Cycling in Canada

I've been riding bikes for about 5 years, with the last 2 being quite serious. This year I decide to join a club and enter some races. It seems that cycling is one those sports you can't just participate in. In order to be legit, you must be on a team and be training for something specific. I could resist no longer so I joined the Speed Theory team.



We were supposed to ride a TT today because there are so many Cat 5's on the team and we need to rank them for training rides. However, since it's March and we're in Canada there is snow on the roads and it's below zero out. I think we managed one day of spring on Friday with temps in yhe 10's or so. Now the TT is postponed indefinitely and we're relegated back to riding indoors on our trainers.

You've got to be mentally tough to ride in Canada. The 6 months of winter are spent riding indoors watching horrible movies that never should have been made. The summers in southern Alberta are spent riding outside in a swirling head/tail wind that seems to follow you around. It's not easy battling the winds coming over the Rockies all the time. Just when I think it can't get any windier, I am proven wrong.



On Saturday, I was out with a buddy and the weather changed out of nowhere and we got slaughtered by a massive wind. It was so powerful that we were almost blown over riding up some hills. It got so cold that we stopped early and called in for rides home. My face was so frozen that I could barely talk. It was like I had been to the dentist. All in all it was an adventurous Saturday, but I would not knowingly go out in massive wind and plummeting temps again.


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