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Niagara Region, Canada
Team905 Cycling Team is dedicated to providing cyclist an opportunity to be involved in a competitive, but also community focused cycling team. Our objective is to remain active while contributing to an eco-friendly life style and providing unique visibility to local businesses that support our team. We will be respectful to our fellow cyclist and citizens in an effort to grow awareness about cycling benefits, physically, mentally, and environmentally.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Team905 p/b Steelmark Business Services Participates in GranFondo Canada Niagara Falls Pre-Ride!

Team905 was graciously invited to take part in GranFondo Canada's pre-ride of the Niagara Falls GranFondo route. This event brought together 100-150 enthusiastic riders from all over Southern Ontario to experience what GranFondo Canada is planning for 2013. Great weather, excited riders, and amazing planning, Team905 was proud to be part of this event and is looking forward to the main event in 2013.

Here are a selection of pictures from the day.







Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Hanging with Eddy in the Ardennes

Stephen Cheung is nearing the end of his 18 month sabbatical where he and his family have traveled Europe. They have experienced once in a life time opportunities and Stephen has taken advantage of this time to ride roads the pros have raced on. Below is a recent experience Stephen has wrote about for the Team905 blog.

We're now settled into the Netherlands after a few fabulous weeks in Tuscany and Rome. We're in a tiny village of Hoogland, near the town of Amersfoort and the nearest big city is Utrecht (~1h SE of Amsterdam). Our neighbours two doors down have a deer in their backyard, and there are sheep, ponies, and goats all around. There's a good area of quiet farm roads (dead flat of course but mega-windy) only 1 km away for cycling. We're really enjoying ourselves here in the Netherlands. How can you not when bikes are everywhere and actually have legal right of way over cars? We're also set up now with Dutch commuter bikes for the whole clan. Heavy as stink but perfect for the purpose: full front/rear/side fenders, full chainguards, hub-driven dynamo lights, built-in horn and lock, 3 gears.

This past weekend, my friend Eric Groen and I drove down to the Ardennes region of eastern Belgium, in the French-speaking Walloon region. Our purpose was to get in some big climbing and kilometres into our legs, taking in much of the same hills as used in the famous Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic. We started in the tiny town of Trois Ponts, near Stavelot (base of some of the most vicious fighting in the WW2 Battle of the Bulge), and did 5 different circuits of about 20 km each. It was intense, 107 km and 2700 m of climbing, much of it in the bottom gear and standing just to keep momentum! We took in the Col de Stockeu  and also the Cote de Wanne climbs used in LBL, but there were more than enough other climbs that they have no problems finding hills.

At the top of the Stockeu, we found the awesome monument to Eddy Merckx, 5-time winner of LBL and pretty much everything else. A tiring but great day, and the nearly 6h of riding will hopefully ramp my fitness up for CX season!



Monday, May 14, 2012

MTB O-Cup #2 Race Report

Jon Toews traveled to the Uxbridge, Ontario to represent Team905 p/b Steelmark Business Services in the second round of the Ontario Cup MTB Race Series. Jon has continued to have great early form and looked to improve on his result from O-Cup #1.

Jon had a strong race and finished 8th in the Master Expert 30-39 category. Here is Jon's report from the race.

"The race was a good one! I felt very confident throughout but going into the second lap I clipped a tree and had to put my stem straight which cost me a 1 min and  lost the top 5 guys. I fought back to put some very fast laps and the 3rd was faster than my second and my 4th was only 5 sec slower. I am happy with my results considering that I am getting faster and feeling good after the race."


Friday, May 11, 2012

13th Annual Run for the General

Team905 p/b Steelmark Business Services "rogue" runner Keith French participated in the 13th Annual Run for the General on Sunday, May 6th.

Keith finished 13th out of a field of 82 and 1st in his age group! Keith completed the 5k run in 21:45.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

44th Springbank Race Report: Max Csikos 5th in Elite 1-2

This past Sunday, Max Csikos represented Team905 p/b Steelmark Business Services at the 44th Annual Springbank Road Races in London, Ontario. All racers were welcomed with beautiful spring weather, which made for fast and exciting racing throughout the day. Max raced in the feature race of the day, Elite 1-2 with Master 1. This is the fast of the fast in Ontario and the result is aggressive and high paced racing. This was Max’s first race of the season, so the goal was to stay at the front, avoid and crashes, and set himself up for the final sprint. Here is Max’s race report

"My goal for the day was to finish the race and stay out of trouble. Throughout the opening laps I stayed right near the back taking it easy and building up my confidence. Moving into the second half of the race I started moving up and back testing my legs and as we moved into the last 10 laps I focused on mentally getting ready for the finish seeing who still looked strong. With 5 laps to go I knew I needed to start getting up near the front to position myself well for the final lap. As we rolled into the last lap I moved up about to the top 20 and moved my focus to positioning myself into the top 10. As the field moved into the last half of the final lap there was a crash to my left and I avoided getting caught up in that. Patience is key during the final 500m of a race that is gearing up for a field sprint, so I saved my sprint till the last 100m or so and it paid off with a 5th place finish!"

Congratulations to Max for a very strong result at a tough race in London.

A big thank you to our sponsors!

Title: Steelmark Business Services
Supporting: OSSA Canada, Your ManCave, Wellbrook Plumbing, A Bitt of Paint, Mortgage Intelligence Niagara, Vision Clinic, Lucky 73 Photos, Zoom Leisure

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Race Report MTB O-Cup #1 Mansfield

Team905 p/b Steelmark Business Services Jon Toews battle with top Master Expert (30-39) at the Ontario Cup MTB Series opener this past weekend. Here is Jon's race report.

Leading up to the 1st O-Cup of 2012 I was nervous, not because of my fitness but because the 1st race is a dictator for the season and how my competition is racing. I felt confident at the start line with some of the best expert riders in Ontario. I new my technical skills were there and I knew what I had to do. The race started and I felt very comfortable throughout the 1st lap. Our group quickly caught some of the younger expert riders and that's when I got bogged down and went from 3rd to 8th. I held that position for 3 Laps and battled for 8th and on the final climb was passed and finished 9th.

I am very happy with my results based on the fact that a year ago I was looking at hanging the bike up because if an injury, but I started training properly and this was the result.

Jon at the Start Line!
Thank you to our sponsors;
Title - Steelmark Business Services
Supporting - OSSA Canada, Your ManCave, Mortgage Intelligence Niagara, A Bitt of Paint, Wellbrook   Plumbing, Lucky 73 Photos, Vision Clinic, Zoom Liesure

Stephen Cheung Article in PEZ Cycling News Toolbox: Postexercise Appetite

Please take a moment to read a  great article written by Team905 p/b Steelmark Business Services Stephen Cheung. Click on the icon below to read!