We're continuing to grow, which is amazing to see! We're at over 160 people in the Strava group, which seems bonkers, and this week we welcomed 4 totally new people, over 40 people rode this week, and nearly 70 people have ridden at least one segment this season! It was a fairly tough week of segments to join up, but glad you're all with us!

There's more climbs on the agenda this week, more on that shortly - and fortunately so are the segments! 😂

On a side note, pretty impressive day in the Tour (hopefully not spoiling this for anyone!) Really amazing to see Canadian Michael Woods winning a stage. And locally, his teammate Riley Pickrell also handily won the Windsor Park crit today. Don't know if anyone else noticed this, but while two others were full-on sprinting, Riley simply cruised by them at the line. It's pretty incredible what level the Pro-tour riders are at. (And nice meeting a few of you there today too!)

And anyone joined Threads? Kinda funny timing given my SplatterGrambook Social bit last week. 😂

HOUSEKEEPING

Notes for the week:

No major updates this week, thanks to a rider for pointing out some of the Female C results were askew, and that's been corrected - guess I gotta reset the counter.

Hopefully all good for this week, and that's about it for now!

00 <- 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

I've got Sufjan Stevens crooning into my ears as I'm working on this, and specifically his Illinois album. I'm a pretty big Sufjan fan, he's got a particularly quirky album, A Sun Came, which is one of my all-time favourite albumes, but probably wouldn't appeal to most. Illinois would be a good intro tho. Very cross-genre and eclectic, but overall alt/indie rock vibe. 🎶

THIS WEEK IN RIDES

The A's

A-Town remains sparse, although I'm happy to see two riders join the ranks!

Blows were exchanged this week between our top riders, and on the 3A segment K :) had the advantage by a second, and The Squaremeat had the slightest edge on the steeper 3B segment, winning that by...a second.. Wow. Welcome back Mikayla Neal, who took 3rd, but is always a dark horse on these!! Also worth noting is these two beat everyone but Julian, and tying times with Travis Field. Inspiring efforts. 💪💪

Julian was back and as mentioned took both top times, adding two more KOMs to his collection as well! Also welcome to Elijah Buffalo who opened his Segment Challenge account this week!

The B's

Our B ladies welcomed Ann Campbell who just happened to ride one of the segments this week and was encouraged to join! 😉 Laura took top honours this week, second week in a row, and Jenn R claimed a 2nd and 3rd, and Ann's effort locked her into 2nd on the B segment. Let's get a few more of the B women back out there!

The Open B field grew by 5 this week, including two newcomers!

Travis Field was back in top form, claiming the fastest time on both segments!

Peter had emailed me asking if I was riding, but I suggested he do this week's segments, and a few hours later I was regretting my suggestion when he posted his times, taking 2nd on Amblewood Lap and 3rd on the Wind-Up! (Seriously tho, impressive times!!) Travis Orr cashed in on 3rd on Amblewood as well, tying Peter's time. Tyler Venn also had a crackling time up Wind-Up, with the 2nd fastest there as well. Nice efforts fellas, there were tons more impressive times, but limited space here!

The C's

Our ladies C field continues to grow, with three new riders this week! Glad to see you all out!! One rider claimed both top steps however, congrats Suzy! Heidi earned a 3nd, and newcomer Tijana 3rd on Amblewood, and over on the Wind-up Kathy wasn't far behind Suzy, and Heidi secured another podium spot as well. This field is starting to heat up! 🔥

Our C guys mixed it up as well, with Mike claiming the fastest time on Amblewood, Kit and Juan nipping at his heels. But the steeper Wind-up suited Juan with Mike and Kit keeping him honest.

BONUSES & CURSES

Congrats again to Julian for taking both KOMs, so 10pts for him! K :) and The Squaremeat both claimed a QOM so 5pt to each of them.

If my comment earlier was missed, the Early Bird has gotten a bit more complicated, since Strava stopped showing the time riders roll out at...so this week I drew randomly from the 7 riders who locked in their times on Monday, and newcomer Sasa was drawn and gets 5pts for that. I've got an idea for this week that might 'resolve' this, but if not I'll continue to draw from names that lock in their ride on Mondays just fyi.

I ended up losing 5pts for becoming the Local Legend on the Wind-up...the curse of creating the segments! haha The Secret Times were 4:48 and 5:26, which didn't come up once again. I didn't see any tags this week, so no Socialite points were awarded.

PRIZES!

This week's prizes are the remaining items from Cycles West, with some fantastic items remaining!

Looking at the group numbers, I've drawn 6 names, 1x A rider, 3x B's and 2x C, and our lucky peeps are:

Mikayla Neal

Travis Orr
Glennon Rosenbloom
Ron Mierau 🇨🇦

Kathy M 🇨🇦
Mike Hofmann

Congrats! I'll email you all privately later tonight with details, note that the first to reply will get their top prize choices!

For Week #4, I'll be giving out goodies from Oak Bay Bikes and Broad St Cycles!

Big thanks to all our supporters, there've been some prizes added so check out the updated prize list!!

https://abouttheride.ca/victoria-segment-challenge-season-2-prize-list/

Week #4 - July 10th - 16th - Old West Shoot-Outs

This week we're headed to the south... South end of Old West Saanich!

Two brand new segments which are once again very close to each other on quiet side streets. Both are short efforts, not too steep, one will be familiar to long-time KOMppers, and the other has a fun little twist at the start... I expect we'll see new KOMs and QOMs on both!

Segment 4A Name: Spin it up Linnet
Deets: 0.85km, 26m elevation gain.
This is a new segment, QOM is Caieigh Filmer with a 2:25, KOM is Ross Johnson with a 1:39, there is no LL.
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/34800325

This one was a bit controversial, as we bombed down Linnet, but there was an S-bend that made for a blind corner, which wasn't great at speed..! But this time we're going up, it rolls a bit but ought to be over before you know it.

Segment 4B Name: Strava's Darlings of Starling
Deets: 0.5km, 26m elevation gain.
This is a new segment, QOM is Tijana Fazlagic with a 2:38, KOM is Scott Mitchell with a 1:44, there is no LL.
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/34800259

I see 5 of us have been on Starling including newcomer Tijana Fazlagic who's the current QOM! This is right next door to Linnet, shorter, and has a twist at the start, literally.

Since there's a distance limit to creating segments, my options on here were to end it around the corner, or make it a hair-pin turn at the start....so we're going with the latter! Basically you're going to want to roll to the end of the road (it's a downhill) and make a 180 turn at the end and head back up, with valuable seconds to be made in how well you can make that turn. There's a good kick pretty much right away, but then levels out, so save a bit for the end. Who's going to end up the top Darlings of Starling? 🤩

Happy riding!! 🚵‍♀️

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

A QOM effort captured live!
...until Kat had her turn!

A very uninspired name as you grind around
this corner - Hillwood! 😂🤢

Thanks for tuning this week, note that the following week (#5) will be a 'rest week', and the two segments won't count any times or bonuses, but will be fun destinations to simply ride for 50pts each, so you won't want to miss out!

Safe and speedy riding all! 🚲

- Dave

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