Hello.....Buck?

It's been a while since my last blog. What inspired it you may ask? One or two e-mails a day over the past few weeks to bucker@cyclingteam.info, asking me, "Where ya been? How’s the form?" So I thought I'd tell everyone what I'm up to, because no one likes mass e-mails, I find they're rather impersonal.

After the epic, grueling Louis Garneau Montreal-Quebec Classic, coach Andrew and I decided I needed some time off. Not just an 8-10 hour week of easy riding, we're talking about some serious get away, and cleanse-the-mind time. I was already near the Ottawa Valley region staying with my Grandma in a small very quiet town of 1,000 people, called Cobden. I don't get to see Grandma too often, so I thought I'd hang out; catch up on some Hemmingway and crossword puzzles, all while keeping my Grandma company. I can't say I didn't ride, because my Grandma's got a sweet old CCM single speed, with a basket and full fenders. So when I wanted to "get a few miles in" I'd cruise around town and maybe stop at the lake, and then slowly putt home.

I didn't want my dear Grandmother to get too sick of me, so I figured I'd take advantage of Cobden's wicked white water on the Ottawa River, only minutes from the house. So I signed up to go River Boarding with Esprit Rafting, on the Quebec side. With a helmet, a life jacket, a big foam board a little longer than my torso and some big flippers, off I went. The river boarding started pretty mellow, and I was starting to wonder what I paid for, but that was a short lived feeling. We ended up going down both channels of the river through all sorts of serious white water. We only skipped one rapid, as the guide said it was a class 5. I was a little worried I'd smoke a rock somewhere in the river and end up breaking my leg or something, but no such thing happened, just a massive charlie horse close to the end of the day.

If you have a chance to try this wherever you are, do it! Explaining it here doesn't do it justice. It was a blast and I even ended up meeting a fellow cyclist from St.Catharines, named Bruce Scott. Bruce was just enjoying a holiday with two of his daughters, staying a day longer to do some white water rafting. I'll have to ask Bruce which was more fun, because I think we both know which is harder on the body!

So, after a little more than a week off the bike, and the batteries recharged, it's time to get ready for San Fran, the hardest one day race this side of Europe (in my opinion). Training is full of hard intervals, push-ups and sit-up's to help get up the crazy steep climbs.

Up next, for my first race in 3 weeks, is the Chris Thater Memorial race in Binghamton, NY. With $20,000 25 places deep, there’s going to be some hungry riders, and I’ll be one of them.