| Toronto Courier Ice Races '07 The 15th annual Toronto Ice races took place on the evening of Feb 24th at the Duffering Grove park in Toronto, ON. The weather was considerably nicer this year as opposed to last, which was a good thing because the races ran from 8pm to 11pm, instead of starting at 5pm like last year. The turn-out wasn't as strong this year, but we had great fun none the less, especially in the rubber tire races. The Georgian Bent reps didn't fare as well as hoped but not for lack of effort. Marcel's python wasn't working too well on the ice because it was too hard to get a good bite with the rear blade. He decided to use the blue ice trike instead, but then he decided to T-bone the boards in corner #4, twice, at full speed, in his heat races, so that tended to slow down his racing a bit. It also caused the crowd to cheer every time Marcel managed to make it through a corner without plowing into the boards. Tim didn't have the steering properly set up on the tilt-steer trike so it cornered too flat, and slid the rear tire around the corners at higher speeds. That scrubbed off too much speed and he ended up being put out in his quarter final heat. Kendra had no major problems, but the two other women had far better cardio and endurance so they consistently stayed ahead of her. In the rubber tire races though, the guys managed a 2nd and 3rd out of about 15 racers, so all was not lost. Additionally, Marcel got the prize for the best wipeout. The way the races played out was fairly interesting though. Initially, the ice was very smooth and hard, and the road bikes with the 700+ studded tires went very well and tended to dominate the heats. 2 mountain bikes with HUGE screws managed to make it through their heats as well, even though they were producing a lot of drag on the hard ice. As the racing progressed, the corners god dished, chewed up a little and a fair amount of ice "powder" was in the groove at the apex of the turns. The powdery ice tended to clog up the traction of the road bikes, and the MTBs were storming around the corners at what seemed almost full road speed. It was amazing to watch them. The heat races were 7 laps, and the effort was starting to tell on the MTB riders. The one rider just ran out of steam in his heat, and went from a ¼ lap lead to finishing third. The other mountain bike went from a half lap lead to a DNF because he got a flat in his front tire on lap 4. In the interim, the road bikes were making their way through the heats, but had to go slower through the corners than they had been able to do at the outset of the racing. In the finals, a couple road bikes had some fairly aggressive screw sizes as well, and initially they were leading the pack. With great traction comes great drag though, and the road bikes with the smaller screws ended up pulling ahead due mainly to stamina of the riders. The champion from last year ended up being able to balance the traction issues with his superb cardio and he took the grand prize again this year. It'll be interesting to see what it takes to de-throne the 4-time returning champ next year. The good news is that while I heard about the Montreal ice races, no one had any other information. This year however, I found out the name (the Coupe Des Glaces), found their website, and am talking with them about trying to set dates for Toronto, Montreal and Brantford that don't conflict with each other. Their 2006 and 2007 event sites are here. There were a lot of people taking movies and pictures too, so some of the other links are here:
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