West of Quebec Wheelers » Echelon Project

VIVA LA REVOLUCION! Roller Race Dec 30 – Volunteers needed

Chris — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:42:34 +0000

We are back at the Elmdale Tavern for our Roller Races this season. Our first night is December 30, a Thursday. This race is not only a fundraiser for the club and Echelon Project but also an event supporting Bikes for Cuba.

If you have old bikes, parts, clothing, shoes and helmets that you don’t need anymore, bring them along. People in Cuba make between $10. and $25. a month. I went to Havana with my family a few years ago and we and met a 16 year old girl who was the Cuban Junior Triathlon champ. She was riding a beat up old mid-level steel Miele with a broken rear brake cable and missing spokes. She said there were no brake cables or right length spokes available in any of the bike shops. Even if there were, she could not afford them.

We will need volunteers for the evening. Please contact me if you can fulfill one or more of the following duties:

Someone to create sign-on sheets
People to transport rollers from Aylmer
Someone to transport clock from Aylmer
Two Doormen
2 people-Registration for races
1 person to take care of door prize pile and make note of donations for thank-you purposes after
Two people to sell raffle prize tickets

SETUP – need a gang for:

Table and chairs setup
Hang Banner if applicable
Hang Arrows for each bike
Set up Clock
Rollers adjustment repair if needed
Ensure rollers are in working order and calibrated one week prior to races and repair if needed.
2 people needed to switch setup from fixed and free roller races and sometimes back again.

If you are not familiar with Roller Racing, we have videos and pictures from our previous editions of the event.

Thomas on RFO

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:16:13 +0000

Here’s Thomas getting interviewed on Martinique TV – rfo – Réseau France outre-mer.

Martinique Wrap up

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:38:46 +0000

Well, we’re back, everyone is safe, the trip was a success, we posted some photos and videos here.

2009 Tour de Martinique The Wheelers sponsored the Echelon Project trip to the 2009 Tour de Martinique. 6 young riders, guided by two veteran Wheelers went to the Caribbean Island to smash out the UCI 2.2 event.

Day one of the big Adventure

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:25:37 +0000

Well today we didn’t get far. Our first flight out of Ottawa was delayed by 30 minutes. Just enough to ensure we missed our connecting flight in Washington DC. After about 2 hrs discussing our options with United Airlines customer service we ended up getting a hotel in Washington and we are on a flight out of Dulles to Miami at 6AM tomorrow.

The boys had a nap this afternoon and two good meals here at the Hyatt Hotel and we should be good to go for getting into Martinique tomorrow night. It will be a frantic day getting ready for a 10AM start on Saturday. But John and I will try to take care of that for the boys so they can just relax when we get to Fort de France.

Martinique 2007

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:01:58 +0000

Here’s a video of Stephen Keeping in Martinique in 2007

Packing up for Martinique

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:51:06 +0000

T-minus 24hr. Once again the Echelon Project is taking a team of young riders to the Tour of Martinique. Everyone is packing up today and we’re heading to Puerto Rico and then Martinique tomorrow for the 9 day 11 stage race. This is a great opportunity for these young guys and exactly the kind of racing needed to develop into top riders. We have a great crew heading down led by John Large–who’s the brains behind this ambitious idea.

For riders this year we have James Larmer (of Sudbury), Stephen Keeping (the vet from the last trip), Keir Plaice and his trade team team mate Joel Dion-Poitras (from Steve Bauer’s Planet Energy squad), Thomas Devischer (a hot young local talent) and JS Perron (an Aylmer native and established player in the Canadian scene). I think we have a lot of opportunities with this talented young team. All the boys have been riding really well — I’ve been watching — and JS just won Mardis Lachine last night. It will be a great trip.

We’ve had a flurry of emails, and a couple of meetings in the lead up to tomorrow’s trip. I think we’re ready. We’ll be posting stories, tweets and twitpics as we go. Stay tuned.