Submitted by Karen Brems, Team Director, on 5/31/10
With a short lull in the NRC schedule, Erinne got to race in her own backyard in BC.
Here is her report:
This weekend was the Robert Cameron Law Corporation Cycling Series. It consisted of three great races put on by local sponsors and the field was the best cyclists of BC. It was a great opportunity to race in my home town with a strong field and many family and friend supporters! Friday night was the Trek Pro City Bear Mountain Hill Climb where we raced the clock up a grueling 3.3km and 10% hill. I’m not sure but I think I set the women’s record with a time of 8:33 which would have placed me 8th in the men’s field behind local pros like Ryder Hesjedal and Rob Britton.
Saturday morning we woke up early and all gathered in Sooke for the Russ Hay's Sooke Classic Road Race Presented by The Condo Group, which was not only one of the most beautiful courses I’ve done because it winds along the west coast of the island, it is also very hard and this weekend it doubled as the BC Provincial Championships. Unfortunately, it is of course the West Coast and the potential of rain is still very high in May and of course as luck goes it was dry at the start and we all tossed our rain jackets and then as we rolled out 5 mins down the road it started dumping and never let up. It was head wind, raining and miserable on the way out and the hills were not as significant as I had thought. Therefore other than a few breaks, it was pretty mellow and I’m sure people were having many conversations in their heads saying “I should quit... no I can’t....” Luckily immediately after the turn around it was now tail wind, downhill and ‘game on’. The BC Teams did a fabulous job of attacking me nonstop. Total Restoration and Trek Red Truck were launching attacks everywhere, and with the rain and fog it was very hard to follow wheels or see who was going up the road.
Eventually 3 girls (2 Total Restoration and 1 Trek Red Truck) got up the road. The Keller Rohrback team put a girl on the front to chase until Jordan River. At Jordan River, Amy Dearden and I set the pace up the hill and got a group of 4 who worked to catch the break. Now we were 7. Up the French Beach (which was the last big climb) I attacked and got off solo but then Jessica Hannah caught up on the descent and because we weren’t working well together we eventually got caught by rest. So for the last 15km I had 3 Total Restoration girls attacking me one after the other, and they never stopped. I knew I had to chase them and I also knew I still had a chance for the win since the last 1km was uphill. So once I hit the last 1km I went to the front and set the hardest pace I could. After 15km of chasing constant attacks I have say it wasn’t incredibly fast but fortunately I still had enough in the tank to hold them off. I finally won my first Elite BC Provincial Championships!!!
I was extremely happy that the rain stopped for Sunday as it was the La-Z-Bay Bastion Square Grand Prix and the crowds were out in full force! This has always been a great event in Victoria for the past 17 years and I was lucky this year to be able to race in my home town and with such a strong field of women and a great crowd of family, friends and supporters. My Uncle was the La-Z-Boy sponsor, my husband was announcing up stage, my coach was present and a hat-trick was possible if all the stars aligned.
The race started fast and never let up for the whole 45 laps. With about 10 laps into the race, Leah Guloien had a small gap that had grown to maybe only 5 or 10 seconds. I knew Leah was strong and could work in a break (which was what I wanted) so I did a big attacked and bridged the gap. Now we had 5 girls, all from different teams in the break. I did some work initially to get the break moving and then organized the girls to roll through together. I kept on saying “Let’s lap the field!” so we did! First time I’ve ever lapped the field and it was pretty exciting. We caught them with about 13 laps to go. Unfortunately though this allowed the other 4 girls in the break to recover for 10 laps. The field did their sprint finish with 3 laps to go, which Andrea Bunnin won and then the 5 of us duked it out for the last 3 laps. Naomi Cooper of Trek Red Truck attacked first and I went with 1 lap to go and had a good gap of like 4 bike lengths on Leah but they reeled me in and around the last corner she outsprinted me for the well known leather recliner La-Z-Boy chair that I really wanted in my living room.... But I hope Leah enjoys it.
Anyhow, the fun weekend of racing came to an end and after the men’s race we all went out for a late lunch at one of the many restaurants near Bastion Square.
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