UPDATED March 23, 2026 BY Miles MacDonald IN Company no comments A Blast From The Past: Miles And His Racing BikeWe all have a back story, a past before we hooked up with Henry Golds crazy concept of crossing continents on a bicycle. Part of our Operations Manager, Miles MacDonalds pre-TDA history includes a touch of competitive cycling.The Junior (18 and under) Canadian National Cycling team (above) departed Ottawa airport in early September 1993, flying to a Canadian military airbase near Lahr, Germany on a Canadian Defense Force flight. The base, a cold war relic, would be shut, at least for Canadian troops a few years later. For the team, including myself, the base was our first destination in Europe and despite the oddity of seeing vehicles driving around with Canadian license plates, we had arrived.If you are not a hockey player in Canada, or maybe a figure skater, then your national sports organization has a tight budget. We had gotten onto this flight for I would assume nothing, the drawback being the scheduling was a bit tight. Descending the stairs from the plane down to the tarmac, our bicycles, in cardboard boxes, awaited us. At that point it was a race to open the boxes, put our bicycles together, get changed into cycling gear, and ride towards the start line of our first race, the Pepsi Lite Challenge, a Junior World Cup 6-day stage race in the Black Forest region of Germany.Miles, the YoungerThe first stage of the race was an evening criterium in the center of the town of Lahr. After cycling to the start line, with our team support vehicle following behind, our impatient coach honking the horn most of the way, we waited nervously with anticipation for the start of the race. First though there was the word passing through the local crowd, as well as the riders, that the world cycling championships happening on the same day in Norway, had finished, with a young Lance Armstrong claiming the title.The sun lowered in the sky, and the organizers positioned cars with headlights turned towards the corners of the course for extra light, the start gun went off and away we went. Criteriums are short and fast, at least short by road race standards, usually not more than an hour long. In America they remain one of the most popular forms of bike racing due to the ease of watching for spectators. In Europe they are enjoyed by the locals as well for this reason, but they are treated more as show than serious cycling, and the epic road races of the continent are what every cyclist dreams of winning. That doesnt make criteriums any easier though.Our team was 6 riders and none of us had experience racing in Europe. We had performed well during the year in North America to make the Canadian team, with national champions and World Cup stage race winners in the group. For all that though, everything about being in Europe felt fresh, exciting and foreign. Maybe due to the adrenaline of our recent arrival, all of us were towards the front of the race, with many attacks flying up the road, my teammate Guillaume from Quebec jumped into a breakaway, and when another rider attacked to try and bridge up to the lead group I jumped on his wheel and followed him up to the leaders.As the local crowd cheered us on, and the sky grew completely dark, with the roads illuminated only by the street lamps and car headlights, our breakaway raced on towards the last lap, and it became apparent we would succeed in staying away from the main peloton. Unfortunately for myself and Guillaume, neither of us could sprint very well, and so as we rounded the last bend and headed for the finish line, I pretty much went backwards and finished 4th, while Guillaume managed 2nd.All in all, after being on a plane across the Atlantic Ocean only hours earlier and now taking 2 out of the top 4 spots in the first stage of the race, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. Our coach wasnt quite as impressed. Meet Yury Kashirin. Russian, Olympic gold medalist as a cyclist with the Soviet Union team time trial squad in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. He was also the winner of the U.K.s prestigious Milk Race in 1979 and 1982 and later coached the gold medal winning Soviet team time trial squad in the 1988 Barcelona Olympics, the last Olympics to fly the CCCP flag.Yury was distinctly underwhelmed, with 2 out of 4 riders in the breakaway we still hadnt managed to win, and that wasnt something to celebrate. Regardless, the main goal of our European racing excursion was preparation for the upcoming world championships in Australia, and Yury felt pressure to get results, and to whip us into Soviet style shape for the world stage. So, he did what he would have done with his Soviet era teams, and told us to cycle the 40 km in the dark to our hotel, in the direction of Freiburg. The crisp dark air enveloped us as we cycled, with only the team cars headlights to illuminate our way.Related Posts:Leave a Comment for "A Blast From The Past: Miles And His Racing Bike" Cancel reply