After a successful weekend at road provincials, the team made its way to the Island for the return of the Agency Cycling Festival (formerly known as The Robert Cameron Law cycling series). Friday night’s time trial was a new course; located in North Saanich it was a hop, skip, and a jump from the ferry terminal. At just around 6km with two U-turns it made for some fast racing. Sarah and Holly took top honors on the day, second and third respectively.
Day two was host to the ever-controversial Metchosin road race. On a 10km circuit that is either climbing or descending, you either love or hate the race. Personally, I love this course, and I was excited to attack the day of racing. The overall for the weekend was scored using a points system. After Sarah’s second the night before, our plan going into the day was to secure Sarah the stage win. Also putting her into the leader’s jersey. The Cyclery brought the heat, and the leader from the night before eventually got away solo after attacking up the climb on the second and third laps. Sarah, Holly, Nadia and I were all that was left of the pack at this point. We worked together over the next few laps to rejoin the leader. We caught with just under three to go. With four of us in the lead group, we were able to pick up the pace leading into the finishing straight, leading out Sarah for the win and Holly second. Not only did we get the top two spots on the day, but Sarah also ended the day in the leader’s jersey.
On Sunday, day three, the weather finally caught up with us. It started raining just before our crit and didn’t stop until we ended. Early in the race I countered a prime that Lilly won and got away with Erin Attwell from the Cyclery. Since we were the two main teams in the race, we got a reasonable lead pretty quickly. We worked together to grow the lead and were away all race. We lapped the field with two laps to go, which made for an interesting finish. We ended up sprinting from mid-pack and unfortunately some riders from the main pack swerved in front of me before the last corner. I was second, Sarah won the bunch sprint for third after a stellar team lead out, and Holly won the crowd prime!
A huge shout out to Sarah and Graham for coming out to support us this weekend! We could not do it without our amazing supporters!
Rare photo of almost the entire team not in kit!