2015 Green Mountain Stage Race

The Green Mountain Stage Race was kind of where it all started for me three years ago. It was 2012 and I went to the race with Team Nova Scotia in preparation for the following years Canada Games in 2013. It was my first race outside of Nova Scotia and where I got my first real taste of racing, and I loved it. This year was no different, super fun racing and good to be doing it with my friends and teammates Adam and Will. For those haven’t heard of the race before; it’s four days long and consists of a 10 km time trial, a mostly flat circuit race, a very hilly final road stage with a mountain top finish, and finishes off with a downtown Crit in Burlington Vermont. It is a really cool atmosphere in Warren VT as the race takes over the town for the long weekend.

The first stage was the ITT and I was of course looking to do a good ride and stay within touch for the overall win. The TT starts with a 3 km climb and then goes along a plateau to the finish, I was careful not to go too hard on the climb, gauging my effort to save energy to go as fast as possible on the flat part of the course. I feel like I did a pretty good job doing that, but really should have pushed a bit harder on the climb, as I crossed the line with something still in the tank. Adam put in a good ride for 7th, 27 seconds behind the winner, I was at 1:02 behind.

Stage two also has a decent hill, roughly 3 km in length but quite gradual. I was keen to try and get some time back on this stage, in preparation for the big day that followed. There were many attempts at a breakaway, I was waiting for the right move and saw so many get pulled back, I knew that It would take a big effort to get any kind of gap on the peleton. Over the course of the day I made two big efforts, one on a small power climb and another on the big climb of the day, both times no one followed me and I was slowly pulled back. Rather frustrating, I was still feeling fresh so I waited for the final 2 km to launch a last minute attack to try and outwit the sprinters, but those plans were foiled as the race broke down. With 5 km to go we were all stopped for an ambulance, a rider in the race ahead of us had crashed and was seriously injured. Five minutes later we restarted the race and we were not going all that fast for only 5 km to go. I was at the front and waiting for it to get going again, only a few km later as we approached the 2 km to go banner, the race was stopped again. It was much more confusing this time as we saw no reason to be stopping and being so close to the finish people were hesitant to stop at all; it turns out that the previous race had a huge pile up on the finish line just 1500 meters up the road. While we were stopped, three ambulances passed us headed to the line. So that day was neutralized and we all turned our heads to stage 3.

Stage three this year was changed from the previous editions of the race. It now featured a 10 km climb, just 40 km into the race. Then was rolling terrain for 60 km before we hit a gradual 5 km climb twice and then immediately up Appalachian Gap, probably the hardest hill I have ever race up. The whole day I was thinking that I wanted to ride the break, so that was what I did. I was covering moves early in the stage but nothing was getting away because there were sprint points on offer at the 20 km mark on the stage. I waited till we hit the bottom of the first big climb of the day and upped the pace, I went clear with two others and at this point there were already three riders a little up the road. As we were getting near the top we had a solid gap over the peleton and were about to catch the two leaders, both groups had now dropped one rider, the three guys I was now with really accelerated over the top of the climb to fight for the ‘king of the mountain’ (KOM) points, I had no points so was not interested in wasting my energy to go with them, that however seemed to be my undoing, they had gone over the top of the climb and started the decent very fast I never saw them again, it was such a stupid move, I chased for 20 km down the other side of the mountain, solo. Once the road flattened out, I was caught by a group of 7 riders from the peleton, which included Will. Together we rolled for about 10 more kilometers before the peleton caught us. I was now in real trouble, that chase on the downhill had really taken a lot of energy out of me, I was suffering all day after that, but I still tried one more attack with one of the American U23 riders on the gravel section of the course, that move only lasted about 3 km. I was really tired now, I had miss read the race and now had nothing to show for my efforts with just under 50 km to go.

I sat in the pack and tried to recover some energy for the next 40 km before App Gap. As we hit the second to last climb with just 13 km to go, I was moving backwards fast. Under the 10 km to go banner we went, and I was dangling off the back, fighting to hold a ten meter gap to the group as the pace went up. I was about 100 meters off the back of the group as we crested the penultimate climb, and had 4 km of decent before the 4.5 km climb of App Gap. I had absolutely nothing left, I lost myself 11 minutes on the winner over those 8.5 km, and I was going as hard as I could. I was having a terrible time, Adam however was not; having been able to save energy in the group all day, Adam was going into the climb feeling good. The pace was high from the bottom of the final climb, with two riders attacking straight away. Adam was within himself as he followed the wheels up the climb, he was sitting mid pack and was passing more and more riders as they could not hold the pace. Going into the final kilometer, Adam was with a group of four riders, he thought he had a good chance of winning the stage at this point. The road flattens out with 1 km to go and then kicks up to over 20% for the final 450m. A rider from ‘Kelly Benefits’ attacked with 500m to go and gapped Adam, he then just rode as hard as possible to get an awesome third place on the stage, and moved into third on GC as well, good day for him.

Stage three is where the GMSR is decided, and after Adams awesome ride, me and Will were committed to helping him hold onto that podium spot going into the final stages Crit. The circuit has six corners and a hill on every lap, of which we do 50. Crits are always hard, and this one is also very technical and if you are in a bad position you can find yourself sprinting 4-5 times per lap, and you won’t last many doing that. I was in a bad spot at the start and the pace was so high that I couldn’t move up without really paying for it late on. I stayed where I was just outside the top half, after 15 laps we got our first calming in the action and I was able to get nearer the front. Adam had been riding an awesome position the whole time sitting in the top 10. I was now in the top 30, still trying to figure my way to front without burning myself. Half way through the race a group of 3 riders went clear by maybe seven seconds and the pack eased, I was able to keep my effort going through one of the corners and moved from around 30th wheel, to off the front in about 200 meters; I was now bridging up to the breakaway which took a little over half a lap. I was eager to keep it going so I pulled through immediately, we lasted 4-5 laps out there and then got brought back by the peleton, I tried to stay nearer the front once we were caught, but slipped down to the 20’s. We were now nearing the final few laps and a split in the peleton had happened, Adam and 7 other riders were now clear of the pack. They went on to contest the win, with Adam getting 5th on the line and solidifying his 3rd place on the GC.

All in all it was a good weekend of racing, the GMSR never disappoints in terms of organization and unpredictability. I was of course upset to have missed out on a result during the week, but having a teammate do well is always nice to see. I always race with the ambition of making an impact on the race; I feel that I had put in some good efforts that had helped to shape the race, so I was happy with how I felt and the risks I took, but I simply don’t have anything to show for that aggression. This is to be my last road race for a while, I could feel the fatigue really starting to get to me this week after a long year of racing. I will now head back home and take a break from riding, not for long as I absolutely love Cyclocross and just had my bike rebuilt by the awesome people at Sweet Ride Cycling in Mahone Bay. There are a few cyclocross races that I will be this fall before starting the build up again for next year on the road, where I have some big ambitions in mind.

Thanks for reading.

#NextGenU23