Happy Birthday Man Down!!!

Charlie's birthday is today and as part of his celebration he got inked. Charlie held off getting tattoos up until this point in his life since he always figured he'd end up and jail and get them for free. As he keeps getting older and no sign of jail time he finally sucked it up and paid for it himself.

Happy Birthday Chuck!!!

Just a little 8 hour race ...

It has been a relatively slow summer for the Go Banana bikers. After our spectacular finish at the BC Bike Race we seem to have only managed to get out on the bikes a handfull of times ... more often than not doing some damage to ourselves.

So I was pretty excited when Keira proposed that we take a short day trip down to Kingston and ride the J & J Cycle Eight Hour Mountain Bike Classic. I figured even though I hadn't ridden in a month that the bike karma gods would cut me a bit of slack for the the six months worth of training and seven consecutive six hour bike days I had in BC.

... in short I thought "Pfffttt ... 8 hours, two people ... piece of cake!".

I've never done a tag team before but I can tell you for sure that riding a fast rolling, twisty, turny 10Km course like the J&J Classic is tons of fun ... but way more effort then the head-down zone out riding we were doing in BC. Since the course was short, I'd just get out there and power my way through, coming across the finish (through a barn!) and gratefully tag Keira so that I could head off the course and start my snack time in an attempt to re-fuel the body for the next speed round.

... of course speed is all relative. While I thought I was burning up the course, I occasionally was being lapped by these youngin's who were pretty much flying through with 30 minute lap times.

We were hoping for 10 laps, and managed to get in 9 but with the sun and the heat we couldn't have asked for a better day!

... and now a word from my tag team partner Keira:

Thomas and I decided we hadn't really spent any time along together in a year and a half so a mtn bike race seemed like a good 'together' activity. We clearly weren't thinking as tag-teaming means you get about 10 words in every 45 minutes and they're usually along the lines of "any major falls?", "did you pass team 203?". Team "Go Banana's" training regime clearly helped t-man on his laps. Unfortunately, I've never been asked to be part of the team (even though I bought Thomas his first mtn bike, make him gluten-free energy treats and supported his 6 month BC Bike Training plan, but I digress) so I don't have access to their secret training methods. I am privy only to their bacon eating secrets - which resulted in an extra ten pounds for me to carry up the hills.

Anyhow - fun race. Other riders were super friendly and the atmosphere was great. Trails are pretty rooty so the day after you remember you're not 18 anymore and that you wished you splurged and bought a full suspension bike. Actually had to wait a few seconds for a cow to get off the trail so I could pass.

New Man Down - And Out!!

My Bike Karma has run out :(

Since the snow has melted we've been biking non stop getting ready for BC Bike race and put on lots of kilometers. Throughout all this time...no injuries. Then we biked the BC Bike race, 500km of biking filled with treacherous BC singletrack.....no injuries, not even a flat (except for very sore worn out ass and whole wack of tired).

Last week while in Kanata Lakes I got a flat and my seat busted (thank GOD that didn't happen during the race), that wasn't that bad but it was foreshadowing my bike karma might be running out.

So today while going a simple ride on O'Brien in Gatineau it started to rain on our way back...not that big an issue (it was actually very refreshing). However while crossing a simple 4 foot wide bridge everything went wrong. I lifted my front tire to get on the bridge and had a little slippage of my back tire so when I got on the bridge wasn't pointing all the straight...no worries, I was a little tight to the right side of the bridge but nothing to worry about. I braked and went to put my right foot down just to make sure I didn't do anything stupid.....but when I did stupidity happened. Hard soled bike shoes on a wet wood bridge can sometime slip...and it did. My right foot slipped off the bridge and every thing else followed.

The drop was about 3 feet but from the top of my bike it's more like 5 or so into a swampy rocky stream. Due to me experience falling (both in mtb and snowboarding) I'm usually pretty good at it. I almost never put my wrists out since I know they will snap. So I brought my arms to make a cage around my head and save my face, however this caused the entire force of my fall to be taken by my elbow on a sharp rock. It cut deep! lots of blood. Luckily I had some good friends to help me up from under the bridge and patch me up. They also were nice enough to join me in a 4km walk back to the cars dragging my bike along for me and drove me to the hospital (Thanks guys!!).

The rest of the day was spent in the hospital. The Doctor was very impressed with the depth and amount of dirt in my wound. It took almost an hour to clean all the dirt out of. After that came the stitches, since the wound was so deep they had to do 2 layers of stitches one for the skin and the other for all the stuff I tore underneath that.

And then after all this...just to top it off... I got a tetanus shot.

Anyways...it sucks and my arm hurts...a lot.

If anyone wants to go for a pleasant walk in the next week or so instead of biking...I'm in.

Jason

Still Man Down

Well the BC Bike Race is complete and everyone is mending after quite a epic journey.

Thankfully Brian led us to train on hills and more hills and the BC Bike Race offered us even more. Without the Gatineau time I could never have completed this course. Thanks Mr E.

I was all ready to change my blog name from Man Down to Superstar but the images imply that I should stick with Man Down until I complete more training.

Day 7 was supposed to be easier but it was the 2nd worse day in terms of physical challenge. Starting it with this crash was the tip of the iceberg. After the fall we climbed for a few hours.





Thanks to my little son Ben for taking photos of Day 7 including these. Stay tuned on the blog for more action shots of the Banana and Orange teams.

... Man Down aka Charles Eagan

Go Banana on the Ride Guide????

After stage 2 of the BC Bike Race two of our finest, Thomas "The Fletcher" Fletcher and Charles "Man Down" Eagan were pulled aside and interviewed by none other then the Ride Guide. I imagine it must of been questions of how we dominated the stage....but seeing we finished so far back maybe not. I guess we'll have to wait until the episodes airs to see these 2 in action.

Day 7 over

Day 7 is done and we all graduated.

Here is a pic from our party at the top of Whistler.

Too many awards to list.

Thanks to all the support from the fans.

More later.

Bus again

Once again we are waiting on a bus. We are getting ready for the last ride. Here are a few things I have noticed today:
- a school bus full of guys biking and sleeping in tents for a week has an odd odor
- blue foam pads are not comfortable to sleep on
- in all the food I ate this week there was no bacon
- standing in line for a bathroom everyday sucks

Today is the final day and we will be happy to give our bums a rest. When they make the movie about this we think the following actors should play us:
Jason - Casey Afflek
Charles - Jessica Alba
Thomas - Frankie Munies - malcom in the middle
Brian - The Rock

Go banana

Brian Edmond
Crank Software Inc.

Sports fans

Day 6 is over and orange and bananas are tucked in our tents and resting for day 7.

The course was great with epic climbs and famous down hills around Squamish. Very technical and steep.

In short we all did well.

Jason was technical king blowin by tons of groups. Now we will have ego issues.

Brian and Thomas climbed like goats.

Brian became a tree hugger instead of falling in a ravine. He was saying something about wanting his mommy.

Even Thomas the great fell but he also rocked it. (his words)

I also rode. Jason as a partner is suboptimal so I will not race with him again. Left me to cry alone.

Tomorrow we rock Whistler.

Good night John-boy.

Day 5

Today was a long day with lots of singletrack and climbing. At the 15 km point I broke a chain followed by my derailler hanger. We were pretty much done except when all hope was lost a fellow racer asked if we needed help and he had a hanger that fit my bike! After fixing the four of us headed to the second aid station and just hit the cutoff with 10 min to spare. We fueled up and started another climb. There was a lot of fun singletrack at the end but we were pretty tired. I went over my bars and Charles fell off a rather large bridge.

We the ended the day by missing the ferry. We caught the next one and then had ice cream.

On to day 6

Brian
Brian Edmond
Crank Software Inc.

Day 5 - ok.... now my butt is sore

Today reminded me that I use to like biking :) just joking but the course was a little kinder and involved some good singletrack.

I have learn't a few things during this race
- never let Charles tell you how easy any day will be. They are all hard and always have some grueling section to them.
- single track coming down a mountain isn't always fast and swoopy. I've had do hard work to get through the soft BC forest floor.
- distance means nothing. It seems we are always out there for a good length of time, well Charles and I for sure.

Other notables
- Brian rode a log
- Charles' hands are really sore
- Thomas and I are both suffering from diaper rash
- Charles is a closet climbing machine
- go banana needs trading cards
- we are over half done this race

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BC ferries - and I'm not talking about "Go Banana"

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4:30 AM

So this morning if ferry day so we got up at 4:30. This photo of Jason says it all. We are on the school bus ride now.

What time is it : game time.!

Brian Edmond
Crank Software Inc.

Jason crossing river

Day 3 done.

Hills - single track - rivers.

Jason was modelling for a magazine.

Heading on ferry to mainland for ride tomorrow
.

Day 3

One would think 80km would be easy after 130km ... However today was a hard day of climbing and topped off with 15 km of single track. The bananas and oranges split today and the bananas were in at 6:12 while the oranges rode in at 7:30, although the oranges seemed to want more single track and rode an extra 5km. All and all things went well but I did hate the fresh cut trail and fell off one of the bridges, Jason and Charles were not there to tell me what to do. Thomas also took a tumble but he was just trying to impress the girl behind us.

4 days to go, go banana

Brian Edmond
Crank Software Inc.

River crossing live

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Dinner at the BC bike race

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Day 2 - post shower

Well....it's done. Today was kinda a how do we get everyone over there day where there is some singletrack day. So inorder to this they had us travel some 123km of fire and logging roads straight through Vancouver island. It was long and boring. However at the end we were rewarded with 2-3km of singletrack.

The highlight of the day was being interviewed by the ride guide. So hopefully go banana will be featured.

Also to note, today go banana decided to forgo the glory of being mid pack and decided to join go orange in their back of the pack placement. Stay tuned to see what go banana does tomorrow.

Going to go sleep now before I need to wake up and go biking tomorrow.

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Day 2

These legs have just biked 125km of BC logging roads and they are tired. More to come after I shower.

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Go banana breakfast

Of course it includes bananas
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Hopefully today is better

Yesterday's ride involverd showing up at both aid stations and being told there was no water, and it was 38 degress out. We were baked. We are told they doubled the number of water stations, but the really issue is if there will be water at them???

Aside from the dehydration the riding was fun up until the anger set in.

Day 2 is 125km and it will be extra hot out there....awesome!
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Water crisis

So here Thomas and I are at the second aid station waiting for water. We have been waiting for 10 minutes and no eta. Lots of heat and single track today. Bit of heat stroke but that is all.

Make that 30 min ...

Brian Edmond
Crank Software Inc.

Day Zero!!! - The final countdown

Closer....closer....so close I can taste it!

We are here at the site of day 1 for the BC bike race and have successfully registered ourselves, aquired our free booty (another name for pirate treasure), and checked our bikes in for their last day of relaxing.

Next step....dinner. Luckily we've been training for this one for the last two days (Keira's parents have been extra gracious to us and have feed us better then a 5 star buffet). After that there is the race brief which will hopefully help us in our quest to not get eaten by anything and finish the race.

For the gamblers in the crowd looking for insider info to help with the line on the race
- Thomas is feeling a little fluish
- Charle's last minute fix to his fork seems to have been successful
- Brian seems to be clear of saddle sores
- Jason is 6 foot 3

Call your booky and get your bets in!

That's all for now, but stay toon for constant updates. Maybe even a mid ride post.



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5 pounds

5 pounds that is the weight we put on in the last 2 days. We have arrived in BC and decided that eating was the best thing to do before the race.

Things are hopeful other that Charles broken fork and Thomas fever. Don't worry though Jason and I are fine.

Off to the race today

Brian
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So ... this is what hot is like!

"I think that I'm melting"

Those were pretty much the shared sentiments from this past weekend Saturday training ride. In training for the BC Bike Race, Team Go Banana and Team Go Orange have fallen into a steady rhythm for the long weekend rides (typically from 4 to 6 hours, 70 - 100km):

• Arrive at designated meeting location .... grumble about how early it is
• Pretend to stretch ... grumble about "going breakfast instead"
• Get on bike ... grumble about biking in general
• Ride for several hours and many kilometers ... more random grumbling
• Stop ... end of grumble

This weekend, there was more to grumble about: "The heat". Heat and humidity were the highest they have been yet this season ... and the training stops for no weather.

I think that we have either been spoiled by the relatively cool weather this year or perhaps have been in a zone and can't believe that we've actually been biking steadily for the last three/four mouths and it is only now that we are hitting the heat. After a couple of hours, it felt like we had been riding for twice as long and we called it quits at 65K.

Team concensus ... let's hope that it isn't hot and humid in BC!

Thomas

175 km

175km, that is the combined distance for the weekend. The snow is melting and the weather is getting better so time for a ride.

On Saturday I decided to take a road ride out to Burrits Rapids. It was a really nice day but there was a lot of wind on the way home, Fernbank road was not my friend that day. It was a nice 3:30 ride covering 96km.

On Sunday I joined 2 other Bananas, Thomas and Jason, for a hilly ride around Gatineau. We started bright and early at 7am and let me tell you it is still cold at 7am. We headed out to Gatineau across Notch road, up Kingsmere, Fortune and finally to the end of Meech Lake road. It was very odd to see cyclists, runners, XC skiers and downhill skiers all on the same ride. Aside from some frozen toes and a mishap at the bottom of Fortune the ride went well. We covered 79km in about 3:45 on our Mountain Bikes. Here is the ride info:

X-Country Skiing

This is a 20 KM ski we did last weekend. Started at P10 in the Gatineau, headed up Fortune and turned right at Shilly Shally to Champlain lookout. We then took the road back from the lookout past the turn off for Fortune and jumped on trail 17 which is a backcountry trail and a lot of fun. This trail took us to the look out just above P7 were we grabbed the number 1 back to Fortune parkway and we had a nice downhill ski back to P10. Good Times!!!


View Larger Map

Training Update

Training for a bike race in Ottawa in the winter is a daunting activity. You spend most of the time riding the trainer, zoneing out thinking about what it would be like to be outside instead of in the gym, garage or basement ... and not moving.





To start this training season off, I'm working my way through the Lord of the Rings extended DVD collection. That will give me a good week of trainer "warm up riding" before I have to start onto the gruelling Coach Troy series of regimented DVD training rides. With titles like Sweating Buckets, Hillatious and my personal favourite Have Mercy you know that these indoor rides are just going to be a laugh a minute.





Of course, while I'm toiling on the trainer in my basement, dreaming of fresh air against my face, a few fellow Team Go Banana riders decided to revolt.

Brian, Jason and Charles combined business with pleasure and headed to Nevada for a false flats training ride day in the hills around Las Vegas.


Nice work boys ... but Jason you seem to have lost your shirt!

Oh well ... back to the basement for me, I hear Suffer-O-Rama calling my name.

Thomas