April 14, 2026Over the winter Edmonton opened a new velodrome and I have been taking advantage of my Velocity club membership to ride it weekly. It’s great having an indoor place to get together with other cyclists and go fast with no brakes. I haven’t crashed yet.
And though it’s fun to keep riding and keep the legs working, I’m much happier to be out riding on the road again. Our club did a warmup 70km ride to kick off the outdoor season on Saturday, and I feel like I should have gone with the fast group. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not actually fast, but maybe it’d be good to push myself a bit more.
May 30, 2024 This week I’ve had some good rides. There was the Velocity social ride last Saturday in which I risked going with the fast group and I did not die. I was not the fastest in that group and I was working hard, but it went pretty well. It was my second fastest time for 50k.
I’ve been to both the (uncancelled) Fat Tire Tuesday races down in Terwillegar park and have been very slow on my mountain bike. I do tend to prefer riding that bike for the joy of movement rather than pushing pushing pushing myself, but it’s a good non-comfort-zone kind of experience. And getting smoked by teenagers gives me good practice for the cyclocross season.
April 25, 2024 It is almost the end of April in 2024 and my Strava account says I’m in better shape than I was at any point last year. I’ve been out for a couple of VCC rides this season where it’s been about 11 degrees and I wore my tights and seemed to fit in pretty well.
In the first week there was a fast group and a slow group, which I definitely knew I should stick with (Strava number notwithstanding). My suspicions were justified the next week when chatting with one of the riders who’d been in the first week fast group. Apparently their average speed wasn’t that crazy, but they’re so strong in the wind. Some of them used to be Cat 1 racers so yeah, best shape of my life is still going to leave me in a puddle by the side of the road keeping up with them.
January 27, 2024 Velocity Cycling Club is the group I ride with. There are a few clubs in the Edmonton area that I could have joined. I was going to join ERTC (Edmonton Road and Track Club) back in 2020 but doing things in groups wasn’t feasible that year. I ended up with VCC mostly because a couple of the older guys from their club were friendly at a few of my 2022 cyclocross races. Also, nice jerseys without extraneous advertising.