Temperature shock in the Great White North

Lake Huron at Wasaga Beach (click on it!)

Squeezed in between my tropical week in the Dominican Republic and my upcoming trip to Taiwan was my last race-related assignment for the year: the 2020 Pan-American Cyclocross Championships in Midland, Ontario (Canada). You wonder why 2020? Well, the UCI's cyclocross calendar starts in the late fall of any given year and culminates with the World Championships in either very late January or early February of the following year. So, whoever won the championship jersey yesterday is the 2020 'cross champion.

Sleet and snow in Midland, ON

Winter wonderland--already? 

Three seconds later he was on the ground...

I flew out last Thursday so that I would be able to attend the obligatory Team Managers Meeting for this continental championship on Friday. Midland is a little less than two hours north of Toronto's YYZ airport, and I drove my rental car in the dark, with light snow blowing. Two days before I had ridden in shorts in Lubbock....

The area around Lake Huron

For this short trip I didn't bring a bike--not that I would have wanted to go out on one. Yuk. I was lucky in that the sun did come out a few times, but there was snow on the ground in many places (for Sunday's race the temps went a little above freezing so that it rained instead of snowed and everything was just a sloppy mess, the way cyclo-crossers love it)

Power-washing the 'cross bikes

I did get a chance to sightsee just a little bit on Friday, and I went on an excursion to Wasaga Beach and Collingwood, both on Lake Huron. The lake reminded me of walking on the shores of the Baltic sea just a few short weeks ago--threatening skies, squalls coming in, sudden explosions of  brilliant sunshine. It may all be pretty, but gees, would I want to live here? I don't think so.

On Saturday I had to drive back to Toronto and pick up my colleague Helene, who had flown in from Montreal for the race on Sunday. On the way back we stopped for lunch in the second microbrewery for me of this trip, an air-plane themed little place called Barnstormer Brewing in Barrie. But just as was the case at The Collingwood Brewery, what was touted as West Coast style IPA didn't live up to its name. I tried various canned craft beers that I was able to buy across the street from our hotel in Midland, all good, but none knocking off my socks.

The race itself was really cool. Since I had to stay stationed at the finish line most of the day working with our helpers, I saw much more of the action than I usually do. As I said, the weather was fairly atrocious, but it could have been worse--wind, more moisture, much lower temperatures. The race director, John Houser, certainly has created with the Silver Goose Cup a fabulous race. 

John Houser, race director par excellence

Our work done, Helene and I drove back to Toronto last night and stayed in an airport hotel. I was supposed to have flown out hours ago, but my noon flight to Chicago was cancelled thanks to an over-abundance of snow at ORD. Fortunately, American was on the ball and rebooked me for a direct flight to DFW, but it also means that I won't get home until about midnight, if the final flight doesn't experience its usual delay. So, best case scenario is that I'll have about 36 hours at home before I leave for Taiwan. Good thing I'm 98% packed....

This morning at the Toronto airport

I'm half an hour from finally boarding, so let's hope things run smoothly for the rest of the trip.

Jürgen