Time Trial
The Provincial time trail was a 40km course out in Fort Langley area, I’ve been on the podium several times at TT Provincials so I was looking to do well.
It was an absolutely miserable day out there, so much rain made for a slippery course. I’ve done a decent amount of work on my TT bike over the years but perhaps this year I have done less to better prepare for other events. I set out in the TT to do a power race that I know I can do and should ideally leave me with a good time. I rode right at the pace that I wanted to but it just wasn’t enough, I ended up somewhere in the top 10, but that was a disappointment.
I think my biggest thing in the TT is my positioning on the bike. A few years ago it was a rule for your aerobars to be dead level with the ground, there couldn’t be any tilt or rise to them at all, and this is how I have had my bike set up. Now its legal to have your aerobars tilted up a max of 10cm total, so a rider can get their hands right up in their face closing the frontal area of the bike right up. I know I can improve my TT positioning to a much better position, which will help me go faster especially over such a long TT!
Road Race
To be honest, I came into this road race a little bit angry after the TT the day before. It was a 130km course in Aldergrove with lots of up and down hills, perfect for me. Also the weather took a big turn from there day before, 25 degrees and sunny was a really nice surprise.
In the start of the race Alex Fraser Maraun got into a breakaway with some pretty strong dudes, they got about a minute and a half gap and were holding strong. Now for the bad news, about half way through the race we see a Red Truck Rider at the side of the road, it's Alex from the breakaway, he cramped up and was outta the race. So now the entire Red truck team got to the front of the race and started to pull back the breakaway. We ended up using up all of my teammates to do this and still didn’t have the break back.
The race was coming into the final few laps so I had to start making some moves. I started to try to attack the pack to get up the road myself. It took a very long time and a lot of attacks, but I finally did it. I ended up soloing the last 20km of the race, catching a few riders that were up the road. In the end I came in at 4th place on the day which was good given the situation, but I knew I had the legs that day to win, but that’s just how bike racing goes sometimes.