Hey everyone, and welcome to our new subscribers from the Scrabblethon!

Are your legs hurting, because mine are! 🤣

The Scrabblethon appears to have been a hit today, despite a nasty 'lil hill in there! More on that below!

Other Racing News

The Namor cyclocross World Cup was this morning, and wow, did it ever deliver!! This is a pretty wild course, and to do well, a CX racer has to 'check the boxes' in nearly all categories!

You can watch both races on Youtube, I highly recommend these - both are action-packed:

Womens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzNvxCNr2Ag

Mens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzKXfmV1Mno

I won't spoil the top finishes but the women's race had so many top names!!! The top Canadian finisher was Rafaelle Carrier in 19th, 4:15 down, which is all the more remarkable given that she's the current U19 Canadian champ! Not U23, but U19, and was the top Canadian in the race! Wow! Sidney McGill is now in Europe as well, and finished 30th, 6:37 down, and two other Canadians were in the race, with Nico Knoll finishing 43rd and down at least one lap, and Island rider Katja Verkerk in 60th, down a few laps. Treacherous mud isn't quite her jam yet it might be safe to say!

Sadly Maghalie Rochette is out for the next few weeks, having injured a finger at the X2O race yesterday, which is a real bummer, as the best CX racing is about to hot up!

On the men's side, it was pretty thrilling to the end, but focusing on Canadian riders: Ian Ackert had a similar success, with 23rd and 4:10 down - he had an AMAZING start as well, and was in the action near the front of the field for the first few laps, pretty cool to see the Canadian maple leaf in the action on the screen!! And he's also 19yrs old - I believe Canada had the top two teens at Namur!!

Island racer (and U23) Liam Sargent was 48th, a lap down, Evan Russel was 52nd, and Fabian Merino, another Vic racer, was 59th. I think I saw him running around the 6th lap...might have had a bad technical..

They've got more races coming up, can't wait to see!!

On the local scene, for those into road racing, the VCL 2025 schedule is taking shape; we had a meeting last week, and looks like there'll be about 16 races total, with a smaller calendar, but more focus on each race. Also a chance for upgrade points in some of them.

There aren't any hill climbs planned, but I'm putting together a Strava-based hill climb series, for those who like the vert. 😬

See below for a quick summary of what I've got planned for ATR events in the new year!

THE RESULTS

For those who want to check out the full results, they're posted on the event page: https://abouttheride.ca/scrabblethon/

We had 14 riders out today, tho well over 20 signed up!

There were a mix of bikes, including a few FS MTBs, some cyclocross bikes, and mostly gravel bikes.

Riders completed 4-11 laps, one was neutralized, and the rest completed within 1hr. Corey, Dave B and Matt managed 11 laps, phew!

There were lots of interesting words, but in the end, our podium looked like this:

1st – Samantha Hoft – SQUADS 16pts
2nd – Lindsay Woykin – HOOKY 15pts
3rd – Dave Bitschy – PIXIE 14pts
3rd – Keith Encinas – JARRED 14pts
3rd – Matt Albee – JAYS 14pts

Kinda fun having an event where being fastest doesn't result in the win - luck played a much bigger part here!

Thanks again to everyone who came out, it sounds like this was pretty popular, and I'll be looking into organizing more! I'll be sending out a poll to those who signed up for some feedback on the day, as well as thoughts for future events. If you didn't sign up, but are keen on this type of event, feel free to hit reply and let me know and I'll send you the survey as well.

Also a big thank-you to all who chipped in, I really appreciate it!! 🥰

The neutral lap!
Oddly our top scorers are in the frame!

The hour is up, and everyone is
trying to come up with words
despite a lack of blood in their brains! 🤣

Couldn't have asked for a better day!

Coming Up in 2025!

Here's a quick summary of what I've got planned:

• More Scrabblethons in the winter/spring, and/or some other variations of fun events
• March will see the Spring season of the Segment Challenge return for the 3rd year, back on the road
• May should be an all-new Climbing Challenge, it'll run four weeks, with two big road climbs each week, run similarly to the Segment Challenge
• June will see the Summer season of the Segment Challenge, also on the road
• Royal Bay Crits - they likely won't be a part of the VCL this year, but the plan is to run a couple practice or 'Learn To Crit' sessions earlier in the race season, and then our own mini crit series with 2-3 races
• My Cyclocross Skills School will return in late August, three Sundays focusing on cyclocross skills (also handy for gravel riders!)
• September will be the Fall season of the Segment Challenge, and back on the gravel!!
• And that's about as far ahead as I want to plan!! 🤯

Looking forward to all this!! I'll keep y'all posted as things take shape.

The Festive 500 is coming up too, who's up for riding 500km between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve??!

As always, keep an eye on the website; if unfamiliar there's listings of all the local clubs and teams, local group rides (including gravel and MTB), and all the local road, gravel, cyclocross and MTB races as well! Click around, some neat blog posts too!

Also be sure to follow the ATR account on Instagram and Facebook, where I post local and relevant news to cyclists, and feel free to tag @AboutTheRideCA any time, it's always fun to see what you're up to! 🤩

I'll wrap things up here, thanks for being a part of my shenanigans for 2024, and hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season, and a happy new year as well!

Safe and speedy riding all! 🚲

- Dave

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If you ever have any questions,
feel free to simply hit reply!