The women’s team finished their season at the Tour de Gatineau in Ottawa. A race that was on hold for three years, this year the event was back in full force.
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Following the windy Time Trial stage earlier in the day, the race continued with the Rookard Custom Pools Downtown Criterium, an exhilarating night-time crit right in the heart of Wenatchee.
Red Truck Racing has had a jam packed start to the season in California. Kicking things off with a team camp in Westlake Village, the group got some hilly miles in the Santa Monica Mountains before making their way south to Redlands. The training seemed to pay off as the girls team had a strong showing at the long standing race, Redlands Bicycle Classic.
A few weeks ago, we started Prep for the Nations Cup in Cairo, Egypt. The team had a prep camp in Milton for 10 days prior to flying out to Egypt. It was a bit of an unideal prep camp for the Women’s team, as for the first 4 days, we only had 2 members of the team there, as the remainder were still travelling back from the First Nations Cup.
The weather forecast for the Shasta Gravel Hugger was heavy snowfall, however I remained optimistic since I drove south for ten hours to California for the race. The morning of the race around six inches of snow accumulated on the ground and that kicked up the pre-race nerves and made me regret my decision of running gravel slicks.
With road season coming to an end in July, it made sense for me to put some gravel events on my calendar for the end of the summer. I had a feeling that I would enjoy the atmosphere and style of gravel racing, but little did I know how much fun and suffering could be had at the same time!
This year, the Canadian Road National Championships were held in Edmonton for the first time since 2010. Having nationals a bit closer to home was an exciting prospect, as it meant the team could drive out and have our full set up with team trailer, tents, and trainers at each event.
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.
The first stage of Joe Martin was led with a lot of nervous energy and excitement. It was a particularly hot and windy day and we knew it was going to be a tough one. The women’s peloton rolled out just after noon for a grueling few hours.
The Waterville road race was the first stage of this year’s Tour de Bloom stage race. Typically this wildly windy 90km stage is the last of four. The morning of the race we drove up to the race which is sort of on a plateau above the valley and geared up in the cold.
This is just the start of our race season so we are so excited to build upon this. This week was very special for me and I cannot wait for what is ahead. I feel like I saw all the hard work I have been putting in this winter shine through this week. I am eager to get back on the race course with these girls in RED!!
Valley of the Sun was my first race weekend with Red Truck and stage race in a while. I was eagerly awaiting the racing and sunshine. Sunday morning was the final stage of the weekend, the downtown crit! The time trial and road race was done, and our tummies were filled with lasagna from the night before.
While most of our teammates travelled home after Valley of the Sun and some warm weather training, a small but mighty part of the team stayed down south to race the Tucson Bicycle classic: a three day stage race around Tucson, Arizona.
There are many good reasons for a bunch of Canadians to be found in Phoenix, Arizona in February. After two years of little to no travel, neck deep into a seemingly endless grey west coast winter, a trip south was overdue. But the best reason of all to crowd into a house in the desert with eleven of your closest friends is for a bike race
This past weekend I lined up for the last race in the Vancouver Island gravel series, the Burnt Bridge Classic. I have done a lot of gravel riding up in the area of the race, but had never done a couple of the climbs in the direction that the race went.
I am returning home from Cali, Columbia after competing at the 2021 Cali Nations Cup where I raced the Team Pursuit, stand alone Elimination, and Madison. I‘m coming home happy and content but hungry for more as I prepare, to hopefully, represent Canada at World Championships in Roubaix, France.
After a couple solid weekends of road racing, I did a bike change and raced my gravel bike on the logging roads of Nanaimo. A little unconventional lead up to road nationals, but a bike race is a bike race, and they are few and far between these days! It was great to get in one more hard effort before flying off to nationals in a week.
This past Sunday was the inaugural Tour de Concord, a criterium set in Metrotown in Burnaby. The event put on by Concord Pacific and Cycling BC brought big crowds, creating a great atmosphere to ride in. The course was fast and technical with lots of corners.
This past Sunday saw the return of the Provincial Championships in the Hatzic Valley. Thankfully the winds shifted, clearing the smoke out of the area, but making the undulating 18.5km loop hot and humid.
My last junior worlds was another amazing learning experience! It started off racing the Team Pursuit qualification round. We had a solid ride up 3km and then in the last kilometre the team began to fall apart. We went out faster then planned and we payed for it in the end but we ended up qualifying in 5th place with a time of 4:37 which put us in a good place for our first round ride which was the following day.