On Sunday night after Philly Classic, high on incredible fan atmosphere of the event, the Team made its way towards Montreal where we were to race season opener of Tuesday night race series, the “Lachine”. We arrived to Montreal on Monday afternoon and were hosted in a nice hotel Espresso right Downtown which had free espressos in the lobby – can a cyclist ask for more?! Further to our five-star treatment we were invited to a nice restaurant for a dinner in Lachine by the organizer Tino. Although he was not able to make it last minute, turned out we were still treated to the fancy Italian dinner on him. What a wonderful gesture! Really feeling like a Pro these past few days! Post dinner the team went for a walk Downtown, being tourists, shooting crap with strip club doormen promising us that we wouldn’t find more ‘fun’ behind that door than anywhere else… the man clearly haven’t tried a bike race 😉

On Tuesday morning after a ‘must visit’ spin up the Mont Royal, the team enjoyed downtown for one last time for some lunch and coffee before heading out to Lachine for the evening race. Let me tell you, as soon as we got there you could tell this weekly race isn’t like anywhere else. You can see its history and that it’s a big deal before people even started to show up. The course is close to 2 km’s long in residential area around the park, but has painted markings specifically for the race around the course, 25m line marking starting at 200m-to-go towards finish line, concreted finish line banner, timing booth, seat stands, and steel bike artwork/sculpture. It’s eye opening – it’s not a flimsy weekly race with pinecones for the finish line in an industrial park. The culture and history breathes upon you. The organisers started setting up and further widened my eyes: steel barriers, finish-line vip bar booths, team corrals at the start line, fans slowly lining up the street, red carpets rolling out at the start line for call-ups, video reporters everywhere taking interviews… Are you effin’ kidding me??? We lined up on the side, knowing we were getting a call up as a visiting team from Ontario – Real class. I started to get nervous as if it was National Championships… to be honest presentation and hype was on par!

A friendly gift to Tino from the Jet Fuel Coffee/Norco Bicycles team at the call up

Last year’s leaders were getting call-ups, including some local celebrity Pros: Martin Gilbert, Hugo Hule racing at the top international level. Local UCI squads Garneau-Quebecor and Ekoi also were present. The pre-start speech by Tino gave me goose-bumps alone, even though I didn’t understand a word of it. His passion for cycling deserves an applaud! From what I understand all this is embodiment of his enthusiasm and passion for the sport! Wish we had more figures like that in Ontario. Perhaps it’s the cycling culture of Quebec as well… not quit the same as Ontario which manifesting itself in our dear mayor Rob Ford scraping off the last bike lanes in Toronto…

The race went off with furious speeds, averaging 50km/h speeds thanks to long straightaways and wide (apparently, specifically designed for bike racing 5% banked) corners. The Jet Fuel/Norco boys didn’t want to make the same mistake as our last crit at EQ GP of falling asleep on opening laps, and were firing our machine gun right off the start. After 6-8 laps of 31-lap race, I launched a hard attack off the front drawing a select few riders out of the bunch. Looked back to see gaps between the groups of two’s and three’s I pressed on to force the split. Flicked an elbow, but no response. After weighing the situation I figured it wasn’t tactical and everyone was gassed, but really not wanting the field to regroup and I surged again through the start/finish line. The crowd cheering always helps buffer the already screaming legs in lactate agony.

The couple groups behind latched on, and the break of the day was made with 9 riders. Aside from few attacks we rolled well and kept the field out of sight. Final laps saw some attacks and cat & mouse play but it seemed there were enough riders motivated to take on the chase and I didn’t have to close to many gaps. Final solo attack was chased down with 800m to go and I sat 5^th wheel getting a free ride towards final corner where I made a surge to get in a 2^nd wheel behind Pierrik Naud of Garneu-Quebecor who opened a drag race sprint between me and him from the corner. It was long drag of about 400m with me coming from behind chipping away inches towards the line. Still a few inches short I threw my bike forward for the line… BUT oh wait, it was 25m-to-go line and not the finish! How could I confuse the lines after going thru them 30 times, you might ask? Well when you’re trying to squeeze every last Watt out of your legs while starring at the wheel beating you a couple of inches ahead you, and see a line as soon as you pass by a timing booth in your peripheral vision, you may see how you can get a trigger reaction to throw your bike in desperation. I’m sorry blow this one, there was quite a good chance I could have won this with an extra 25m given I was the one coming from behind. But on the other hand with passionate local quebec fans in the crowd and Ontario rider winning the race on their home territory it might have turned into something like this:  😉

So lets say everything turned out just right. We came to the warm welcome, were a big presence in the race with all the boys racing hard and and aggressive showing off Jet Fuel colors and our Norco bikes, and then defended the breakaway for a successful podium placing. And I am sure we will be welcomed again when we come back for the season finale in August! Can’t wait!