Courtesy of Paul Loewen at hotpursuit2010.com
Many people have asked whether the Team CMU kit will be available to purchase.
The short answer is yes. If there is sufficient interest, we will order more of them. The price for the full kit (jersey and shorts) is around $100.
They look good and make you go real fast, as these photos of Craig and Kevin demonstrate:
If you are interested, simply let us know by sending an email here. We will be in touch re: sizes, etc. later.
Ideally, we would place an order in early August so that they can be here in time for Menno Cross, CMU’s annual cyclocross race.
See John Brubacher giving Arvid a hug on page B2 of today’s paper. There is also a longer article in the online edition. Read it here.
It was posted this morning, but obviously written before the race was finished. So it’s a little dated. That is why we had Aaron along. To provide prompt articles and an avalanche of tweets. Look for his wrap-up article, coming soon.
After hours of calculations and crunching, we think we will be at the Manitoba Legislature at 2am, Central Time (Winnipeg). Come say hi.
If that changes, we will update again at Portage la Prairie.
TGE
We are just West of Brandon. We will give our Winnipeg ETA from Brandon and then again from Portage la Prairie. If you wanna come hang out with us at the Perimeter (and maybe ride to the Legislature with us) please pay your closest attention to this website. We’re not talking Sunday School paying attention, we’re talking Theology of Peace and Justice paying attention. Make it your homepage, refresh it every four minutes. Do what you gotta do. This is gonna be fun, I promise.
- TGE
It is now 11:39 pm CST and dark outside. It is also raining. And there is the occasional flash of lightning on the horizon. Craig and John B are out alternating shifts. John was climbing the hill heading out of Salmon Arm at 10pm CST. The RV stopped in at CMU alumni Andrea and Kelly Guenther’s place for laundry, showers, tea. Very, very awesome! Thanks again Andrea.
We are feeling good and, aside from two flat tires, things seem to be going well. The mountains aren’t that scary, at least when you divvy them up between five people. Before the rain started, our average speed was just under 35 kmh. That is quite a bit higher than we anticipated. So far so good.
Our man for the photo and video (Darryl Neusdaedter-Barg) joins us tomorrow morning. He has just finished playing a concert in Portland, Ore. He is now (or will shortly be) on his way to Seattle, where Jonathan Neufeld will drive him to the airport in Vancouver to catch a 7am flight. He arrives in Calgary at 9am, where Adam Beriault will pick him up and drive him toward us. It is all very complicated. But Hot Pursuit is a multifaceted and extremely complex endeavor.
Starting at noon tomorrow, we promise we will have more photos and videos for you all. For now, please be satisfied with the accomplished tweeting of Aaron Epp.
President Gerbrandt wishes class of 2006′s peer-voted “most likely to ride a bike” a successful first leg. (click here to download high res image)
Prairie boy, meet Rockie mountains. KK's first look at what is up and coming in the next few days.
Team CMU makes last-minute preparations for Hot Pursuit
Strategizing, nervousness and laughter mark day of preparation in B.C.
WHITE ROCK, B.C.—The members of Team CMU gathered in White Rock, B.C. Saturday, July 17 at 9 a.m. CST to watch Arvid Loewen embark on his journey to Winnipeg.
“So, we’ll see you guys on the road somewhere – maybe,” Loewen said with a laugh to CMU cyclists Chris Huebner, Craig Penner, John Brubacher, Jon Guenter and Kevin Kilbrei.
It was a quiet beginning for Hot Pursuit, which promises to be an epic race across Western Canada. At 9 a.m. CST on Sunday, July 18, the CMU team will start its own journey, relay-style, in a bid to catch up with Loewen at some point and overtake him.
Two other relay teams – one made up of two cyclists from the Winnipeg Police Service and the other made up of four “grannies” from Calgary – are also in on the race.
Fourteen hours after his journey began, Loewen had travelled 396 km. and made it to Chase, B.C. He travelled at an average speed of 28.1 km/h., according to his website, HotPursuit2010.com.
“I’m nervous,” Craig Penner admitted.
A degree of nervousness was palpable each time the cyclists and support crew of Team CMU gathered on July 17. There’s no doubt these cyclists are taking the race seriously.
They’re also taking Loewen’s formidable ultra marathon skills seriously – no one on Team CMU sees this as an easy-win situation.
But as Team CMU shopped for groceries, discussed strategy, ate together and took in the excitement of Tour de White Rock – a day of bike races in this beautiful coastal town – there was also an air of excitement.
The next three-and-a-half days are going to be hard, but they’re going to be fun. Lighthearted exchanges like the following were common:
“I’m not going to shave my legs, but I think I’m going to shave my chest,” Jon Guenter joked about his personal preparations for the race.
“I was just going to shower in Nair,” John Brubacher replied.
Over a supper of fish and chips, the cyclists of Team CMU drew numbers to decide the order they’ll ride in.
It will be Penner, followed by Brubacher, Killbrei, Guenter and Huebner. Two riders will alternate every half hour for two hours at a time, followed by the next two riders who will repeat the process.
A van and a RV are the support vehicles and will provide a place for the cyclists to rest and eat in between shifts. Harry Huebner, Abe G. Bergen, Derek Bergen, Zach Peters and Thomas Epp will take turns driving the vehicles, with Darryl Neustaedter Barg and Aaron Epp on hand to document the journey.
“I feel pretty good,” team captain Chris Huebner said at the end of the day July 17. “We’ll find out. It’s hard to know which part of what I’m feeling is nerves, which part is excitement and which part is adrenaline.
“At this point, I just want to hit the road.”
That’s a bit how it felt for Team CMU on Saturday.
Arvid left promptly at 7am sharp. As usual, he had a big smile on his face, as if to suggest that he had a few tricks tucked up the sleeves of his brand new jersey.
And then we spent the rest of the day getting ready. And maybe getting a little nervous.
We ate some breakfast and made some plans.
We went on a rather large grocery shopping trip.
We went for a short bike ride. And then we watched Winnipeg’s own Leah Kirchmann (third wheel, in red) finish 3rd in the Tour de White Rock.
And we wrapped up the day with some enormous and extremely greasy servings of fish and chips.
Are we ready? We think so. We will find out soon. As we go to sleep, Arvid is already well beyond Kamloops. We have some work ahead of us. Craig will get things started at 7am (9am Winnipeg time). Check back to follow our progress.
Aside from the fact that it pits relay teams against a lone solo rider, it is different in a number of other ways as well. Ultra-endurance cycling is an entirely different beast than the popular three week stage races known as the grand tours. Both are extremely hard. But they are hard in different ways. Watch the explanation by Paul Loewen, below, to get a better sense of the challenge that lies ahead for those of us doing Hot Pursuit. Of course, the challenges facing the competitors in Hot Pursuit are different too. Arvid has to keep a steady pace going forever. And the teams need to maintain a faster pace by optimizing their shifts.
