Heart of The Rockies Triathlon

Once again, we had a great time at the annual Heart of the Rockies Triathlon in beautiful Invermere BC. We had excellent results with Cameron Hyder taking 8th place overall. Cam had a great swim and a solid bike ride and held his own during the challenging and hilly run. With over 190 participants, an 8th place finish is very solid!

The team results were as planned as the dynamic team of Smith-Goralski-Nighbor tore up the course and placed well ahead of the 2nd place group. Tony Smith took time out of his busy Sunday and drove up to Invermere from Canmore first thing in the morning and blasted through the water to come out in 4th giving Joel Goralski a head start on the Bike. Joel set a hard pace from the get go and passed two riders early on the course and then held his lead to the end and got the quickest bike split as well as bested his last year ride by over 3 minutes. Dave Nighbor, who was a last minute replacement for Niklas Team member Brian Green (who was on the sick list), had an amazing sub 40:00 run which sealed the deal for Team Niklas.

Young Hearts Triathlon

This year was the first time for the Young Hearts Triathlon. Daniel King (10 years old) competed on behalf of Team Niklas and did a fantastic job for his first triathlon. His favourite part was the bike and his least favourite was the swim (FREEZING!).

Annual Campout and Potuck at Fairmont Hots Springs

A special thank to all the employees and fans of Niklas Group who came out and cheered us all on as well as took part in our annual potluck dinner at the Fairmont Hot Springs Campground.

The potluck was fabulous and there was so much delicious food to go around. People are already talking about next year!

Stampede Road Race

We had racers all over at different events this weekend. However, we did have two riders (David Pick and Darren Nielsen) out for the Masters Road Race. Here is the race report from David Pick:

Darren and I did the Stampede RR on the weekend. We were in the 40-49 category with 20 other riders. This was a hilly course: 4 loops of 25km.

The weather was great and the winds fairly calm for that area (around Madden). The pace was pretty quick right from the start and, unfortunately, Darren cramped up almost from the beginning. I managed to stick at the front of the peleton which was down to 10 guys by the end of the first lap. We stuck together until the start of the last lap when Gary Alexander picked up the pace and blew up the race. I could only stay with him for about 2-3 km (Gary is a former semi-pro racer, although he recently had back surgery). By then, almost everyone else was gone out the back.

I hooked up with a Calgary Cycle rider and we worked together to try to catch up with the 3 guys ahead. With 500m to go, I dropped the Calgary Cycle guy and caught the third man on the road and passed him with 200m to go to finish in third. Gary won the race by a wide margin (sandbagger!). That was a great result for me (unfortunately no points as this was a masters race). Darren struggled mightily but had to pull out after the third lap due to leg cramps.