Coupes des Ameriques

The Coupes des Ameriques stage race (aka North American Masters Championships) takes place in Sutton, Quebec.  It's on our race calendar every year.  This year it was lining up to be a big race for our team.  We had 3 guys registered in the 30-39 Master A group and 5 in the 40-49 Master B group making it a solid attendance for a 3 day, out of town stage race.  Best laid plans.  In the weeks leading up to the race, we were suddenly down 3 teammates from crashes – first Rhys, then Scott – and finally Cary, our best climber and GC hope for Sutton.  But that's unfortunately part of bike racing, so we showed up in Sutton with 5 guys racing and one photographer while 2 others stayed in Toronto nursing injuries and wishing they could race. 

Having only recently recovered from an accident myself, I was feeling pretty rested but uncertain about my form.  On the sunny side of things, the weekend's weather forecast couldn't have been better.  Nothing but blue skies and sun for all three days of racing. 

The good weather combined with the event falling on the long weekend made for a huge turnout - 111 guys lined up for the Master B field to start the race on Friday evening.  Andrew, Augy and I wished Gary and Martin luck in their Master A race and took our spots on the start line among a number of familiar faces and many more guys we didn't know.

The Friday night prologue was the same hill climb as previous years but started from North of town this year instead of South.  The new approach was a few kilometers longer and the pace was fast because the road into town from the North is a decent.  As we sped into town I maintained decent position so I was no more than 20 guys from the front as we hit the sharp left hander and on to the wide road that begins the real climb. 

The climb to the top of the ski hill is 7 km long at an average gradient of only 5% but with sections as steep as 15%.  One of those is a very short stretch right at the base.  The peloton always hits this stretch hard and while it's short, it feels like hitting a wall.  It’s just a place you don’t want to get caught out and usually the place where the first few people get dropped.  A quick glance confirmed both Andrew and Augy were in within arm’s reach.  Then the route takes a left hand turn off the nice wide, smooth boulevard and onto a secondary road that's narrower and meanders up to the top of the slopes.  From this point, the pace is just steady hard (with the occasional flyer off the front) and it's basically a race of attrition. 

I worked hard to stay with the front group as we continued up the climb, looking back briefly every now and again to see the carnage behind.  I climbed mostly in the saddle only standing to accelerate if an attack lifted the pace, and once to bridge the gap created when a rider unclipped right in front of Augy and I almost causing a pile up.  That event served to focus my concentration ahead rather than behind for the next couple kilometers. 

Then when I glanced back again, I suddenly discovered I was the tail of front group and behind was nothing but ones and twos strung out down the hill.  Seconds later Roger Aspholm, an incredibly strong rider from the US who would go on to commandingly win each stage and of course the GC, pushed a little harder on the pedals and rode off the front group.  My legs finally paid the toll for the effort when the pace picked up again as the group tried to chase him and I was already at the limit.  It’s really just math and science but it always feel so frustrating to watch the group slowly pull away, knowing they're only traveling a hair faster than you, yet knowing you can’t do anything about it.  Legs screaming and gasping for air, I settled back to my threshold wattage and into the agony of the last couple km determined to keep the front group in sight.

 At 500 meters to go, I put in a dig to try to catch two guys a little ahead of me. I closed most of the gap but didn’t quite manage to catch them.  In doing so, I also managed to distance a couple guys that had tagged on to my wheel and I stayed ahead of them to the line. 

End result was 24^th place, 56 seconds back.  Andrew came in 40^thanother 39 seconds back and Augy followed in 67^th still ahead of roughly half the field.  Martin and Gary both finished respectably for their first time at Sutton in a tough Master A field.  First race done and decent results for some all-rounders!  Cary was close to the top playing the role of team photographer, undoubtedly wishing he wasn’t on the sidelines injured. 

Saturday morning seemed to come very early as we got up and began prep for the individual time trial.  The same 13 km point-to-point course as previous years, it has a fair bit of false flat and a couple minor climbs but nothing significantly steep or long.  After a warm up we each took our turns in the start house.  Andrew, usually a stronger time trialer than I am, started just ahead of me.  As I started off, I told myself that I would do my best to not give back the time I had gained on other riders in the hill climb. On the whole I had a good race. The times were all faster than last year's times due in part to a tail wind.  Andrew finished best for the team 1:39 down from Roger who had the best time for the day across all categories.  I was a further 9 seconds behind.  Augy, Martin and Gary all had respectable times especially considering they did the TT Eddy Merckx style on road bikes.  My comparatively lower placing on the stage just confirmed that if I ever want to be a GC contender, I'll need to work on my TT! 

The crit that afternoon was just plain hard.  I was feeling the efforts of the previous night and that morning.  Like most crits it was hard from the start.  Lap after lap as we continued around the smooth 1.6 km relatively flat loop, riders kept getting spit off the back.  We finished with less than 1/2 the field.  Andrew and Augy did a better job staying up at the front than I did.  Crits are certainly not my forte so I was just happy to finish in the main pack and not lose any time,  except of course to the GC leader who was able to easily ride off the front of the field again with his teammate.  The last 5 or 6 laps were agonizing as my lower back had seized from the constant torquing accelerations.   Gary and Martin had a tough time in the Master A crit getting popped before the finish.  Oh well.  Home to eat a big meal and sleep.  Just the road race to go!

I woke feeling like I could use a couple more hours sleep but my legs actual felt better than I expected them to feel 3 stages in.  The 118 km road race was a new route this year.  The route followed rolling roads for about 50 km, followed by a 40 km stretch which included some challenging climbs and fast descents, then flattened out again to rolling for 20 km before ending in a slightly different route up the same climb to the ski hill.