Today was a 60 minute criterium in Brossard, a suburb of Montreal. With cold rainy weather 90 minutes before the race, 12 degrees celsius (about 53 fahrenheit), I was actually on my way back home, having decided I would enjoy training on the Computrainer, more than racing a crit in this weather. Turns out that the clouds thinned up, and the rained stop. So I did a U-turn, and went back to the race site.

Three out of four riders from the team showed up. David leading a bike tour in Europe was absent, and will be back for the Granby time trial next week, so it was Carl Dessurault, Michel Courval and myself from the Opus/Powerwatts team. Carl riding agressively attacked and spent the first half of the race in a two man break, probably gaining about 30-40 seconds on the pack at some point. His breakaway partner started to fade, so they were finally reeled back by the pack mid race.

Carl took a few laps to recover, but soon was attacking again, playing cat and mouse with the pack multiple times. With 4 laps remaining, I'm near the front with Carl. Michel has trained hard this winter, and he's a fast twitch guy, so I'm thinking, we have two options. Carl and I can get organized and prepare a lead out for Michel, or I know Carl is strong enough and hold off the pack until the finish. So I look at Carl, and tell him I'm ready to get a lead out organized, or that he can just drop the hammer anytime time soon.

Wasn't long he attacked again, but got brought back within a lap. Then again, two laps before the finish, he attacked again solo. He was joined shortly by another rider, and they made it to the finish. Carl being so strong, the other rider simply was happy taking second place without contesting the sprint.

Congrats to Carl, on a great aggressive race for a first place finish. Michel also raced well working near the front of the pack, always ready for the counter attack.

On my side, I'm starting to feel the form is coming back. I was able to easily move around within the packed, placed a few attacks to test my legs. In order to attack successfully you need to have the form and the commitment. Even if the mind and commitment is there, the form still needs a bit of work. A few times I moved to front riding tempo to attempt to control the pace, so that Carl could secure his breaks.

Next week, is a 19km individual time trial. With Carl, David, and myself all excelling at time-trialing, we hope to see lots of Opus/Powerwatts jerseys on the podium.

Have a great week!