Stage Race Mania

Sorry it’s been so long since the last update. I have however been doing some articles for Canadian Cycling Magazine which you can check out here:

Over the past few weeks I have been in stage race mode. The last of our one day races for the spring was the U23 Eschborn-Frankfurt race, which went very well for the team securing sixth. That day in Frankfurt had been one of the best team performances we had pulled off in our history, and you can read all about that here:

Since my last update a number of things have happened here in Belgium. First, I was bitten by Rottweiler while out training in Luxembourg, which made for a really shitty three hour ride home afterwards. Second, Belgium has gone through every season in the past month, below freezing temps a few weeks ago made for some tough guy days, good thing the WBL has taught me well. And third, I bought an old commuter bike to fix up in my excessive amounts of spare time. I have since finished that bike minus a bit of chrome paint. I was going to go with Bianche celeste but I think the original Lupo doesn’t look half bad.

Fleche Du Sud, arguably the hardest race on our calendar this year. It has a 2.2 UCI status and that allows powerhouses such as Stoilting and Drapac to field teams. Fleche is a hilly Ardenne style race with five stages all taking place in Luxembourg. The first stage was relatively easy with just a small climb on an eight kilometer circuit. We were not able to feature in the final with a crash taking out our chances in the bunch sprint. Really we were not looking to have much of an effect on that stage, it was stages three and four where we wanted to leave a mark. Stage two was our first real taste of climbing, with the peleton rolling steady over most of the day’s climbs. The pace was still enough to shed many riders, and with 10 km to go we hit the bottom of the final days climb. Only Sean, Adam and I were able to hang with the leaders over the top, keeping our team GC up there. Stage three was where the GC was likely to be sorted out, instead we all got a big scare. There was a huge crash only 10 km into the stage. Luckily for me I was off the front already with a small group of five, we were just starting to establish a gap when the lead car pulled out the red flag. You can read all about that crash in the Cycling News article. But what they don’t say in there is that there were streams of blood running down the road and people with pushed in skulls. It looked like a battlefield, not a bike race. After an hour and a half of watching helicopters and ambulances take riders to hospitals, the organizers finally decided to just end it there. Two of our guys went down, one needing stitches and the other just some bandages. It was a real miracle that no one was critically injured. People smashed into a small brick wall at 60+ kph.

Stage four was the Sean show. Having come off a mid-season training camp in Nice, Sean was on flying form for this stage. Around the halfway mark the race was blown to pieces, groups everywhere. I was poorly positioned at the time thinking it would be coming later into the 168 km stage. Sean made the front group that went on to win the stage. Sean was 7th on the stage and was now wearing the best young rider jersey with just one day to go. To put a cherry on top, Adam was second in the young rider classification after finishing in the first chase group. I really missed out finishing with a big group nearly 10 minutes down. I was very disappointed with myself, I am usually very good at sniffing out the race, but it caught me off guard when the pace went through the roof.

At the team meeting for stage 5, there was one outcome that would satisfy the team, and that was winning the best young rider jersey. Sean was wrecked from the previous day efforts, but thanks to us he was nurtured all the way to the line. It was a relatively flat day, but with Pro-Continental squads in attendance, it was never easy. Everyone was very excited about our first big result, especially when coming into the race the coaches were maybe hoping for a top ten on a stage.

Having come off a successful Fleche du Sud, we were pretty motivated going into the Tour of Berlin. Berlin is a race for time trial riders. Featuring a seven kilometer TTT prologue in downtown Berlin, and a 21 kilometer ITT two days later. The remaining stages are all flat and predicted bunch sprints. The TTT was the highlight of the whole race for us and we were looking for a win. The course featured six U-turns over the seven km. We had done some training going into it, afterwards, we regretted not doing one or two more sessions. We rode it completely balls out, taking every corner as fast as possible. We were the virtual leaders for a long time, but BMC development came in with a time of 7:23, just half a second faster than us. It was hard to take, but it got even worse. Kline Constantia, the Etixx development team came in 1/10 of a second faster than us, and then team Trefor finished 1/100 of a second in front again. It was hard to take, to be within one second of the win, but finished fourth! Those gaps are closer than a team pursuit! Coming fourth really sucked, but we were also pretty happy with our performance, and as anyone would do, we went looking for that lost second. Coming out of the last U-turn I touched a pedal and finished about 20 meters behind Sean with Adam on my wheel having barely stayed upright, there is a second or two... dammit.

Stage one was hectic, as all U23 racing is. The stage was entirely in the woods only coming out for a quick pass of the finish line before going back onto the leaf covered roads. Pretty uneventful day, Alec got into a late move that went on to take the win, but he was dropped out of it with two laps to go. One of the guys who got away was the French national ITT Champ, so that was not good for our overall chances. The ITT was supposed to be where Sean climbed way up the GC and possibly even took the leaders jersey, but he had been suffering with a bad cold ever since Fleche and would not be able to put in a winning time. Alec managed an excellent 8th place on the stage only losing to the U23 World ITT champ by 1 second! So Alec stepped up into team leader spot going into the last stage.

Stage 5 was completely flat, but it had some gnarly cobblestones. It was not that the cobbles were big, it was that they were wavy, pushing you out of your saddle every few seconds. Alec was super tired and I was put on protection duty for that day. Adam snuck

off the front and had a two minute gap on the peleton at one point, making him the virtual leader on the road. However that group came back with 15 km to go. Earlier in the stage I went onto the cobbles and dropped a chain straight into my Pioneer power meter. It took me a while to get it unjammed, but that was a 1500 dollar chain drop. I spent most of the day closing down gaps in the cross winds and trying to keep Alec in the peleton. Sadly in the end there was a crash, and none of us were very well positioned, Alec dropped down from 8th overall to 11th, and Adam from 15th to 20th after losing just a few second in a split. I finished the race 35th overall after a super average ITT. I was not particularly pleased with anything I had done in Berlin, but I do look forward to going back with some better legs.

Now it is my turn to take a short break as we re-shuffle the roster for the Paris-Arras race in France. I have one of my big targets for the season coming up in the Tour de la Manche in Normandie next week. I will be given team leadership and hopefully I can challenge for a podium spot overall, and definitely the best young riders jersey. Manche is a race that suits me well with rolling terrain every day and a short 9 km ITT which I should be able to smash! After Manche I finally get to return to Canada after nearly a three month absence. Before I actually return to Halifax, I will be doing Saguenay in Quebec from June 8th-12th. Then it will be Jambro’s every week! Can’t wait!

Here is a link to another article I did for CCM, in case that was not enough for you!

Thanks for reading.