Happy holidays!

Thanks to everyone who made 2009 such a memorable year!

There were many notable achievements from the Elitewave crew this year - Alison Testroete won the National Road champs and represented Canada at the World Champs. Catharine Pendrel took her first National MTB Championship and had her most successful season ever with a World Cup Win and two other World Cup medals including a silver from Worlds in the relay.  Sarah Stewart represented Canada at the Tour de L’Aude, Montreal World Cup and Tour of PEI. Leah Guloien and Andrea Bunnin represented Canada in Montreal and PEI. Gillian Carelton took a silver in the TT at Canada Games. Alex Wrubleski travelled the World with team Columbia-High Road. Natasha Elliot won the North American Cyclocross Trophy.   What an exciting 12 months it has been!

Good luck to all in the 2010 season.  The holiday season is a great time to reflect on your past successes and future ambitions.  It’s a time to celebrate and a time to dream about the exciting cycling season ahead.

All the best in 2010!

A challenging new role!

Sorry for the lack of updates here. A lot has happened since April. I have been appointed as the National Team Coach for Mountain Biking in Canada.  I am excited about my new role with the program and look forward to working with all of Canada’s best riders and coaches. I hope that I’ll be able to help other Canadians learn from the training system and experiences that helped bring Catharine from local racer to one of the Worlds best. We have a lot of building to do. We have to get all of Canada’s best mountain biking minds onto one team - working toward becoming the leader in international mountain biking. Between now and London 2012, we have to ensure that Canada creates the best mountain bike system in the World!  I’m excited about the challenge.

The 14th edition of Dan’s Camp has just been completed. The camp will live on with the generous support and expertise of our ride guides and coaches. I look forward to seeing each of you next May. You have all become good friends!  Good luck with all of your races this season.  Special thanks to Travis Chater who took the reigns while I was in Europe for the first couple days of camp.  You did great!  The camp definitely has a life of it’s own now. I’m am sure the camp will continue for many, many years.  More coffee…more miles…more fun!  See you next May.

Until London 2012, I’ll continue to add the occasional updates, photos and training information here. Hope you tune in for some great photos from around the World. Canadian mountain bikers are going to rock!

Canadian Cyclist Video Interview

The Canadian Cycling Association announced this week that BC-based Dan Proulx has been appointed the new national mountain bike coach for the Canadian team.  Proulx is a Level 4 NCCP coach with a Diploma in High Performance Sport from the National Coaching Institute in Calgary, where he founded the Olympic Oval National Cycling Center Junior Program.

For the past six years, Dan has worked with mountain bike pro Catharine Pendrel, who recently won the 2009 Pan American Mountain Bike Championships, as well as finishing fourth at the Beijing Games and second overall in the 2008 World Cup.

Proulx was also the Canadian Team Manager for all cycling disciplines at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and was the personal coach to two athletes (Pendrel and road rider Alex Wrubleski) on the Olympic team.  In 2009, he was the Team Manager for the Cyclocross World Championships in Hoogerheide, Netherlands.  Recently, Dan was awarded a GM Making Dreams Possible High Performance Coaching Grant for his work with Pendrel.

We spoke with Dan yesterday from his home, where he is preparing to make the transition to national team coach.

Canadian Cyclist:  First of all, congratulations!  When do you actually start the new job?

Dan Proulx:  Thanks.  Over the next two weeks I will gradually be transitioning from my position here at Cycling BC, making sure that the programs I am involved in are handed off to the right people.  The first actual thing I will be doing [as national coach] will be going to Sea Otter, and then Offenburg [Germany, April 25-26 for the World Cup].

CC:  So not South Africa for the World Cup opener?

DP:  No.  We offered it to the athletes, but the riders who would have used our support are not going.  Geoff [Kabush] will be there, but he has his pro team support.  So, instead, we will be focussing on providing a good support system for the World Cup campaign in Europe.

CC:  What are some of the first things you will be doing when you take on this role; what do you want to accomplish?

DP:  Basically, I will be doing a lot of talking to key stakeholders in mountain biking.  I want to open the lines of communication with the athletes and the teams so that we can build a collaborative environment.  We want to pursue excellence by empowering the athletes and the teams.

The CCA’s role is to support the athletes, and to make sure that the next generation of riders below the current [top level] are ready to step up when we need them.  The race program for the year has been pretty much mapped out before I started, but after the Nationals we will be running a camp [at Mont Ste Anne] to train on the 2010 [Worlds] course, to start to prepare the riders.

I am also going to try and take a number of the up and comers to the last World Cup [in Europe] so that they can get an idea of what to expect at that level.  I also want to work with the provinces on talent identification, so there will be some development as well as high performance.

CC:  What do you see as your role, as National Team Coach?

DP:  Traditionally, people thought that national team coaches coached the entire team.  But that has changed; our personal coaches are one of our greatest resources.  So, I want an open channel to the national team program, to make sure that the athletes have the best environment possible, and support the coaches that are already doing a fantastic job.

There is a huge management role in this position; I don’t just focus on a small group of athletes, but think of the system globally.  If everyone pools their talents, we could have the best program in the world.

Megan Rathwell, Andrea Bunnin, Leah Guloien and Sarah Stewart are at the National Team road training camp in Tucson, Arizona this week.  The riders are getting some great heat acclimation training in as they prepare for the Redlands Cycling Classic next week.  The camp is part of a new development initiative by the CCA to look for Canada’s next wave of talented road riders.

From www.canadiancyclist.com

March 19/09 10:59 am - Catharine Pendrel Interview

Posted by Editor on 03/19/09

Catharine Pendrel had a breakthrough year last year - fourth in the Olympic cross-country, second overall in the World Cup, winner of the Bromont World Cup and, of course, winner of the Canadian Cyclist of the Year award …

We spoke with Catharine earlier in the month from her home in Kamloops, as she was preparing for the first races of the season. This coming weekend, Pendrel will be one of the favourites in the women’s cross-country at the Pan American Mountain Bike Championships in Santiago, Chile.

Canadian Cyclist: So how was your off season?

Catharine Pendrel: It was really good. Catherine Vipond and Matt Hadley have been living with us this winter, and it is good to have other athletes to train with. Recently I was in Palm Springs [California] with the Team B.C. Training Camp, which gave me an opportunity to get some longer rides in.

CC: So, do you feel you are on track with your conditioning?

CP: Yes, I would say that I am equivalent to, or even ahead of where I was last year at this time. I just need a couple of races to get into shape, and that will start with the Pan Ams on March 22nd.

Every year Dan [Proulx], my coach and I, switch things up a little bit. Primarily the program is the same, with lots of cross-country skiing, mixed with work on the trainer and in the gym.

CC: How about your schedule for this year? It is obviously a post-Olympic year, so the focus has to be different?

CP: Yeah, it will be different … because we won’t be going to all the World Cups to start with. We won’t be going to the [World Cup opener in] South Africa. It’s very important to our team and to our sponsor Clif Bar to be at Sea Otter, which is a week after South Africa, and then the European World Cups the next weekend, so I will do the European World Cups in the spring and then the Canadian ones. After that, we will look at the rankings and maybe do the final Eurpean World Cups. This year we are going to focus on quality rather than quantity.

It’s still going to be a pretty busy season, though. We have a team camp after the Pan Ams, and it is looking like I will be doing some of the US Cup series. Then I’m throwing the BC Bike Race into the mix, which will be very new.

CC: What would you say your main goals are for the season?

CP: Definitely to finally crack the top five at the Worlds (Pendrel was sixth both last year and the year before). I like to have a couple of really stellar World Cups as well, and especially to do well in Mont Ste Anne and Bromont.

CC: This is the second year of your two year contract with Luna …

CP: No, I have already re-signed through 2010, and I feel really positive. This is my second year with the team, and I feel more relaxed going into the season, and I know how to prepare for the bigger races.

Cyclocross Worlds is truly one of the most interesting and exciting cycling events I have ever been involved with.  The size and electric atmosphere at this event is mind boggling.  On the final day of competition the course was filled with over 40,000 fans and some estimates were much higher.  For such a tiny town and venue, this was truly remarkable.

To give you an idea of how seriously this event is taken, you simply had to look around at the fan clubs for each popular rider.  The Beligians, in particular, are really passionate about the sport and their riders – with behaviour that sometimes resembled soccer hooliganism.  At one point I saw about 30 Belgians surround the motor-home of Dutch rider Lars Boom – singing, taunting and yelling a cheer with a chorus that ended in LARS BOOM followed by some other words that can’t be repeated here.   The Belgians clearly believe that they are part of the performance and can affect the outcome.  Intimidation and psyching out the competition are all part of the fun on the border between the Netherlands and Beligium where cycling rivalries run very, very deep.

Wendy Simms started the race with a hard charging effort in the women’s elite event.  On the first and second lap, Simms was riding in third and aggressively pursuing the wheels of the break that contained the eventual medallists. It was a gutsy ride that laid everything on the line.  Wendy simply wasn’t content to take her chances getting behind in the group of chasers.  In cyclocross it’s all about the start and in all of the other races, moves that went on the first lap easily stayed away.  It was a smart risk.  Natasha Elliot went over the handlebars in a crash within 200m of the start.  She recovered to ride aggressively but it was already too late to get back to the front of the race.  Natasha’s lap times were the same as riders who placed nearly 10 spots higher.  She was holding ground with the best in the World.  With a better start Natasha will be a very strong contender for Canada next year.  Pepper Harleton, in her first World Championships, rode hard and was in the mix with the top half of the field.  She faded slightly near the end - suffering a hard crash.  At age 23, Pepper has many World Championships ahead of her and she certainly showed that she has the drive and talent to be more competitive by next year’s race.

In the men’s race Derrick St. John was consistent and strong.  He was charging hard from the beginning and was on course to easily finish on the same lap as men’s winner Neils Albert of Beligium.  In the second to last lap Derrick broke his chain and was forced to run to the pit for a bike change – relegating him to being lapped by the leaders with just one lap to go (6 minutes/lap).  Aaron Schooler rode steady throughout the event to finish without incident.  Although he was content with the ride, I know Aaron will be gunning for a much better result next year.

After the race we celebrated with a team dinner in the hotel.  The project went smoothly and we had a strong team atmosphere and positive energy throughout our time in Hoogerheide.  I think riders and staff went away with many things to work on for next year.  We have a good team with strong ambitions to return to Worlds with a much higher level of performance.

It’s important to mention that Wendy Simms and Norm Thibault have been integral to the Canadian presence at Worlds for the past few years.  Wendy has shown that Canadians can ride in the top ten at Worlds with a solid European preparation program.  Norm has been at the last 5 cyclocross World Championships and has been Wendy’s support but also manager, mechanic, driver and support for everyone on the Canadian team.  It’s fair to say that the pioneering work that Norm and Wendy have done has lead the way for Canadian success on the World Cyclocross stage in recent years.  All of the riders and staff at Worlds owe a lot to Norm and Wendy.  They have paved the way for many young Canadians who you will see in the top 10 over the next 4 years at Worlds.  They have truly been leaders in the revival of cross for the Canadians.

Special thanks goes to the entire volunteer staff who helped the team out in Hoogerheide.  In addition to Norm, we also had Paul Brend of Victoria and Andre Sutton who both worked hard to assist the team in its preparations.  Paul in particular was working very hard to help in any way possible with the team.  From washing bikes to making bike changes in the pits, Paul was truly a big part of the team.  Paul took the remainder of his vacation days for the year to work for us at Worlds.

Of all the cycling disciplines, cross is perhaps the most marketable.  As you can see from the pictures, the sport is extremely popular in Europe.  In North America, the discipline is growing at an exponential rate.  For companies hoping to get exposure for their brand, cyclocross offers one of the best returns on investment.  For a major event, every banner on the sidelines is repeatedly televised on each and every lap. Riders are close to fans. Advertising on jerseys and bikes is highly visible.  Team areas are open to the public and seen as part of the spectacle for fans.  Announcers are able to call the entire event with close action always in view. Cross offers the best opportunity for corporate exposure and sponsorship.  The sport is a bonafied religion in Europe and has been soaring in  North America for some time.  My advice to potential sponsors is to get involved now.  The entire scene is set to explode into one of the most popular and thrilling of the cycling disciplines.

As a small example of cycling’s appeal in Europe, Wendy ran out of her trading cards at Worlds.  Fans walk up to the staff in the team area and practically demand the cards – fully expecting us to have them.  The serious fans ask for two – one of which needs to be autographed by Wendy.  The other card is used for trading.  When a card is traded without an autograph, the collector is obligated to track Wendy down at the next event and have her autograph it.  For other fans, the goal is to have Wendy sign one of the many pictures they have taken of her during past events.

On behalf of the CCA, I would like to thank all of the riders and volunteer staff for their efforts at this year’s World Championships and the European campaign that each rider took on before the competition.  You are part of the next wave of Canadian cyclocross success. I know we’ll have a better program and more success next year.  Nicholas Vipond of the CCA, who organized all the logisitics for the project is already looking into hotels for next year.  Tim Heemskerk has already been in contact about getting his Canada House program, which Brian Robinson and Andrew Thomas took part in,  into the plans for Canadians next year.  There is a lot of momentum.

Dan Proulx

Manager, Cyclocross Worlds 2009

The U23 Race was held this afternoon at the World Championships.  It was an incredibly fast race dominated by the Germans – taking Gold and Silver.  Poland took the bronze.  Our guys, were called up to the back of the starting grid…so their battle was simple -  to gain as much position as possible during the 50 minute race.  In cross your starting position has a big bearing on the outcome of the race.  Since the position is based on World Cup points, our guys were near the back of the bunch.

In the first lap matters were made worse by a pile up that delayed all three of our riders.  In the early part of the race, all three Canadians were forced to the back of the race.  Andrew Thomas was the best of the Canadians….steadily moving up the field and catching many riders and finishing in 47th, with Brian Robinson (53rd) and Kyle Fry (55th) both caught by the leaders on lap seven.

Despite the ranking, there were some real flashes of brilliance from the guys – all of whom have at least 1-2 years left in the Espoir.  Andrew Thomas could have ridden to a much higher placing than he earned in this race.  He was catching riders quickly and crossing huge gaps throughout.  Brian Robinson had the best start of the three and showed some really good composure in making a mid-race bike change after a mechanical.  Kyle Fry, from Thunderbay, Ontario trained since October with cross country skiing and windtrainer workouts (as one casual cycling fan bluntly told Kyle on the bus to Hoorgerheide…”that is not a good preparation for cross”).  If Kyle had ridden in Europe during that time he definitely would have done much better.

One of the coolest moment of the day was when a British fan came up to the guys during their warm-up and said, with tears welling up in his eyes, “you boys know this is a special town for the Canadians.  The Canadians came her after they liberated Antwerp from the Germans.  After they cleared this town, they stayed here before attacking the Germans on an island just off the cost.  The Canadians lost 2500 in that battle.  A lot of them are buried just up the road in Bergen op Zoom”.

After the race, following a doping control test for Brian Robinson, we drove back to the hotel.  We navigated around hundreds of drunken cycling fans still wandering the streets and cheering the name of their favourite rider.  This was only day one of competition.  Tomorrow, during the elite races, the party promises to really heat up.

I’ve never seen so many fans out to watch a practice.  Today’s afternoon training session was packed with spectators – many of whom were local kids who were given the day off to come out and see some racing.  Tomorrow the course and the entire town will be closed to everyone except spectators with an official ticket to the event.

The U23 and Elite Men from Canada were out on course this afternoon to test out wheels and get some last minute practice on the corners.  As predicted, afternoon conditions (with ground thawing) become quite slick.

We arrived in Hoogerheide yesterday for the 2009 Cyclocross World Championships.  The town has done an amazing job of preparing for the estimated 70,000 fans that will soon invade the tiny village.  The town, which was liberated by the Canadians in World War II, is located 30 minutes north of Brussels, Belgium.

Last night we arrived at the Tasty Wok Hotel and Restaurant (our accomodations for the week) and took a walking tour of the course.  Depite the weird name, our accomodations are excellent.  We are practically staying on the course while other European teams are driving in from 30-50km away…thanks to Norm Thibault for that brilliant move!  The course is rough and technical in several sections.  The stairs and run up areas are short and challenging.  The course doesn’t really seem to favour any particular rider.  It’s going to be about horsepower and pack positioning.

Kyle Fry, Wendy Simms and Pepper Harleton are the first athletes to arrive.  The rest of the team will arrive today.  The team’s first training session is at 2pm.  We have a great staff here.  With Norm, Paul, Kevin and the help of the other Canadian supporters, my job in Hoogerheide will be made much easier.

Thanks to Alex Wrubleski for creating our new website.  I think you’ll agree it’s a huge improvement over the other sites we’ve used in the past.  Over the next couple of weeks you can look forward to more and more information being added to the site.  If you’d still like to look at the old one, you can visit http://www.danproulxcoaching.blogspot.com/

Happy New Year everyone!