thought he was just going to lash the two pieces together.  What he did turned out to be way cooler!  He made a joint that could be taken apart or put together easily, by removing or inserting a square peg.  The only tool needed to make the joint is a knife, but a small saw makes life a little easier.

Anyway, I couldn't resist trying to make the joint, so when I was out running in the woods today I picked up two pieces of ash.  Here is the result of my first try (Its not supposed to work the first time! Something weird must have been going on today).

Hopefully you can see how the pieces fit together.  When the pin is in tight, there is no movement in any direction.  It feel very solid.

I am excited to try making a spear shaft with this joint.  I will have to trim the peg down so it's flush with the wood, and probably wrap the entire joint with cordage for strength.  It should work though.

The advantages of a two piece shaft would be portability (because you can take it apart), and ease of repair (if part of the spear shafts gets broken you only have to replace that half).

Making A Penny Stove

I have been looking at penny stoves for a while now, and I finally got around to making one.

I used two pop cans, and one fruit cocktail can, and a penny.  The fuel I am using right now is rubbing alcohol. The tools I used were tin snips, a marker, a hammer and nail, a drill, a can opener/hole puncher, and a pair of pliers.


Here is how I made the stove:


First I gathered some tools and my two pop cans.

2 pop cans, a 2X4, a marker, and tins snips.

Next I drew a line on the pop can, using the 2X4 as a guide.

After I had a line on both cans I cut off the top half of the can.  This left me with two can bottoms.

I took a pair of pliers and carefully crimped the edge of on of the cans. I did this so it would fit inside the other can.

I took the non crimped can and used the hammer and nail to make a series of holes around the edge, as well as a larger hold in the middle.

The next step is to carefully put the two halves together.  It is important to go slow, so you don't split the can by accident.  When the halves are together they should look like this.

The stove is now complete.  I could use it as is, but I would need to use rocks as a pot stand, and I still need a priming pan.
I decided to make something that would act as a priming pan, pot stand, and wind guard, all at once. 

To do this I began with a large metal can.  I drilled a series of 1/4'' holes around it, about 3'' up from the bottom.  I also put some holes around the top, to let gasses escape. 
This setup pulls air into the can, where it mixes with the alcohol vapour and combusts.  It then leaves the can through the vents at the top.

The stove inside the pot stand

I don't have enough 1/4'' holes in this picture.  I added another ring to make the stove burn better.

Now that my stove is finished, I tested it by bringing a cup of water to a boil in my favourite camping pot. 

The fuel used for priming the stove is burning off.

This is the stove burning normally.