Plans Fell Through

So no Canadian nationals for me. Or I'm 95% certain that this won't happen. The technical guide was published on May 31st and under eligibility it reads that "Master age riders must race in their age category". 2600 km driving in one weekend, plus few hotel nights and other related expenses for 120 km masters 30-39 race...no thanks. Apparently my UCI class will be master if I'm over 30 and don't hold a pro license. I asked for clarification, but haven't heard anything back and the race is in three weeks. It seems odd to me, but this wouldn't be the only backwards thing in Canadian cycling.

I would have probably had my arse handed over to me anyway, but that would be good every now and then. I've been gaining power quite nicely over past weeks, actually my power shot up after Bikes on Broadway, but that doesn't mean that I could finish the nationals road race. I've had 0 contact to real racing since 2005 or 2006 and being relatively fast locally gives no indication of my actual form. I've heard rumors of guys pushing +400 average watts in finnish races in a breakaway for an hour. Knowing the race course, that must be in the range of 450-500 watts while pedaling. That's lots of W in my humble opinion. By numbers I'm quite a bit stronger than 4 years ago, but I guess the rest of the world has been training as well.

Next weekend will be the Falcon Down MTB race at Falcon Lake. It appears to be the fourth race of the Manitoba XC cup, so while I thought that I missed just the Brandon race, I might have missed another race as well. Need to check. Falcon Lake is bit closer to home so no need to drive for half a day. This might be the only race where full suspension would help, but in anticipation of Back 40 I swapped the parts to my hardtail. But my 1x9 hardtail climbs much better than the tank fully so should be good times. I'll miss the Tuesday night Stony Mountain crit though because I'll be in Chicago this week. After few crash fests and recent lame riding, I don't think that I'll miss that much, but I kinda like the hill on that crit course even if it's not quite enough to break the group.