?Yesterday was the Pont-Rouge classic road race near Quebec City. The Opus-PowerWatts "A" squad had a complete lineup with Carl, David, Michel, and myself. The course was 5 loops of 19 kilometers for a total of 95. Mostly flat, a few little bumps that last about 1 minute, and moderate wind at about 20km/hour.

A quick warm-up, and Carl, aggressive as usual, suggests that the entire team starts from the gun, and we attempt a team trial. Not a bad idea, since we are all pretty good at time-trialing. So we tell ourselves why not? In my case, I just wanted to use this race as a hard workout. So we attempt our plan - shortly, I am anaerobic, we have all taken a couple pulls, and the pack has changed from a herd of sheep to a long line of ducks. I have had too many such lessons in the past, and finally realized that wasting energy by pulling at the front of the pack does not bring you anywhere. So I pull back for shelter, and tell myself, I think we'll have to be a bit more patient.

A few minutes later, Carl goes again with 3 other strong riders this timse opening a gap. For 2 laps they are riding strong, but the Cycle Performance team, realizing that this break may stick, worked together at a high pace to bring everything back together.

I tried again a few times to get a? break going without success. After a couple of attempts, Luc Langevin, from the Ryno Performance team comes up and tells me, "Michel, il y a une pancarte dans ton dos", which is french for, "there is a sign on your back". So I say to myself, I guess I'll have to keep my time-trialing efforts at those events.

A small group did finally get away with about 2 laps to go but we had no riders in the break. We tried to get the chase organized with the Cycle Performance team, but the cohesion just wasn't there. Carl, again did a good move at the right time, and managed to escape from the main pack and finish in a small chase group.

For the pack sprint, though I am not the sprinter type, I thought I'd give it some practice. I chose the inside being more exposed to the wind, thinking I would work hard moving up, but would have less of a chance being boxed in. That didn't work out either. I ended up somehow being pushed on the gravel shoulder. So I went around the back of the pack, broke the "yellow line" rule, and tried to move up on the outside. With all this I new I could not make it much further than mid pack. So that is where I finished.

So, it did turned out to be a good workout, but race wise, I certainly should have been more patient and kept myself fresh in the first half, and attacked when the pack was more tired. I would have had a better chance at making something stick.

Early this week I'll get a few hard workouts in before next weeks 40km time-trialing.

Take care,

Michel