Made it back from Canada in one piece, and boy am I glad to finally be back in my own bed, on my own schedule, eating non-cafeteria food and wearing normal non-spandex clothes! Here's a brief summary of how each stage in the Tour de Rimouski played out:
- 7/12: ÉTAPE 1 – Lac-des-Aigles, 68km: 5th GC, 1:48 behind leader. Attack came after start, tried to bridge the gap with Maddie, but no dice! Ariane and Dafné still stayed away after many attempts. It's amazing how great my legs felt for the GP the previous day, and how stale they felt today. After being pulled back in, I copped a wicked bonk before the KOM (riding off near the back to be exact!) and 20km-to-go mark, and suffered like a pig to stay with the group for the sprint finish where I still managed to crack top-10. Jenna had a great race today, getting 4th!!
-7/12: ÉTAPE 2 - team time trial, 7km: 1st place! We won the ttt with a time of 8:37. The course was dead flat, but had several tricky corners, and it poured during our race (remember: in case of flood, climb to safety). We worked extremely well together with Saskia "The Diesel" Kowalchuk, taking some massive pulls up at the front, and Maddie and Jenna riding extremely well. Jenna came off of a great finish with the morning's road race, but flatted during the ttt, which was unfortunate so we came in with just 3 riders. I ate a lot of grime. CHCH sitting 1st for team GC.
- 7/14: ÉTAPE 3 - Mont Joli, 78.2km: 6th on GC, bunch sprint finish. Lots of good climbing today, but no breaks were effective. We tried to team up with other teams to counter Atrium I (team with yellow jersey) but no dice – they shut everything down. Other teams just didn't keep their word. I thought that was lame, but like Rick said: if people don't hold their word, you remember that always in bike racing. Watch out girls...I won't forget!
- 7/15: ÉTAPE 4 - individual time trial, 6km: Finished 9th in the time trial, 16 seconds behind winner Emma White, another American rider (she killed it!). Felt real slow today; like I took 10 giant steps backwards or something. I had a great warm-up, but just couldn't wind it up. Sitting 6th on GC.
- 7/15: ÉTAPE 5 - crit, 1km lap 45min racing: We had that whole race controlled to a T. I've never raced so aggressively – I attacked multiple times, and rode off the front with a hefty gap for nearly 7 laps. When I was caught, my teammates would counter, and when they were caught I'd attack again. We had our lead out train in place for Emma White in place for the finishing sprint (about 1 lap to go), however, heading into the last turn the whole front of the field was taken out (including me and all of my teammates). Lots of road rash, sprained left foot, hard hit to the head and several broken spokes. I stacked it man, hard. Let's see, they had me finishing second to last in that race, my GC dropped from 6th to 21st. I'm so happy with how each of us rode though, especially Maddie who got the red jersey (most combative rider)!
- 7/16: ÉTAPE 6 - Rimouski Circuit race, 57.7km: Ditched the crutches to race in the morning, despite my left foot and discomfort. I refused accepting defeat: I wanted to finish the Tour, and at this point my GC didn't really matter. I stayed with the pack for 2 of the 5 laps, then dropped off the back and rode the rest alone. Kilometers passed like kidney stones; I don't think I ever want to race on muscle relaxants again! I'll have to write that one down in my list of no-no's. Finished the race in 29th, overal GC for the Tour 22nd. At least for the points classification I was 7th. Went straight from the bike to the crutches.
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| Neat coverage...in French! |
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| Max speed: 200km/hr! Nah, don't worry, I didn't drive the car... I was just wet and cold after the tt and jumped into the van to stay warm! |
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| Start of the crit |
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| During the crit. Very wide non-technical course, with sweeping fast turns. I enjoyed whipping around them as fast as I could manage driving my bike. |
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| Emma getting the sprint points half way through the race after I lead her out, she had a great race.! Even after the crashing, she got up and hopped back on her bike (cx style) to finish. Way to represent your cx homies Emma! |
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And that's a wrap for the 2012 Project de Rimouski.
Many thanks to the KMS team and our sponsors for making my first international race experience possible for me – I grew as an athlete and an individual tremendously. Many thanks to the CHCH parents who fed us, drove us and put up with us day after day, and especially to the coaches Rick and Lloyd who kept us organized and focused before, during and after the racing. We had a lot going on during this whole trip, but we worked together as a team (both on and off the bike), and I believe that's why we were so successful. What a neat experience and great showing for team CHCH!
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| The girls team after spending several hours in Quebec City. I'm going to miss them! |
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