Tour of Alberta

With the conclusion of the Tour of Alberta, my road season is now complete. I was very excited to get the call up to the National team for the event. I was really looking to end my season with a big race or a big result, sadly I was not able to deliver on the results side of things, but still pretty happy to have represented on home turf.

The volunteer staff for this race were really top notch, there were hundreds of them at every venue and cheering amongst the crowds. Speaking of crowds, the Edmonton stages really brought them out, numbered in the thousands and really getting into the event. Before every stage while we were signing in we were treated like superstars, signing autographs and taking pictures with the fans.

This was the first time that I have ever had the chance to race against some of the ‘WorldTour’ riders like Ryder H, Bauke Mollama, and Frank Schleck to name a few. It was an interesting experience to be racing against these guys, I found that I was approaching the race a little differently than I would normally. I suppose I thought that with Trek-Segafredo and Cannodale-Drapac in the mix all we would have to do is follow wheels and hang on, but I quickly realized that these guys are not super human. On the first few stages when I was on breakaway duty with a few of my teammates, I would find myself in a move with a WorldTour rider, and sure he would be driving it and I had a very hard time pulling through with him. But if the move did not stay away, and sadly none of mine did, they were just as messed up as I was. These guys were just like me, and only had a few really good efforts in them on any given day.

The racing was made easier by our amazing support crew, who carried our bags to our rooms and made sure we were fully taken care of the whole time, big thank you to all of them; Delphine(who we stole from team Silber for this race!), Victoria, Kevin, and the rest!

ToA was a race full of firsts for me, including my first time in Alberta itself. Calgary quickly grew on me with its cycling and outdoorsy culture. The weather was a bit of shock though, racing in sub 10 degrees all week with risks of snow on a few days. Another first for me was riding in support of a WorldTour rider, Antoine Duchesne for the first time. He is a really nice guy and gave us all plenty of opportunities to ride for ourselves while still supporting him for the overall. Antoine was a little upset with his TT performance so we could only manage 8th overall in the end.

I love playing the support role in races, and with a leader like Antoine it was easy to have a lot of confidence in my leader. Stage two was my day as super domestique, waiting for Antoine after he flatted, and getting rain coats and hot tea feeds from the car as the temp was only 8 degrees and raining.

On stage two at the midway point of the day was the only KOM, it was cold and raining this day and the peleton was not going full gas up the climb. Once we crested the climb, the Holowesko team went to the front to take advantage of the vicious crosswinds on plateau. Those 15 km’s after the climb were the hardest of the whole tour. The peleton split into more than 6 echelons on the wide highway and it was complete chaos. I saw it happening before a few others and made my way to the front, but was still a little late to make the first group. I slotted into the second group just as Trek made their echelon in an attempt to close down the front one. I was soon put into the gutter and could not hold on to the pace, Antoine was safely in the echelons rotation but I fell back to the third group and picked up teammate Adam J. Re accelerating onto the third group was close to the hardest thing I have ever done, and thankfully I did as the front three echelons would eventually come together and every other group on the road coming in more than 15 minutes down on the stage. This was the day that one of our teammates was up the road all day and the early break hung on and he was able to get a second place! Alexis’ biggest ever result!

Overall I was not very happy with my personal performance during the Tour of Alberta. On the days that I was not working 100% for Antoine, I wish I that I had played my cards a bit more and really tried to get on TV. I found myself always waiting for the WorldTour guys to turn it up, and then it never came. That is a mistake I will never make again. Already excited for next year, to see what I can do in such elevated company. For now though, time to spend a bit of time at home and tackle the super fun cyclocross season! Which starts tonight! Check out the NSSP website for all event info!

Thanks for reading.