Tour De Releve

The NCCH crew⚓️ #NCCH#rimouski #canada #missingyyj #quebec #roadrace#endlesshills #podium#yellowjersey

Big congrats to everyone that raced this weekend, it made for some fun but hard races!! Can't wait to come back next year_) #rimouski #stage

Huge thanks and shoutout to _ncch01 powered by #DECexpress for letting me guest ride on their team!! Had an amazing experience

What an incredible event! After Road Nationals held in Thetford mines Quebec I joined Team NCCH powered by DEC Express to race in the Tour De Releve held in the small town of Rimouski. This race is a series of 5 race's run over 5 days. They have a TTT (team time trial), a point to point road race, TT (individual time trial), Criterium, and finally the last stage is a road race on a curcuit. This was some of the best and hardest racing that I have done so far.

We stayed in a resisdence where we bunked with one other person on the team, this gave us a great oppourtunity to get to know each other. I had so much fun that weeks meeting and becoming friends with my competaters and fellow team mates and I want to give a huge shout out to the parents who cooked all our meals! would not have been able to survive the week with out you. and also to Rick and Maddi the head coaches for the team I was joining, I could not have felt more welcome! Thank you so much for giving me this oppouruntity and experiance I will never for get it. I hope to race along side everyone in the near future!

The TTT was the first of the five races, it was a short curcuit along the water front. It ran right infront of little beach cottages, we passed a few incredible old light houses on route too. As predicted it was a block head wind for the entire race, although the course was only around 7km, this let us give it our all. my team mates worked their butts off, we managed to snag 2nd place in this event.

The next day we started out early, it was our first RR. This curcuit we drove the day before was looking pretty intimidating, 10km from the start was where the first of two KOMS/QOMS would be. the first one was on a crazy steep hill! only about 800m but it still spooked me a little. Gabby one of my team mates although in an older catagory attacked just after the first climb, she broke away solo for 50km!! the race tended to stay togeher for most of it besides Traxler who managed to keep a good gap between her and the peloton. It came downto a bunch sprint for the line, i ended up taking 1st in my age group and placed top 5 overall.

The next race we had was the TT, now I am not a huge fan of time trials but they are known for seperating the strong from the stronger. now because this is a junior/cadet stage race we were not allowed to use TT bikes or disc wheel. I did how ever use clip bars, deep dish wheels, and a super aero helmet (also known as tear drop helmets) I had a pretty good race despite being incredibly nervous, but I get that way for most things. I clocked a pretty good time securing first in Cadet. I was pretty stoked about my result. also after podiums were over I got asked by CBC to do a quick interview of what I thought of this event and my race. I was more nervous for this then my TT! the interview went surprisingly well actually, didnt mumble and repeat myself once! I think my dad was pretty proud :)

The Crit the next day didnt go perfectly to plan but we managed to salvage some of it. by the fourth day everyone was pretty tired, I know I was! the crit was a rectangular shape curcuit, it was pretty flat. the back stretch did have a slight flase flat. it was fast, oh and did I mention U19 and U17 were both on different gear! crazy I know. I was restricted to a 50/15 while the U19's we were racing with had on 52/14, now thats a huge difference! but it didnt seem to make too big of a difference. Katherine, Maddy and Emma all attacked pretty early splitting them from us, and they kept opening a gap between us. we chased the entire race, getting close to catching them a few times but our efforts just werent enough and by this time they werent a big priority on my radar as I was racing with them not against because we were in different catagories. I ended up taking the bunch sprint for the crit, i came 1st in my cat and 4th over all.

The last stage...... The last race was on a curcuit roughly 20km long. for the most part it was relativley flat, you could almost argue that it was mostly down hill, except for cathderal hill. Cathederal hill was a climb just over 2km where it went up in steps. Three big steps, they actually had to mek feed zones because of how hot and hard this course was, normally they wont allow feed zones on a course less then 80km but it was pretty darn close, it ended up being about 78km. so just imagine looking up at a hill where you think you can see the top but as everyone knows looks can be deceiving. it averaged about 15-17% the whole way up, I ended up getting dropped in the last two laps but with great team work and determination Liah Harve and I managed to catch the group everytime. On the last lap I got dropped but it didnt take long before Liah and I couaght the group again.... but by the time we got to the group Emma White had already taken a flyer and got over a minute on the group, she held that too the line. but we didnt sytop chasing. Now one of my older team mates Hilary kinda acted like my lead out girl on the first RR stage, so we implemented that again, in the last stretch she could see I was boxed in so she pulled off, yelled "get on my wheel!!" I did and then attacked further from there, surprisingly it was between me and Liah at the line, even though we were racing in different catagories. I ended up taking 1st in the bunch and 2nd overll behind Emma.

Thank you so much again for everyone who made this possible for me, I had such a blast that week and will always be remebered.