Wednesday evening

This evening we had 3 heats, Jan-Marcel was the first in the second heat. Toronto had a broken spoke and did not run the second time this evening. That opened up a spot for Jan-Marcel in the third heat. He would be the last one to ride this evening, after Barbara and Ellen. Just before the start the chain had fallen off. It took Thomas some effort to get it back on, in time to start. The first starting attempt resulted in a fall. James Schroeder helped to lift the bike up and put it back on its tires again, so Jan-Marcel could be started again. This time he did get going. Somewhere along the way the bike moved to the left lane to signal a problem and wanting to be caught. The chase car overtook the bike, Thomas and Erika got out to catch the bike. But Jan-Marcel had regained speed again and overtook the car and moved on. Thomas and Erika got back in the car again to chase the bike.

Jan-Marcel had a nice stop at the catch area, Barclay is very good at that. Jan-Marcel had trouble getting out of the bike, because he had blown up his legs. We had to help him out. It took him some time to regain himself, then we headed back to the hotel. Jan-Marcel pedalled a bit on the warm-up bike to get the blood flow in the legs going and speed up recovery a bit. Off to the Civic Center where we heard that he did 72 mph during this run. Now we are off to get something to eat.

Shortly after take off I wanted to shift gear but the chain came off. Riding at about 25 mph there was no way I could make it to catch safely, so I moved over to the left lane to signal distress. On the left lane just after the car came by, I managed to get the chain back on and was able to peddle again. I went back to the right lane to signal I was okay. I saw alot of vests moving in the right lane where the car was located to catch me. I went back to the left lane, passed the car and continued my ride in right lane. No worries about the chase vehicle it would catch up on me later.
Spinning out of the gear, I tried to switch over to the next one. But again, nothing happened apart from the chain that came off again. It took some time and effort to get the chain back on. The speed had dropped and when the chain was back on I had no idea whether this was in the same gear as it was before or a higher/lower gear. Again, had to shift because I spinned out in this one. And again the chain came off (for the third time during the run) and I had no traction what so ever. Just before the 1.5 mile marker I was able to get things going again. I kept in mind that the weather seemed to be good at start so I started sprinting to get at least a reasonable speed.