Summer Highlights 2018

The Summer months are coming to a quick end, and what a Summer it’s been. There have been a lot of great opportunities for me over the past few months, sadly many have ended in frustration. I’ll share some of the highs and lows of my Summer 2018.

After an amazingly fun BC Superweek, I returned home for a seemingly non-existent 48 hours before hopping on a plane back to Europe. Several things were changing for this trip, for sure my confidence after a great national championship; but many other things like a new house, access to a car (Thanks Andreas!), and a new bike. I was looking to continue to ride the wave of positivity that I was on as long as I could.

Straight away I was off to a great start. My first race back was a UCI race in France. It featured several nasty cobblestone sectors and a finishing circuit with even more. I managed to sneak into the large breakaway of 12 riders, and we worked well over the next 130 km. As we crossed the finish line for the penultimate time, an attack went from the only two Pro-continental riders in the breakaway. I took a quick look around the group and thought, ‘yeah, I still have the legs for this’. So I jumped across to the lead two and started working with them straight away. The remnant of the breakaway left in our wake.

As we approached the final cobblestone sector, our lead was down to just 20 seconds, and I thought that we just might be able to make it to the other end of the cobbles before getting caught. We soldiered on, and we cleared the cobbles, still no peleton. Now with only 8 km to go we start to believe, so the three of us bury ourselves in the effort and try to hang on. As we approach the 2 km to go, the biggest rider in the group sends an attack from 3rd position. I was quick to react and grabbed his wheel, there was not a whole lot of pedaling for the next 20 seconds, and I started to doubt that we would make it, and sure enough behind us there was the peleton. We rallied together for a few more minutes but there was nothing to be done. With just over 800 meters to go, we were caught and I was devastated.

After the race in France I entered a big series of races. GP Cerami, Kriezth Brize Elites, and the Tour de Namur, 10 days of racing within a 16-day period. There was not a lot to call home about during all those race days. It was a block of racing that I was really looking to get some results out of, but sometimes in this crazy sport the stars don’t align.

Tour de Namur had some heart wrenching moments that I will share, like on stage 3’s finish. As we went under 2 km to go I follow a big attack by two other riders. We are going up a climb before a quick descent then a 200m climb at 20+% to the finish line. Just as we approached the top before plunging down to the final climb my teammate Will Elliott bridged the gap, he gets us up to max speed on the short fast descent. When the right-hand corner comes into view, I noticed something odd. Will was on the wrong side of the road still going full gas. I start to yell at him, “Its RIGHT!”.

Will peeks his head up and sees its already too late to save. He locks up the rear wheel and I do the same just behind. Will is not able to scrub enough speed and plunges straight into a ditch, I managed to stay on the road, the two other riders behind us did as well. The three of us still have a small gap on the peleton, so we get back up to speed and continue inside the final KM. I just catch the other two riders again when we hit another corner, this time a 120-degree lefthander. The lead rider from Lotto-Soudal U23 doesn’t make it, he runs straight into a wall after skidding on some gravel. The other rider and I both put our feet down to stay upright, and now faced a 20% climb with zero speed. The two of us make it roughly 50m up the climb before the charging peleton comes surging past.

During the other four stages of Namur, the team managed some decent results, but were lacking the win that we so badly desired. I personally managed a fifth place on a stage after bridging to a breakaway and then attacking them only to be caught with 500m to go. Another time that I was just missing some luck to seal the deal.

After Namur I had a week to train, so I talked with the man who is putting us up and he said that I should try the Scheldepeleton. A daily group ride that goes up and down the river Schelde. It is a full gas ride that attracts huge number of people. Usually there are a few WorldTour riders on it and you can have fun trying to attack them or go pull-for-pull alongside.

Of course, I cannot do this post without talking about the GP’s in Monteal and Quebec. I was really looking forward to those two events. And I was embarrassed with how I performed. We, as Team Canada were there for 2 reasons; be in the breakaway, and win the KOM jersey. I, obviously, was not part of any of it. During Quebec, I saw the signs early on that I was going to suffer. It was like I was racing late in the evening, still being on European time and all. Quebec was a bit of a write off but I was very pleased with how I was able to position myself throughout the whole race, always getting in the way of the WorldTour guys, but eventually they let me be there because they realized they were not going to get rid of me. With a few laps to go I felt some cramps going on, and when we hit Cote de Montagne with 3 laps to go it was lights out for me.

So, Quebec was very subpar. I was aiming higher in Montreal. It all started okay, I missed the breakaway again, at one-point Canada had three in the break. One was smart enough to drop back realizing three was too many. I was not in the breakaway again, and that really upset me. But I decided to do the best I could for the two team leaders, Alex and James. I ended up giving my wheel to James who flatted. I managed to get back no problem, so I re-found James and continued to drive him around all day. I was the most experienced rider in terms of positioning, so I offered to help James with it who was struggling. I kept him up there for 150 km. With 3 laps to go, roughly 36 km I could not hold it in anymore, and needed a nature break. I stopped at the top of longest climb on the course and just as I was regaining contact with the 3rd or 4th car in the convoy (nearly back in the peleton). I suffered a puncture. With my team car up in the breakaway, I relied on SRAM neutral support again. They gave me a wheel, but they were not able to help me get back to the peleton. I was left or dead 20 seconds behind the car convoy. I was so angry and embarrassed that everyone is going to see me here and not know what happened, and I am never going to get another chance at this. Emotions were running through me like crazy, finally I decided on anger and charged on. I thought about it for a lap and a half and finally called it quits before the last lap, looking to save myself the embarrassment of being that lone rider wandering around the course.

So yes, my experience at Quebec and Montreal was not what I hoped for, and something that I was very badly looking to put behind me. The one thing I can take away is that I am not as far off as I thought I would be to those top tier riders. Nothing was unbelievable, even on a course with 4500m of climbing in Montreal.

As I write this I am currently sitting at the Hotel Postwirt in Ebb’s, Austria just 48 hours prior to racing the U23 World Championships. It’s always an honor to represent my country, and I will be aiming to do you and Canada proud on Friday.

Thanks for reading, I’ll do another update about Austria and how the World Championships unfolded.