Author: Julia Bradley

Welcome to Kobenhavn

I’m in Copenhagen, Denmark for the World Cup this weekend (Feb 15-17). Here’s a few pics of my first couple days in the city. The weather has been pleasant, at least compared to Toronto. It’s been 5-10 degrees. But the track is indoors, so it doesn’t really matter too much, I guess. Anyway, it’s a great city!

Steph, Steve and I go and check out the track in Copenhagen. Yippee!

A beautiful track – very smooth and looks fast!

We’ve also had a chance to do some sightseeing downtown. Here’s a typical intersection filled with cyclists commuting everywhere. If only North American city streets were filled with bikes like this. Dreamy!

Here are some pictures from my trip to Australia. First, here’s me and Mina in front of the Opera House in Sydney – gotta have a pic of that!

The racing fans in Latrobe, Tasmania, having turkey leftover lunches on boxing day.

This is the track in Devonport, Tasmania. There were 2 days of racing on this track during the Tasmanian Christmas Carnivals.

Emma and me with our “Ute” – that’s short for Utility Vehicle.

Saying hi to the Wallabyes

Sprinting in the Points race at the Silverdome in Launceston, Tasmania – a beautiful track!

The Woodchopping competition in the middle of the track at the Silverdome

Tasmanian Devils – the real ones!

The blue track in Burnie, Tasmania

Giving the fans a high-five.

Making the paper after a podium finish in the Wheelrace in Burnie

Devonport racing

Relaxing on the beach in Tassie on a day off racing the Carnivals.

The track in Canberra

The Canberra track – 2 poisonous snakes live in the grass on the infield.

Waiting to start a handicap race with my pusher, Ron, at a Carnival race at the Sydney velodrome

“Revolution 2” in Melbourne – Dec. 19/07

Merry Christmas from Australia!

I went for a lovely road ride in Canberra on Christmas morning with Emma, her sister Kate, and Kate’s husband Chris. They showed me the sights and we even saw some kangaroos! That afternoon, Emma and I flew to Tasmania where we are racing in the Tassie Christmas carnivals. I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

This is what the Tassie Carnivals are all about…. Handicap racing. Riders start on different marks on the track, their handicap determined by an official “handicapper”. If the handicapper has done their job right, the riders should be crossing the finish line at the same time and sprinting for the win. If done correctly, it makes for an exciting finish. “Pushers” hold the riders at the start and give them a big push when the gun goes off. Here’s an example. That’s fellow Canadian Keith Thorarinson in the red.

The 2007 Track Nationals were held in Dieppe, New Brunswick from Sept 6-9. I competed in the Points Race, Individual Pursuit and Omnium.

Thurs, Sept 6 – 25 km Points Race (7th):

The points race was 100 laps for a total of 25 km. There were sprints every 10 laps with the top riders getting 5, 3, 2 and 1 point respectively for the 1st 4 riders across the finish line each sprint. If a rider laps the field, 20 points is awarded.

The race was active, with many attacks throughout. I attempted to get away many times throughout the race and was successful in my last attempt with 9 laps to go and stayed away to the finish to gain maximum points in the last sprint. I finished 7th overall.

Fri, Sept 7 – 3,000 metre Individual Pursuit (3rd – bronze):

The weather was very Pursuit-unfriendly – strong, gusty winds made for very slow conditions for everyone. I qualified 3rd in a time of 4:04. This put me straight into the bronze medal round, which was 2 hours later.

After my first ride, I analyzed my SRM data and figured I could go faster. My goal in the final was to do as fast a time as I could and leave nothing on the track. I refocussed on the final and had a great ride in the still-windy conditions, doing a 4:01. I won the bronze by 6 seconds over my opponent, and was only 3.5 seconds slower than gold medallist, Lyne Bessette. I also had the fastest final kilo of all the finalists. My kilo splits were 1:22, 1:19, 1:18.

Sun, Sept 9 – Omnium (5th):

This is a new event in which riders compete in 5 different events over the course of the day to earn points, with the best overall rider taking the win. The Omnium consists of 2 sprint events – the flying 200 metre time trial and standing 500 metre time trial, and 3 shortened endurance events – a 5 km Scratch race, 2 km Pursuit and 10 km Points race.

In the Scratch race, I attacked with 5 laps to go and soloed in for the win. (I have this race on video as well and will be posting it)

I also had a great Pursuit, placing 2nd, only 1 second behind the winner. In the Points race, I rode extremely aggressively, attacking at least 7 times in the 10 km race. The pack wouldn’t let anything get away and I finished 8th.

Here are my Omnium results:
9th: Flying 200
1st: 5 km Scratch race
2nd: 2 km Pursuit
8th: 10 km Points race
7th: 500 metre TT

5th: Omnium

Special thanks to my coach, Steve Karpik and his significant other, Susan Brown, for their tireless help at Nationals and all year round. Thanks also to Darryl Winger for helping out in Dieppe. What a team! All of Steve’s track athletes won medals at their National Championship events this year. Congratulations to Todd Hayes, Will Lampe and Joanna Wiersma – time to give Steve that raise!

Thanks to team R.A.C.E. for their support this season. I’m looking forward to representing team R.A.C.E. once again on the World Cup Track circuit again this year!

More details of the National Track Championships weekend to come.

I decided about 2 weeks before this race that I was gonna give it a shot. Since the Fitchburg stage race fell through for me, I decided that I wanted to do some more road racing and was looking for a challenge. Well, I needn’t have looked any further than the tour de Toona, arguably the hardest women’s stage race in North America.

For those of you who might not be familiar with this particular race, it is a 7 day stage race in and around Altoona, Pennsylvania, that covers 667 km of racing, has equal length races to the men’s racing and attracts the best teams in North America. It is a key event for all the big teams so it is very competitive. Over 100 women started the race.

I was guest riding with “Verducci Breakaway” women’s professional team for the race. We had 5 riders for the race: U.S. Crit Champ, Theresa Cliff-Ryan, Americans Kacey Manderfield and Jackie Crowell, Australian Jess MacLean and me. Here is a brief blurb about each stage.

Stage 1 – Team Time Trial (17.1 km):
Since our team had never done a time trial together, we decided to play it safe and just ride it on our road bikes without any TT equipment (not that we actually had any anyway). While the big teams hauled out their TT bikes, wheels, helmets, skinsuits, etc, we just rode it on our road bikes.

It was a hard effort and I think we did quite well considering we’d never done a TTT before and had never raced together as a team. We placed 14th, 2:53 behind the winning team, Webcor.

14th: 2:53 behind winner

Stage 2 – Vintondale to Cairnbrook RR (78.2 km):

Since this was a new stage this year, noone knew exactly what to expect. Since I have never done Toona before, I didn’t know what to expect with any of the stages. Looking at the race manual, it looked like there was some kind of climb 10 miles into the race. The pack raced to the start of this climb, and the climb hit us like a wall. Steep switchbacks split things up immediately. A few groups formed as a result of this early climb. About halfway through the race, we got hit with torrential downpours, at which point my SRM decided to check out. (dam!) We had trouble seeing at times, and had to take it quite easy on the many descents. I finished the race with a group of 18 riders, 18 min down on the winner. I get to start tomorrow!

89th: 18:39 behind winner

Stage 3 – Johnstown to Altoona Point to Point Road Race (154.3 km):

I hung in with the pack all the way to the start of the big climb, Blue Knob, where groups formed and I finished with a group of 15 riders.

I felt good today and enjoyed today’s race.

72nd: 16:39 behind winner

Stage 4 – Circuit Road Race – Downtown Hollidaysburg (96.6 km):

The race started out FAST and stayed that way. Single file from the gun. I got gapped and dropped on the climb on the first of 3 laps. There was a small group of us who chased through the caravan harder than I’ve ever chased. We made no ground and eventually lost contact. Apparently the pace did not let up the entire race, and the peloton averaged somewhere around 40 km/h. Once everyone in my chase group caught their breath, we rolled through and tried not to lose too much time. We got pulled with one lap to go and were given a prorated time within the time cut. Starting tomorrow.

79th: 18:17 behind winner

Stage 5 – Circuit Road Race – Memorial Park, Martinsburg (123.6 km)

Today’s circuit was one of the flatter days. I felt good. A group of 13 or so riders got away with a couple laps to go. There were torrential downpours and at times I could not even see in front of me. My teammate, Theresa Cliff-Ryan, won both sprints by a healthy margin. I finished with the main pack in 53rd.

53rd: 1:27 behind winner

Stage 6 – Road Race – Jaffa Shrine to Altoona (158.5 km):

The race started on a hilly, fast circuit which was fairly technical. We started the race at 8am today which meant a 5 am wake up call. The lack of sleep didn’t help with my recovery from the previous day and I got dropped 20 km into the 158 km stage. Not good. I was hoping to regroup with a few others and perhaps catch up to the caravan after the sprints but a marshall directed me and another rider off course and we lost at least 10 minutes. By the time we found our way back onto the race course, there was no way we were catching anyone, we were so far behind. We knew the race was over but decided that we wanted to finish the race anyway. We did, but were outside the time limit and not allowed to start tomorrow. Just as well since my legs were utterly fried after riding 150 km without a group.

78th: 50 min behind winner (OTL – Outside time limit)

Stage 7 – Criterium – Downtown Altoona (48.3 km)

No racing for me today. The race was won by Laura Van Gilder. Theresa placed 6th today and also placed in the sprints, putting her 2nd in the final standings for the Sprint jersey. Congrats Theresa!

For full results, reports and photos, check out:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2007/jul07/toona07/default

Thanks to Gary Ryan for having me on the team and for working hard as our manager all week. Also, thanks to the team’s sponsor, Phil, for helping us out!

Team R.A.C.E. Women’s team report:

The team R.A.C.E. women’s team headed to Ottawa this weekend for a fun filled weekend of racing. Saturday, July 14 was the Grand Prix Road race in the Gatineau Hills and Sun, July 15 was the Provincial Criterium championships.

Grand Prix Road Race:
Diana Joness, Julia Bradley and the team’s newest member, Jill Vale raced in the Senior 1-2 women’s field which was combined with the Masters 40+ men. They did 4 laps of the hilly 21 km circuit for a total of 84 km. The pack sorted itself out fairly quickly on the first ascent. In the end, Julia Bradley won a bunch sprint finish for 8th place, Jill Vale placed 14th and Diana Joness came in 17th.

Celeste Merey came back from a month long illness and raced in the Women’s 3-4 field. In her first race in 6 weeks, she had a solid race and placed 17th in her category.

Provincial Criterium Championships:
The race was held on an interesting, fairly technical circuit which included 4 turns and a chicane leading into a short, steep hill, followed by a fast descent.

All women’s categories raced together, making for a fairly large field. Julia and Celeste represented team R.A.C.E. in the crit. Unfortunately, Diana had to sit out this race due to illness.

The race started out fast and remained active throughout. The Cyclery women’s team were active throughout the race and sent several riders off the front, making the rest of the pack chase. With 3 laps to go, one of the Cyclery riders got away and stayed away for the win. In the pack sprint for 2nd, Julia Bradley came in just behind Jennifer Stephenson for 3rd, collecting a Bronze medal in the Elite Women’s category. Celeste placed 4th in the women’s 3-4 category.

Congratulations to all Team R.A.C.E. members who raced this weekend in Ottawa. We were represented in the elite women’s, elite men’s and masters men’s categories.

Special thanks to Charlotte Bradley and her family for housing and feeding the women’s team all weekend – no easy feat!

I headed down to Trexlertown, Pennsylvania for their Professional track Race series. It was my first time back on the track since I competed in the Manchester World Cup in February.

It was “Tandemonium” weekend. The main event of the weekend was the US National Tandem championships. One of the teams broke the track’s flying lap record that was set back in 1993, covering the 333 metres in a time of 17.35 seconds.

There was racing for the women (on regular bikes!) Friday night and Saturday night. Friday night we had 3 different mass start races. I used the racing Friday night to get my legs back in track mode.

Saturday’s racing included a few sprint type races -Keirin (the one behind the motorbike), Chariot (mass start 1.5 laps), 2 km scratch race and a 5 km scratch race. The 5km scratch race was fast paced throughout the entire race and with 2 laps to go there were only 3 of us left going for the win. I kicked it with 1 lap to go and drove it to the line. Australian Monique Hanley nipped me at the finish line in a very close sprint and I ended up 2nd.

Here’s a link to a pic from cyclingnews.com:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/track.php?id=/photos/2007/jul07/tandemsprintnats07/070706-Velo-Tandem-020

For full results, report and photos, see cyclingnews.com:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/track.php?id=track/2007/jul07/tandemsprintnats07

Coming up:
– OBC (Ottawa Bicycle Club) Grand Prix Road Race: Gatineau, Quebec (July 14)
– Ontario Provincial Criterium Championships: Ottawa, Ontario (July 15)
– International Women’s Challenge Track Race: Trexlertown, Pennsylvania (July 20)
– Tour de Toona Stage race: Altoona, Pennsylvania (July 23-29)

My plans to race the Fitchburg Longsjo stage race in Massachusetts last weekend got cancelled, so I decided to make a little stage race of my own – always fun to do when you’re the only one doing all stages….

So, this is what I did:
Wed: 95 km easy group ride
Thurs: 15 km club Time Trial (5th)
Fri: Intervals
Sat: CHIN Picnic Criterium (4th)
Sun: 85 km hard group ride

Here’s a picture of our group racing past a pile of tires at the CHIN Picnic race in Toronto.