Day 1: North Star Grand Prix

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, gather around as I tell you of the intense, exciting and excruciating racing of the first two stages of the North Star GP.

The first stage was a simple, yet painful, time trial. A Prologue some may call it. The course was a simple 8km on a relatively flat, bumpy road. The plan was to go fast. We went fast.

I went a little hard off the start. Telling myself that this was nothing more then a hard mountain bike start. Just go hard and try not to die. With my Norco Tactic underneath me we flew. At the turn around I caught my 30 second man. Then it was time to turn it up on the way back – see if I could get a few more seconds. Nearing the end of the TT I though I was going to die – my legs were going to explode. Pushing through it I ended up 33^rd on the stage and 3^rd for U23. This race had just begun to get interesting.

Ok, now for the exciting part. After recovering from the TT and making up our bottles of Vitargo it was time for the St. Paul Crit. A nice 1.4km course with some wicked turns would prove challenging to the many riders. Brandon Etzl and I got a relatively good start position. This would prove very beneficial on a course with 5 turns – two of which were greater than 90 degrees. It was a neat course with paved sections, bricks, bumps, holes and other fun stuff like inside lines on the sidewalk.

Go! With the race underway the first few laps were very hard as a breakaway tried to get away. There was a nice lull in the middle of the 40 lap crit where I was able to make up multiple spots with fellow Jet Fuel ride Kevin Massicotte. Kevin and I had actually managed to get to the front at this time, which was good because the pace picked up. Optum Pro Cycling got on the front to chase the breakaway down. The field was strung out single file at 50+ km/h for multiple laps. The corners became less chaotic as we were going so fast that you would only be 1 – 3 bikes wide – as long as no one decided to slam on the breaks. Within the last 5 laps I felt a few drops of rain. That was going to make life very interesting. For a relatively technical crit and Optum still drilling it on the front to catch the break rain was not appreciated. Luckily I didn’t feel anything more than those few drops. In the last 2 laps I was in a full out sprint. I wanted to make up spots, but it was a no go. The pace had risen again. I was full out. Sprinting across a small gap in the final straight I needed to insure I got same time as the winners. Luckily for me I did.

After the race I was just doing my own thing cooling down on the trainer at the van. I asked fellow teammate Anton to grab me my phone from the trailer. I had a missed call from Alex Sanna… hummm, I suddenly had a gut feeling I needed to be somewhere. Within 3 second Alex came running – I needed to be at podium. Apparently I had moved into the young riders jersey. Pretty neat. A short podium presentation and we were on our way. Between 1^st and 7^th place is within 11 seconds. This is still anyone’s race. Looking forward to the next 4 stages and putting my body to the ultimate test!