I
t’s been a while since my last blog entry ! Since the Tour de Beauce, a lot of things happened: national road race and criterium, racing in BC, Chicago, Tour de Quebec, injury, track nationals and now Tour of Alberta !
Road nationals
Nationals did not go well with a flat in the road race and missing the good move in the criterium. July was extremely busy and crazy for me as I worked an average of 8 hours a day, some days up to 14h straight hours trying to save my event, because of last minute restructuration within the organization. Working that much alone is exhausting, so I had to keep the trainning to a minimum. My race schedule with Predator Carbon Repair was still loaded with BC Superweek, Chicago Prairie Criterium series just before the Tour de Quebec starts on July 24th.
In the end, everything worked out pretty well. The race was better organized than any previous edition and my form was still not affected too much by all the work. In fact, the ease-up on volume and all the racing was starting to pay off and I was feeling physically fresh. In Chicago, I almost got a podium in the Lake Bluff twilight, the first race I won last year on the Pro US circuit, but I crashed on the last corner to the finish behind the UHC train.
Tour de Québec Desjardins presented by Anti+
Heading off to Quebec right after by plane to organize the last details and press conference, I was confident enough with my organizing team that I was able to race my own event with my teammates. Without having touched the bike since the last criterium of the Prairie State series, I started the first stage of Tour de Quebec. As expected, my body was not so responsive the first half of the race for the lack of trainning and sleep, but I was feeling pretty good by the end of the race and I successfully delivered my teamate Emile Abraham to the stage win with a good leadout. 
The next day was a 85km criterium in St-Augustin. I was feeling even more better than the previous day and we decided to cover moves and hope for another field sprint. With five lap to go, two riders touched each other in front of me and one of them went flying in the air. I could’nt avoid it and lucky as I am, I only scratch my elbow and absorb a pile up of riders on my back…. So I tought. Looking at my knee, I saw the blood starting to flow abondantly. Somehow, I landed knee first on another rider big chain ring. Their is’nt lot of nerves in that region and it was not really painfull at first. I got cleaned up and bandaged. Later in the day, during the night, the pain went to the point I could’nt move the knee at all and had to ramp off my bed in agony to get my phone and call my father to go to the hospital. Thankfully, their is’nt much patients at 3am in hospitals and I was able to get Xrays and pain killer pretty quickly. The Xray showed air around the impact which went deeply up to the bones. I spent the next day at home resting as I was in crutches and exhausted. I was present for the last stage where I witness my team conserving Emile Abraham win and yet winning a third stage ! 
Recovering from an injury
A few days later, I went to see my chiropractor. I was walking since a few days already but the knee was swollen and the tissues around the impact very rough. I went and see him a couple times with laser and infra red treatments. He gave me an estimate of a month until I could start doing intensity again. In the end I was 12 days off the bike. I started with easy 1hour ride the first 10 days and when I started to be able to apply more pressure on the pedal, I did a 21h volume week with some good riding. I was trainning for track nationals at the end of the month. In the process, I got an invite from the national team to participate in the inaugural Tour of Alberta 3-8 septembre. I was very unsure of where my form would be by then, but I finally accepted. My first race and intensity for the whole month was the Quebec championships in Rivière du Loup on August 25th. That was hard, I was able to affect the race, but I was definitely not feeling like myself and after the race, I came very close of cancelling both track nationals and Tour of Alberta. After talking with the head coach of the national team, Gord Fraser, I decided to give it a shot anyway hoping to use track nationals to get some leg speed.
Track nationals
I drove with Joanie Caron from Riviere du Loup the next Monday and we stayed at a very close location from the Dieppe Velodrome, less than 2km away from the track ! I found Robby and Sheri through Couchsurfing and staying with them made the trip so much better.
The first day on the track, I did a couple efforts and Iwas feeling and was very slow. The next day was the team pursuit which I did’nt do for lack of team. Instead I had 10min track time and I completed with 1h30 on the road. The next day was completely cancelled due to rain and Saturday looked like it could be a similar scenario, however, we started around 2pm with the flying laps which I was as expected much slower than usual, not even under 15sec. With the schedule full of events and with the junior and cadet riders crashing in all peloton races, the points race of the omnium took forever to happen and by the end of the night they reporte dit for the next day along with Omnium III, IV, V and VI starting at 9AM.
The next day was similar and in the end, we (the elite men), only start racing at 2PM with the points race. With no track preparation, let alone, no intensity trainning at all, I had to race smart. I tried to do a couple moves and doing so, I finished 3rd winning the first and last sprint in solo breakaway attempts. The next events went on very fast with the elimination, pursuit, scrath race and kilo. I raced with no pressure all events and in the end I am pretty happy with the results considering the injury and lack of preparation. Right after the kilo, I did’nt have much time to waste as I needed to drive to Quebec, pack my baggages and bikes and take my flight to Edmonton the next day.
Tour of Alberta !
I arrived in Edmonton at 23h30 local time pretty exhausted. The next day I woke up and meet the other guys on the team which I all know from past projects or race. A good group of guys ! We did a short training ride to get the travel out of the legs and I realized my head tub was loose. After further examination by the mechanic, the for ended up to be broken. Luckily, Gord worked his contacts and a Devinci time trial bike was lend to me for the prologue.
Subway Prologue
The prologue was pretty exciting. I was pretty nervous considering my trainning leading up to the event and the level of racing here. The course was a technical 7,2km with many turn, a descent and a short climb followed by a false flat. I was able to do 2 laps of recognition before the races started and I knew this was going to be a very fast prologue. I started at 18h45. I went fast right from the ramp and I was feeling ok, up to the climb. At that point, my average speed was over 53km/h with only 3km remaining. I completely explosed in the climb. Even at track nationals, the points race being so short and having ride the pursuit in « easy mode » to save myself for the scratch, it was the first real intensity I had done in the last month. Going up the climb, all the lights went on ; Check engine, fuel the tank, etc ! I reach the finish line as fast as I could, but my legs were completely shut down and I was going much slower than the speed I was going in warm up. I did’nt even had to use my break in the last corner which was dangerous in trainning. Anyway, I was glad from the effort which put me a little over a minute being Sagan who completely destroyed the competition !
Stage 1 - What goes on in a cyclist head during a 160km race …
I was VERY nervous for stage 1. The race featured 158km from Edmonton to Camrose on flat terrain. After 2 parade laps in Edmonton, the officials launched the real start and the pace went up right away to high speed. With only 7km into the race, I had the honnour to be the first rider to flat. My computer average speed was showing 57km/h at that point and so immediately, many toughts went through my head ; Oh no, this might be the end of my Tour, damn, not again ! Anyway, I tried to kept calm and continue to ride on the flat tire at 50km/h until the car came to change the wheel. The wheel change was fast and I had no problem getting confortably behind cars. With the peloton going balls out, I had to go pretty fast (high over 80km/h) behind the cars to make junction. 
The pace continued to be pretty fast for the whole first hour until a group of 5 took the road and the yellow jersey Sagan called for a pee break. We only raced for a hour and I was already feeling unconfortable and I tought this was going to be a long day ! I eat a lot during the next hour and with the pace still pretty fast with the Cannondale team chasing the break soon enough we were about to enter the finishing circuit. The more the race went on, the better I was feeling and when we entered the circuit, I went to Antoine and told him to get on my wheel to move up. Unfortunately in those kind fo circuit, it is often hard to follow a teammat. With two laps to go, I went all the way to the front just behind Cannondale. The finishing circuit was technical with a descent followed with a punchy little climb to the finish. A few crashes happened around me so I never took any risks. In the last lap, I went backward a little with riders elbowing each other to stay at the front. Going down the descent, I was expecting a crash so I ease up again and on the climb I pass a few riders to finish in 21st. First stage done and I was surprise to hold my position in that field.
Stage 2 - Fast, Fast and Fast !
Stage 2 was 175km long from Devon to Red Deer with a KOM on the 148km. Once again, the pace was really fast. Around the 75km mark, a group of 10 went away. At that point, I was feeling good and when I saw the chasing field easing up, I sprint all out to try and make junction. I hit top speed of 68km/h and was making ground rapidly on the break. Meanwhile, a rider from Jelly Belly was on my wheel and as I was now loosing speed, he helped me a little, but it was now too late and we were not going to make it. We were now in no man’s land, but soon enough a chasing field lead by Garmin came right past us and chase down the breakaway. Yesterday was fast for a full hour and I never tought a race could be that fast for that long. I was wrong, the fast pace went on for the first 98km ! My computer showed 53km/h average at that point. We hit the finishing circuit still a good 2min behind two solo riders (Sylvan Dillier – BMC) and (Sergey Tvetcov – Jelly Belly). Even with the fast pace from all the attacks in the peloton, the two riders resisted good and Dillier won the stage. In the field, my legs were not as fresh as the day before and was not in good position to try anything.
from left to right: Jean-Sébastien Perron, me, Stuart Wight, Rob Britton, Derrick St-John, Antoine Duchesne, Ryan Aitcheson, Garrett Mcleod
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the rest of the Tour
http://tourofalberta.ca/
Photos credits: Veloimages.com (Subway Prologue) and Lincoln Flanagan
