It really was no rest for the wicked, lots going on!

There were a smaller number of people hitting the segments this week, do y'all dislike when it's not a lung-searing, leg-shredding max effort? 😂

We're back to it this week, and there's less climbing, with more of a sprint, and what I'm calling a 'technical ITT', that's twisty and features ups and downs, hope you enjoy!

I mentioned last week that I'm co-hosting a Road Climbing Clinic with local pro Holly Henry this Saturday, registration and details are now on the site, hope you join us, I'm sure it'll be informative for new and experienced riders! (And if the date doesn't work, feel free to let me know, we may do a second later in the summer.)

The Tour de France wrapped up today, what an exciting three weeks!! The TdF Femmes started today too, and had a thrilling final 10k, looking forward to the next week of racing!

And finally for the cyclocross fans, there's a special mid-summer memorial race on Thursday at Diver Lake in Nanaimo, details here.

HOUSEKEEPING

Notes for the week:

Paging Rafael Castillo Henao - please sign up on the website if you'd like your times/results to be included!

A few minor errors in the scoring, but I accidentally gave Curran Crawford credit for the efforts of Colin Daniels last week, sorry about that, I glanced at the wrong line in the spreadsheet! Resetting the tracker! 😬

00 <- THIS MANY WEEKS WITHOUT AN ERROR 🤣

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

SPONSORS AD

This week's Premium Sponsor is...

Okay, the Onion really beat me to the punch with this one. 😂😂😂

SOUNDTRACK NOTES

A couple albums were released this week that I was particularly interested in!

Andrew Bird had a new release, but it's an instrumental, and honestly am not crazy about it.

Blur is back, with The Ballad of Darren, it's been a few years! It's very much Blur, but I'd describe it as more 'mature', and features much less fun or quirk as previous albums, at least on the first couple listens..we'll have to see how it grows on me, but at the moment I'd say it's not quite up to their previous albums. 🎶

THIS WEEK IN RIDES

Since it's just a recovery week, let's highlight the series overall rankings!

The A's

No changes in the A's this week, although there may be a new challenger in the Female category...if she ever gets around to signing up! 😂

K :) remains on the top step with The Squaremeat and Mikayla N chasing her.

Julian is probably insurmountable, but there's still plenty of time for others to round out the podium, get out there!!

The B's

Laura's got a pretty firm lead in the Female B field, the only to ride the segments this week, so Jenn R, Shannon and Ann remain unchanged in their positions.

The Open B field saw a fair bit of shuffling, and Tyler V continues to hold the top spot, I'm not far behind in 2nd, and Adam jumped up a position into 3rd. Travis F and Ryan T also moved up a couple spots to 4th & 5th. Travis O, Glen, Dave B and Joel C are also not far off, and David T appears to have climbed the most spots from around 17th to 10th! In the other direction Alex LJ seems to have taken the biggest hit, dropping from 5th to 11th in missing out on the points this week.

The C's

Our fantastic C ladies were mostly unchanged, Suzy still holds top spot by just over 20pts over Kathy (who I believe rides these on a gravel bike, but has threatened to break out the road bike!) Lani moved up to 3rd, swapping places with Wendy. Heidi holds onto 5th, and Bonnie jumped up several places to 6th, but Tijana is just 3pts behind her, so will have to watch out!

A bit of shuffling with the C fellas, Kit still sits in 1st up by over 20pts, but Tyler G is now in 2nd, moving up a place, as well as Juan in 3rd. Mikael didn't ride this week, and that dropped him from 2nd to 5th, the the remaining riders remain unchanged.

And again, since it was the Rest Week, all bonuses and curses are null and void.

PRIZES!

This week's prizes are the items from the Trek Bicycle Store!

This round draw prizes have 5 items going to 1x A, 2x B and 2x C categories, and our lucky riders are:

The Squaremeat

Colin Daniels
Travis Field

Wendy Taylor
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 #6, I'll be giving out goodies from Trek Bicycle Store and ~3x Goldstream Bikes $20 Gift Cards!

As always a big thank you to all our supporters, check out the prize list!!

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

Week #6 - July 24th - 30th - The Fast & The Curious

This week we've got some fun segments for you; the first will be a fast one on a road you've probably never even noticed. The second is a road you've all ridden by, and some of you have been up and down (especially the gravel inclined), but I think it's a fantastic side-road and I've created a neat little 'technical time trial' segment based on this, with some fun ups and downs and turns, and both are just off Interurban near Camosun!

Segment 6A Name: Liberto loophole
Deets: 1.06km, 15m elevation gain.
This is an existing segment, QOM is Deborah LeBlanc with a 2:17, KOM is benjamin moore with a 1:50, Local Legend is Vegan Dave Shishkoff, with 1 effort. (And according to Strava only 9 people in the group have ridden this segment!)
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/17303330

I'm sure many have enjoyed the Conway/Hector detour loop (check it out if you haven't), but I've ridden by Liberto every time, until recently...and it's a fun little stretch! Apparently the opposite direction has been featured in the Tour de Vic, but I like this direction (off Hector) because you carry a fair bit of speed. Pretty sure we'll see the QOM & KOM change hands a few times, and be sure to enjoy the 'whoop' near the end!

Segment 6B Name: Logan's Run - a Viaduct ITT
Deets: 3.17km, 82m elevation gain.
This is a new segment, QOM is none, KOM is Vegan Dave Shishkoff with an 8:40, Local Legend is none.
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/34913826

I think this will be a fun one due to more technical elements. I wanted to use much more of Viaduct (start further back, and end much further down Viaduct), but I think there's just a bit too much chance to catch a vehicle (and a few blind corners!), but this is still plenty of road!

Currently only 4 people have ever ridden this routing, and even tho I was cruising pretty slowly when I made the segment, I still ended up with the KOM (I'll be losing 5pts for the Yellow Jersey curse, I'm certain of that!) It starts right by the park sign, then you swing right, and it's a pretty cool climb upwards, at the top is a turn-around, and then you get to bomb back down (watch the left turn, but there's good sight lines, and next to no traffic), and continue on to the end of Viaduct, then a hairpin u-turn, and back to where you started. Will be neat to see how fast people can do on here!

Happy riding!! 🚵‍♀️

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

Oops! Forgot to take a pic of the
actual segment, so here's Liberty
from just around the corner!

Thanks for tuning in, hope you're all refreshed after our Rest Week, and looking forward to cheering you all on with this week's segments!!

Safe and speedy riding all! 🚲

- Dave

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