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