Well that wasn't the nicest week to begin with, but the weekend turned out pretty good, as long as you don't mind the chill!! 31 riders braved a couple solid climbs in Royal Oak (did I get that right? 😂)

This week we're headed to a favourite area: Strawberry Vale! There's a pretty straight-forward climb, and a brand new fun one with a couple fast spots, should be a hoot!

RACING NEWS

Note: expect spoilers!

This weekend there was some road racing on the mainland, saw some local peeps over there! Locally we had the MTB Canada Cup opener at Jordie Lunn park, as well as the first Island Cup MTB race on Sunday, you can find the results for both of those here: https://www.webscorer.com/rebeltiming

A few familiar faces on the list!

Tons of pro racing this week - if you didn't see the women's Strade Bianchi last weekend, be sure to check it out, so much action from around 20km onwards - best race I've see this year so far.

Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico filled the week with racing, and some pretty awesome days, I particularly liked the van der Poel win. Today's stage was bizarre, where MVDP got on the front on the hill at around 100km to go, and pulled for about 20km, breaking up the field significantly, including dropping his own sprinter! Normally the final stage is a bit of a boring sprint, but this mixed it up quite a bit for a while!

The women's Trofeo Alfredo Binda was today as well, it's one of the longest running women's races on the calendar, since 1974 I believe! Some good action there, and you can see local rider Sarah Van Dam picking things up a bit around 2km to go!

And one final link to an interesting article, about how MVDP rides wider handlebars (42cm), in great part for better climbing. Interesting to see a different perspective from the 'as narrow as possible' trend, read more here: https://www.cyclingnews.com/bikes/pro-bikes/mathieu-van-der-poel-explains-why-he-refuses-to-follow-the-narrow-handlebar-trend/

HOUSEKEEPING

Notes for the week:

• Moved a few people up categories, including Adam Boss, who bossed the C's a bit too much and is moved into the B's!
• I would like to invite Rizzi to join us in the A's as well, your times are much closer to A's than B's! 😉

Reminder if your time didn't record (this week or any), please either tag me in your ride, comment on the Strava group post, or send me an email -- if you rode it, I can usually figure out a 'manual' time for you, but you need to let me know!

0 <- THIS MANY WEEKS WITHOUT AN ERROR 🤣

If there are any errors, omissions, issues, concerns, or anything else, feel free to hit reply!

SPONSORS AD

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haha - SNL did a wonderful thing with this fake ad! Unfortunately the Youtube link is regionally locked, but you can check it out on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=937064905468527

SOUNDTRACK NOTES

Note: 'back in my day' people talked about music, albums, etc.. Doesn't really seem to happen much these days, so I'm carrying on the tradition here! 😊

Been listening to the new Gorillaz quite a bit, finally a good album!! 😂 Lotsa catchy tunes with a wee bit of political overtones.. Enjoying most of the tunes, except for that one marching band song..um why??

Nooo mooore baad news. 🎶

THIS WEEK IN RIDES

For those new to the series, results are tabulated each week, and the event page has all the results updated each Sunday night! To see the weekly results, hit the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

The A's

Great to see Tina back, she hit the segments early in the week and set some FAST times, which only a handful of guys managed to top! Where are the rest of our A ladies at? 😉

The A field is looking super competitive this year, with a few guys bumped up, and on the A segment, barely 30sec separated the fastest from the slowest (which wasn't slow by any means!) We're promised some fantastic duels, with Julian and Graham Fletcher demolishing the climbs! Both cracked 1min on Amblewood, with Julian gaining 5secs on Graham, but Graham had the upper hand on Boulderwood, making 6 seconds on Julian!! For the rest, John F was just over the 1min mark, and just missing the podium were Sam and Josh. Over on Boulderwood, Travis smashed it and claimed the Bronze position, and Sam and Lorne just missed out. Excellent rides by Jon and Evan as well!

The B's

So great to have a full podium here, but the order was the same for both segments, with newcomer Ann posting the fastest times and taking top spot, and veteran Renata and Sarah in close contention, with just 1 second separating them on Amblewood! This is gonna be a feisty field!!

Newcomer Rizzi smashed both segments, taking top honours on both! Veteran Greg  was only 2sec off on Amblewood, and Adam B the same to round out the podium. Michael J and newcomer Hugo just missed out! On Boulderwood Adam B was best of the rest, and Greg completing that podium, and Michael and Dan B just missed the podium there. Great to see Scott H, Teddy and David K in the fight as well!

The C's

Kathryn is back, and sadly the lone C in the first week, but great to see her out, hopefully she didn't scare off riders winning the C field the last two road seasons!

Over in our C's, Bicycle Dave claimed top points thanks to collecting the Early Bird as well as Socialite points, as well as finishing 2nd and 1st! Bill and newcomer Derek K tied for second, and Ken earned 3rd on Amblewood, with Tyler G and newcomer James W just missing placements there. On Boulderwood, Derek K threw down an exceptional time, over 30sec ahead of Ken, edging out Bill and James W for that final medal. Great to have David R in the mix as well!

BONUSES & CURSES

See the Scoring section of the Event Page for more details on how you can score extra points every week.

No KOM or QOM points this week.

• No KOMs or QOMS earned this week
• Early Bird was Bicycle Dave
• No secret times
• Bicycle Dave gets the Socialite points with another cool action vid!
  (Post a shot of your ride on IG or FB and tag @AboutTheRideCA for a chance for 5pts each week! If you've posted, but I haven't given you credit, or liked or commented on your post, please DM me directly, IG has been a bit finicky.)
• No Yellow Jersey curse
• The Try Hard 'Local Legend' curse was deactivated on Boulderwood since Julian already had it, but not hit on the other

PRIZES!

We've always got some sweet draw prizes every week! Watch our socials (Insta & Facebook) to see what we'll be giving away each week!

A big thank you to Goldstream Bicycles for the draw prizes this week, and I've got 5x $20 Gift Cards to give out! The Google randomizer has decided the following are worthy of a draw prize this week:

Travis Orr
Adam Boss
James Wright
Hugo Cossette
Renata Troc

Congrats!! I'll email you on Monday with the details!

Our prize page is live on the site, we've got some fantastic items coming up, many are already listed, take a peek!

Week #2: Mar 16th - 22nd – The Ups and Downs of Strawberry Vale

It's our second week, and the weather isn't looking the best for much of the week, so let's stick with an area that's pretty central! Strawberry Vale is a favourite, there are so many fun options, and this week we've got a classic, plus another new challenge - no straight lines this week!

Segment 2A Name: Grinding up Granville
Deets: 1.29km, 38m elevation gain.
This is an existing segment, QOM is The Squaremeat with a 2:21 & KOM is Brent Dallimore with a 2:01, and the LL is John Hayward with 13 efforts!
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/7373783

This is our 3rd (at least!) time including this particular segment, and is a classic test! Starts off flat and fairly fast, and then a fairly reasonable grind for about 500m to the top. Pacing is key, and make sure you note where the segment ends!

Segment 2B Name: Trials and tribulations of Scrooge McDuck
Deets: 1.66km, 56m elevation gain.
This is a new segment, QOM is Lisa Hill with a 3:11 & KOM is Brett Boniface with a 2:48, and the LL is no one!
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/41066556

I've had this one in my back pocket for a few years, and is a great 'all rounder' test, featuring two descents, two steeper pitches, and a nice grind to finish things off, going farther than you'd think/want. 😂

One tip: before you start, check for traffic behind you - make sure there isn't a car ahead of you at the start, as you'll very likely catch them on the first descent! Best wait until you have a clear run for best results!

Also please do be careful with the right hander onto Granville, the kick up there should eat most of your speed before you reach the corner, and not a lot of vehicles carry on to Granville in the direction we're headed, but there may be cars going straight. You have a pretty good line of sight going in, but please be mindful!

Happy riding!! 🚵‍♀️

Updated on the site - as always Suggested Routing for this week: https://abouttheride.ca/victoria-segment-challenge/

THE WEEK IN PHOTOS

Here we are, looking up Amblewood...our
first segment of 2026!!

This is atop Amblewood - I always get a thrill coming this
way. If you hit it with speed, it looks like the
road completely disappears where it starts to drop
and I still get the willies even tho I know what's there!
😂

Ahhh relief at this spot, though it came up
MUCH FASTER than I was expecting, and
definitely left some seconds on the road.

That's it for this week, hope you have a good run on the segments this week!! Do your best sun dance, maybe we can turn this week around. 🌞

Got an ISO as well: In Search Of a colour (or B&W) laser printer! Would be useful for printing all the posters for the series of course, plus have some bigger plans this year which will require even more printing, so would be swell to do that in-house! If you or someone you know has one they're looking to get rid of, hook me up!

Welcome again to all our new riders, if you've got any questions, hit reply any time and I'll do my best to help out! 😊

That's about it for this week, safe and speedy riding all! 🚲

- Dave

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