Man oh man, I’m having so much fun riding my bike these days. I really feel like a little kid again. Getting out and playing on my bikes. This includes my road and cyclo-cross bikes. I’m just having a blast getting out and training. This might sound crazy to you, but I really do enjoy training. I’m on of those bike racers who once I’m done racing, I’ll still be out putting in long hours on my bikes – it will just be with different goals in mind.

This week has been a series of awesome training days coupled with learning opportunities. Really, as a grown-up biker person, I can’t ask for much more. Monday I hit the open road and pedaled my way to Merrickville. Love this ride. There is so much variety in the route and the town of Merrickville is the perfect pedaling destination. Great little coffee shop on the main street – good place to stop, refuel, gab with fellow cyclists and passerbys. Tuesday was a busy day on the training front. This day was all about cyclo-cross. I kicked off the day with cyclo-cross starts and a nice 90 minute ride. Mid-afternoon saw me lacing up my sneaks for a run and some hill sprints. Then a few hours later I was back out again on my ‘cross bike for a ride with Marc and Karl. We hit up my favorite training grounds and I showed them my different training loops. Wow – talk about an awesome ride. I’ve definitely never gone as fast as I did on Monday night – whipping through the singletrack, floating over the sand, and cruising along the doubletrack. We took some time to work on dismounts without pre-clipping – slowly but surely I’m becoming more confident with this technique… And today? Well today it was all about VO2Max intervals. Yeesh, these intervals really stress me on all levels – physically and mentally. Such a battle for these – but so worth it. I took at my legs at one point and channeled some Jens, I said “Shut Up Legs. How Bad Do You Want This?”. The legs responded with a resounding roar and the wattage practically exploded off the SRM!

Okay, so maybe a bit of exaggeration there, but all this to say – I’m having some good times with my bikes. Feel like a little kid racing around the block in Uranium City. Yes, I lived in a town called Uranium City. The focus of this little community was the uranium mine – the town is now a ghost town (the mine closed down) and is located on Lake Athabasca in the very north of Saskatchewan. Take a look on the map. This town was where I learned how to ride a bike and where I fell in love with riding my bike. There is nothing quite like hopping on your bike, zipping down the street, meeting up with your friends and racing over to the park to play all morning. Great days. Actually I kind of feel like I’m doing the same these days….