All,
I've enjoyed the comments about Jocelyn Lovell--absolutely one of the best riders Canada ever produced, and an extraordinalrily smooth and powerful rider on the track.
In my day, the East--West rivally ran deep, with Quebec added in as a wild card for national team selections. Nationals were always an occasion of pitched battles and settling old scores. Jocelyn was one of the "Easterners" who we all hoped would be defeated by our champions--and I never had a chance to ride casually with him. I do know the story of his dislike of hills is as true as the ones about him being "difficult"--perhaps arrogant is a better word.
But boy could he fly on the track. I have wonderful memories of seeing him at the one Canadian Track Nationals I participated in (China Creek, Vancouver), and I remember him winning multiple events including the 4000m Pursuit (in which my brother reached the semi-finals, if memory serves). At the same event, (again if memory serves), Jocelyn tried to pass another legend of the west coast scene, Bill Wild, in the match sprints by cutting underneath Bill and got ridden onto the apron ( & off his bike?) for his cheek...
I poked around on the web and found that the Canadian Cycling Assoc. has a downloadble pdf of the Canadian Championship results--woefully incomplete including no record of where they were held. Even though it lists almost none of the individual rack events except the sprints, he has 20 individual titles--including one road race championship.
Must have been a flat course!
Pdf is here: http://www.canadian-cycling.com/
Thanks listmembers for digressing--I also see a number of my old 'westerner' friends on this list, including Brian Keast and Ron Hayman who truly were among my racing friends.
Cheers,
Dean Kernan
Pomona, NY