Back in Nova Scotia / Falmouth Flyer

With the April behind me, I packed up my Montreal apartment and made the move back to Nova Scotia for a few weeks.  There are no major races on the calendar in early May, so it made sense to recharge my batteries at home before shipping off to join my new team, Ride With Rendall, in Ottawa.

It's been great to be home and spend time with family.  I've enjoyed the increased sleep and improved food.  I've been able to get out for a few long road rides so far, a couple mountain bike rides on Yarmouth's new mountain bike trails, and generally get back into the swing of training after some rough weeks to finish exams.  Preparation for the rest of the season starts now.

I was also able to see another sort of family this past weekend; the folks that make up the maritime racing scene at the Falmouth Flyer.  This is the only race on the calendar while I'm home, but I'm glad it was there and that I had a chance to see everyone as I won't be around as much this season.

Navigating the hairpin turn early in the race
Photo credit: Jennie Fougere

The race itself was a good time, although fruitless in terms of getting a result.  Over the past few years it's been fantastic to see maritime racing growing quickly, and with that teams have emerged and created more exciting, tactical racing.  Being on local teams myself in the past, I've seen first hand how strong solo riders tend have a hard time against well organized squads.  My ambitions for the day weren't really to get a good result, but to have a strong ride.

As a whole the race was pretty exciting as a few decisive moves paid big dividends for the aggressors, but my part in the story was pretty dull.  Thus, I'll keep this short.  I missed both of the decisive moves on the day, and when I finally tried my own flyer with two laps to go it was covered by attentive riders with teammates up the road.  With 20 km left to race the break of five had a two minute gap and the pack seemed to have no motivation to chase.  Uninterested in racing for sixth place, I decided to go to the front and make a big effort to finish the day.  After one lap of effort, the gap had only reduced to a minute and a half, but after hammering into a long stretch of headwind, we made the hairpin turn to make the run in for home and for the first time could see the break not far ahead.  I got pretty excited and with the help of one other emptied the tanks to try and pull the break back and play spoiler.  Alas, we came up about a kilometer short.  The pack finished right on the heels of the break, with one of the five being caught just before the line.  I rolled in easy, having nothing left for the final climb.

Regardless of the result, it's always a blast to race with the maritime crew.  Big congrats go out to my friends and training buddies Jeff Muise and Mitchell MacDonald on their podium places, and also to a couple of juniors I noticed racing up in the A-category.  They know who they are; great riding!

Unfortunately there isn't another road race before I take off, but I believe I'll be back for awhile in July, with better form and on the hunt for some better placings.  In the meantime I'm going to keep getting keep training hard so I'm ready to ship off at the end of the month.  Until next time!

Getting in some hard miles on the front
Photo Credit: Brianne Steinman

April Recap

I had a feeling this might happen.  It's been a long time since my last post, but I guess that's what happens when you start a blog in the final months of an engineering degree.  School was pretty crazy in April, and my training hours took a serious dip, but I was able to finish well and get some nice racing in along the way.  Below I share a few of the things I've been up to.

My Last Collegiate Race

Pushing the pace up the climb in the "crit"

I had one last chance to go race with the McGill Cycling team at MIT, and it proved to be a great weekend.  I should rephrase that; I raced great, but the weather was horrendous.  After another lacklustre time trial Saturday morning (I know, I know, I'll get it together eventually...), the sky opened up and provided us with steady rain for the afternoon crit.  Not that you could really call it a crit though, it was more of a short circuit race that went straight up and down a short steep hill every lap.  Normally this kind of course is my downfall; last year I pulled out of the race after being dropped after five laps.  However, to my surprise I was able to hang with the group this year, and take fifth in the uphill sprint for the line.  It was a great result on a course that didn't suit me, and it gave me confidence that I've made improvements in the weaker aspects of my cycling.

Working hard in the road race

On Sunday the long (and epic) race course MIT had planned had to be scraped and rerouted due to flooding from the rain the previous day.  The new race course was much shorter, so I raced hard from the start.  We were able to reduce the pack down to just six riders by the end, and I could feel a win on the way.  However, when the group gave me a gap coming into the final kilometer I got baited into jumping way too early.  As I approached the line, my vision was getting hazy, but I was still able to see a few of the chasing riders slip by my fading effort in the final fifty meters.  So, no collegiate win for me in my final year, but the races were a ton of fun and got me ready for the big challenge the following weekend...

The Tour of the Battenkill

New team, new kit!

This race was a beast.  160km rolling hills and short punchy climbs, with a quarter of the distance composed of dirt roads.  With no UCI race on the schedule this year, all the top racers and continental pros lined up with us in the Pro/Cat 1 division.  This was already going to be the longest race I had ever done, and with the caliber of riders and the difficult terrain included, there was a reason it was highlighted as my early season objective.

My two weekends of collegiate racing showed me that I had good legs, but due to road race cancellations on both trips, and being busy with school, the last time I had ridden my bike for longer than two hours was back in South Carolina at the beginning of March.  If there was anything that was going to hold me back, it would be my endurance.

Side note: this was also my first race with my new team.  I've joined the Ride With Rendall squad out of Ottawa for the season, which is really exciting as it's going to allow me to race in more big events this year.  I'll have more on this and the team at another time.

I expected the start of the race to be incredibly fast, but it was quite the opposite.  The pack coasted along as a large breakaway tore up the road.  The race began with three circuits which included a couple steep pitches, the second of which (Juniper Swamp Rd) was dirt and split the field every time.  I was well positioned going into the bottom of the climb all three times, but the first two times I crested just off the back of the leading group and chased in no man's land with a few others before sitting up and getting absorbed by the second group.  However, on the final time up I made the extra effort and just hung onto the tail end of the lead group.  This proved to be very important, as only a small group of riders managed to rejoin awhile later, tired from their chase.

It was at this point in the race that I realized I had finally been on the bike past the two hour mark and realized that I really needed to focus on riding conservatively in order to make it to the finish.  No sooner did I have this thought than the race winning move went away.  We were on stretch of rolling hills with a headwind, and I was near the front of the pack when Optum's Scott Zwizanski (former winner of the Tour de Beauce) attacked with a couple other pros.  In that moment I felt I had the legs to follow the move, but knew I'd be getting in over my head.  In the end I stayed in the main group. I think I made the right choice.

The rest of the race was more of the same.  Every time we tackled a significant climb (dirt or paved), the group drilled it and split in two pieces.  Again, I was often in no man's land, sometimes making the front group.  At one point there was one dangerous looking split that myself and two other riders bridged across to, only to have the second group catch us a handful of kilometers later.

I was really starting to feel the length of the ride by the 140km mark.  I could tell my brain wasn't working as well, and it showed.  We came down a pretty sketchy dirt descent with a hard ninety degree left turn onto pavement at the bottom.  Me, probably pretty glycogen deficient at this point, came down the hill with a ton of momentum and started breaking too late.  Once I did the breaks didn't seem to be grabbing that well, and I realized there was no chance I was going to make the turn.  Instead, I didn't even try.  I went straight across the paved road at the bottom and took the 2-3 foot drop into the ditch head on.  My mountain biking friend will be proud of me; I stuck the landing, managed to unclip, dismount, and yank my bike out of a bush before scrambling back up to the road and taking off.

The whole mishap only took thirty seconds to sort out, and with 20km left I took off down the road to reintegrate myself into what was the main pack of the day.  Five kilometers later I made contact, and proceeded to sit at the back and suck wind, knowing there was one more dirt climb ahead to finish the day.

On the climb everything was looking good, and I was starting to get excited that I'd go to the line with the group and be able to sprint for a decent placing, but with only a few hundred meters to go to the top, I blew up in a way I had never experienced (in a race) before.  All my power was gone: it was a bonk of epic proportions. I did all that I could to limp over the crest of the hill.  From there, six kilometers remained between me and the line, and they seemed like they would never end.  I ate everything left in my pockets and took off all my extra clothing as I suddenly realized I was getting way too hot.  I lost three and a half minutes to the group in the flat run into the finish.  They sprinted for 21st place, and I rolled in for 35th.

All in all, Battenkill was a tremendous amount of fun and I look forward to going back next year and landing a place further up the results sheet.  I would like to have been able to finish my race more strongly, but endurance is an easy thing to regain once school is over.  Being able to keep up at a race of this level is something I'm very pleased with and gives me confidence for the rest of the season.  

A bit of a longer post, but I thought this race deserved it.  Hope you enjoyed! 

First Quebec Races of the Season

Breakaway at Ste. Martine

After Battenkill, school took over for awhile.  I spent a ridiculous nine days entirely off the bike, and spent the time running around school finishing up a year-long final project, submitting other projects and assignments, and trying to squeeze a bit of studying in for my final exams.

I had to take a weekend off racing to focus on exam prep, but after the first three tests were done, I took a break and raced the first event on the Quebec calendar: GP Contrecoeur.  I didn't get much racing done though, as I crashed in spectacular fashion just three kilometers into the course.  An overlap of wheels as I was moving up on the outside of the pack led to a rear skewer going into (and breaking) my front spokes.  I had a cracked helmet and road rash on my right hip and shoulder, but looking back, I was lucky that no bones were broken and I was able to race in the following weekend's double header.

After two more exams I was able to take part in both the Beauharnois crit on Saturday and the Ste. Martine road race on Sunday.  Unfortunately, neither went well.  I suffered a mechanical problem that took me out forty-five minutes into the crit, and after being the second man into the winning breakaway at Ste. Martine, I suffered a rear flat and had to get picked up by the broom wagon for my third straight DNF.  Not quite what I was expecting going into these races, but hey, that's bike racing.

Finishing School

I feel I should write a bit about this, as finishing my Mechanical Engineering degree at McGill University is without a doubt the most important thing I did this April.  At times it was definitely pretty tough, and by the end I was very much ready to be done. But, I've enjoyed the subjects I've studied and the people I've worked with along the way.  It's a strange feeling once you're done school, and at the moment my future is a bit uncertain, but luckily I've got some time to figure it out.