Well that was a better week overall...but today was a doozy with the rain, hope no-one was planning to ride the segments!! (I don't have anyone down for today thankfully!)

We've got a few more peeps joining us this week, and it's really great to have Ron Mierau back as well, he was added retroactively on Monday, as his rides weren't showing up in the group (and he ended up 3rd on both segments, so there was some shuffling of the results.)

This week we're headed over to Mill Hill, with both segments technically being revisited, although the A segment was just a 'bonus' segment at the beginning of last year, that didn't count for a time, but this week it does!

For those who are keen on getting the best result they can, I wrote a blog piece a few years ago with a ton of tips. Take a look, and hopefully it'll help you shave some seconds off!

Racing News

In local news, the first VCL was today, and incredibly there were 27 riders out, including several Segment Challenge riders! Full results here, but congrats Phillip and Daniel scoring 1st & 2nd in the B's, and looks like Gabrielle sprinted away from the C's to win that field!

Next week is the first Island Cup MTB at Jordie Lunn, Saturday features a Short Track race, and Sunday is their XC. Too much climbing and too many berms for me tho..good luck all who race!!

Pro tip: if you haven't browsed around the ATR site, all the local racing is listed there! Here's all the Victoria-area road racing, as well as much of the island MTB events.

In pro news, Milan-Sanremo (or is it San Remo?🤔) was on Saturday, and both races were incredible. If you can watch the final 30km of the men's race, make sure you do.

The final 10km is the best place to watch the Sanremo Women's race, and you can actually see local pro Sarah Van Dam for several minutes, as she's still with the front group on the final climb, watch for #55 - they even mention her by name, pretty awesome to see her nearly finishing with the front in her second race after coming back from that fractured collarbone. It's gonna be a good year for SVD!

Unfortunately another top Canadian racer, Olivia Baril, crashed out (it was also shown, there was a huge crash at the front of the field), haven't heard if she was injured, but was a DNF. Fingers crossed she's okay.

HOUSEKEEPING

Notes for the week:

Another fairly easy week for record keeping at least!

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! 😁

2 <- THIS MANY WEEKS WITHOUT AN ERROR 🤣

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

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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! 😊

Got Wilco playing tonight, they have a new album called A Ghost Is Born.

I'm not much of a listener of Wilco, not that I actively dislike them, but they're a bit too mellow and downbeat for me. The album is super long (clocking in around 2:30!!), but a few of the tracks are several minutes of noise..

Very reminiscent of Neil Young in a number of songs, good background music in a bar, but just not something I'll be playing very often.🎶

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

I added in Brooklynn post-report last week, after seeing she'd ridden the segments, but hadn't signed up. Solid times then, and this week as well, welcome to the series!

It was tight on the A segment with the A's, Julian took 1st by just one second, and Dave B and Phillip tied for second, with Spencer 6 seconds off that, phew! Dan B just missed the podium as well! On the B segment, Phillip took top spot with an impressive 2:51! Julian was 20sec off that, followed by Dave B, who's having a stellar season! Spencer and I tied for 4th on this one.

The B's

Renata has some welcome company, with Gabrielle joining the field! Unfortunately she made a wrong turn on the A segment, and so has a manual time of 8:00, but she edged out our veteran by 6 seconds on the Funner segement!

Travis O had a great ride, claiming the top time on both segments, with some A-worthy efforts there! Joel also got a fantastic time on the Big Dog, with Daniel pushing David K off the podium. Daniel moved up a spot on Funner, and Josh rounded out the podium there ahead of Joel and Evan. Great times by Scott H as well, great field!!

The C's

The C ladies are proving to be competitive, and we added another rider with Nina this week! Starting with a bang, she earned a top spot this week, the first to deny Suzy her gold this season!! They exchanged spots on the B segment however, Suzy loves her goooooollld! Heidi rounded out the podium, and Anne was 3 seconds behind Heidi....on BOTH segments! 🤯

The men's C field is our biggest now, but Greg remains untouchable, both segments about 20sec faster than Ron. Tyler G earned a podium spot this week on Big Dog, followed by Kit and Ben, and on Funner Ben was 3rd, followed by Tyler and Kit. It's gonna be interesting to see how this continues to play out!

BONUSES & CURSES

See the Scoring section of the Event Page for more details!

No KOMs or QOMs on these two popular segments!

• Early Bird wasBill R!
• No Secret Time this week (4:03 & 5:56), tho there was a 4:02 and several 4:04s!
• I didn't see any tags, so sadly no Socialite points to award.
  (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.)
• The Local Legend curse was me! I had it coming in, and of course going out. Obviously I like riding that road. 🤣
• No Yellow Jersey curse as usual.

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!

Prizes this week come from Giant Victoria, they're popular for providing some really great women's prizes, and there are several pairs of women's gloves, so the breakdown this week is 3 women and 4 men, and the randomizer gives me:

Nina S
Gabrielle Leung
Heidi Mierau 🇨🇦

Daniel Struthers
Kit St. John
Tyler Galts
Joel Crocker

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

Check out all the prizes (so far) here - there are some really awesome items, and Brentwood donated a HUGE number of items: https://abouttheride.ca/victoria-segment-challenge-season-7-prize-list/

Week #4 - Mar 24th - 30th - Mill-Hilli Vanilli

As promised, we're back to some proper climbs this week! The first segment is one of my "favourites" that I've ever come across - it's pretty nasty, but also pretty neat with how everything is built up on the street and how you wind your way up. And the illustrious Riley Pickrell is the KOM, can anyone knock him off the throne? The 'B' segment was a 'bonus' segment last year, and I figure we'll give it an actual go this week!

Segment 4A Name: Kingsview Ridge Climb
Deets: .79km, 81m elevation gain.
This is an existing segment, QOM is Brianna Brandon with a 3:04 & KOM is Riley Pickrell with a 2:09, LL is Peter Spindloe with 1 effort.
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/2488610

I don't feel like my effort from last year was my best, and paced it improperly, so looking forward to giving it another go! There are a lot of twists, and you wind your way up to the top of this strange little road. The segment ends in a bit of a quirky spot, so be sure to go as 'high' as you can to trigger the finish.

Segment 4B Name: I Dream of Jeanine-y
Deets: 1.23km, 66m elevation gain.
This is an existing segment, QOM is Tania Johnson with a 5:04 & KOM is Quinton Disera with a 2:46, LL is no one!
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/36364890

This one starts a bit fast, and nothing too wild as you come around the corner, but once you start going up, you're going to be on the pedals until the top! There's some overlap with the 'A' segment as well. Please be extra careful making that right-hand turn off Jeanine onto Langvista, it's one of the few right handers we do, but you should have a pretty good line-of-sight up and down the road for traffic. Once you're around the corner, it's pretty much just a grind to the top - so don't burn up before you get there!!

Happy riding!! 

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

Chartlon wasn't steep, but
it sure seemed to go on
longer than it ought to!

This was a fun start, I think I hit
55kph in the first few seconds, and
hitting the climb at that speed sure
helped get it over with pretty fast!

That's it for this week, segment slayers!

Hope you enjoy the climbs, can't wait to see how it all unfolds!!

Safe and speedy riding all! 🚲

- Dave

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