On the Day

With my pre-race checks done, I jumped into the car with Derek Gee and we rolled out towards La Baie, Quebec. The temperature was just touching 30 degrees C with the sun high in the sky. I knew that on this day staying cool would be super important. I don’t have a good track record racing in the heat. Jon Burgess had the team NS car and I filled it with ice packs. Jon had drawn car position number two in the convoy, which was a super lucky position in the roughly 12 car line up.

Dads bike!

The course for this race featured 12 laps of a 15-kilometer circuit. There was a 5 to 6 hundred-meter-long climb right at the start of each lap. The climb was short but incredibly steep, it certainly felt like a 20% gradient. After the climb there was some rolling open roads that were defined by the cross-winds that seem to always be blowing. The descent was open and fast but not technical in any way. So, when the race started, you had to be ready to do battle straight away as we would be cresting the climb for the first time inside the first kilometer.

Stress levels very high at the start

The start was nervous, but the big teams and riders were not ready to start the fight that early in the race. The whole peleton crested the climb together and then a few tentative attacks started to happen on the flat over the top. I tried a little move just at the top of the descent. I had been thinking of trying for a breakaway to be in front of the strongest guys for later in the race.

Early in the race

It was all together going into the climb on lap two, and this was the decisive moment of the race. Team Rally had two riders on the front and the peleton was spread wide across the road. I positioned myself very well, sitting fourth wheel as the gradient increased. On steep climbs like that one, position is important not for the drafting effect, but rather the raw distance between the first rider and yourself. The pace was very high, I found myself deep into the 600’s for wattage and I knew that people further back must be hurting. Once we crested the climb, the three remaining team Rally riders came flying up the side of the group and they all began to work together as we started the rolling part of the loop.

Re-making contact

Once I had a few moments to catch my breath I realized just how much damage had been done. There were maybe 40 riders still in the lead group and the big team to miss out was Team Silber (they had 12 riders take the start). The pace stayed high as we completed the lap. During that time, any of the World Tour Pros that had missed the move made bridging moves. At the top of the descent, I remember Svein Tuft and Ben Perry arriving in the lead group, with a large group of Silber riders maybe 25 seconds back chasing.

Following Silber in the Crit

I think the early moves from the strongest riders caught more than a few riders off guard. As the race went on there would constantly be small groups, usually filled with Silber riders, rejoining the lead pack. Usually any rider that would make contact with the lead group would be quickly dropped again once we came around to the climb. I felt like I was one of the strongest riders going up that climb in the early laps of the race. I only started to feel under pressure once we got deeper into the race which was about lap nine. Up until then it was very small re-shuffling moves. A group would break away on the climb, stragglers would catch up on the descent, and then a slightly different lead group would slip away on the climb again. Once we started lap nine I was starting to feel the power drop.

Adam Devos going full gas

My team car with Nova Scotia coach Jon was finally able to come up to support me on lap nine. The convoy of cars had been stuck behind the shattering groups for the past two hours. It was such a relief to finally see him! I grabbed a new ice pack for my back and some fresh bottles. At this point there were 12 riders in the group. We crested the climb all together and I was cramping the whole way up. Looking at how everyone was riding, it looked like no one else would get dropped until the WorldTour guys decided to light it up and actually start to push for the win - most likely on the final lap.

The lead trio that would fight for the elite title

It was the start of the climb on lap ten where the cramps really started to hold me back. I was pushing through them as best I could. The other two U23’s and I were at the back of the group and I saw that they were just starting to lose contact with the lead riders. I was quick to jump around them because I knew that I needed to not let that gap increase at all. If I crested the climb without being in the draft that could be the beginning of the end. I shut the gap and felt my legs seizing the whole time. I had my eyes closed for a few seconds focusing purely on my effort and luckily it was just enough. I made it over the top with the majority of group just as the trio of Antionne Duchesne, Ben Perry and Nigel Ellsay had broken away.

Lead group getting small now

Once I started the descent, I knew I needed to go into conservation mode until I started the climb again. The race was now going on lap 11 and the cramps started as soon as we finished the descent. Anything over 300 watts I could feel my legs start to seize. We reached the climb and I managed to hold off the full shut-down until about 20 meters to go from the top. Jon had come along beside me in the car and was yelling to hold the wheel! I was giving everything I had to try and hold on. Svein Tuft may well have heard that encouragement and not wanted to tow me around anymore, so he pushed a little harder over the top and I lost contact.

Some elevated company here

So now it was 30 kilometers to go and I am all alone. I took a few minutes to try and recover. I grabbed some new bottles and started to think about the effort that I now needed to produce to bring home the U23 title. I was up the climb now, so only one more time up and then survive to the finish. But first I had to round out the lap. I had a motorbike with me giving time gaps. I heard 1 minute and 40 seconds as I started the flat part on top of the climb. I focused in on my breathing and being as aerodynamic as possible for the entire lap. The watts were pathetically low, but I was still moving quite quickly.

As I started the last time up the climb I asked for a time check, it was 1:47; I had actually put time into the chasers! I was very pleased with that and the thoughts in my head turned from negative to positive very quickly. I had such a hard time going up that climb for last time, I knew that I had to take it easy and try to really make the effort to get over the top. I did so but lost a lot of time in the process, the gap was already down to 1:30.

That feeling will never get old

The rest of the lap was full on damage control. My legs felt absolutely empty, but the open road kept demanding more. I came through the now empty feed zone at the top of the descent and I still could not see anyone behind. I heard the gap was just under one minute as I started the descent. I gave every last bit of energy on the descent because I knew it was a place the chasers could make up time. When I saw the two kilometers to go and heard the gap was 35 seconds I knew. I knew that I would be able to hold on. After what was a terribly slow final lap, I knew it was going to be enough.

So much relief

The final kilometer I rolled in just fast enough to stay in front of the chasers. It was a fantastic moment, and one I so badly needed after what was a lackluster Spring campaign abroad. Jon and all my old teammates were there to congratulate me just after I crossed the line. It was awesome to see how happy they were for me! I opened my phone and saw I had dozens of messages and missed calls, it was great to see that people were following the race back home in Nova Scotia! A huge sense of relief came over me in the hours that followed, I finally felt like I was back on track.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to Canadian Cyclist for allowing me to use photos from the race. http://canadiancyclist.com/index.php