Canadian Road Championships 2015 Thetford Mines
The 2015 Canadian Junior Road National Championships were held in Thetford Mines, Quebec. It was run over 4 days. The plan was a 14km TT for the girls (28km for the boys) on day one, then a rest day and on the 3 & 4 days were the road race and the crit.
My adventure started by flying out to Quebec alone, well technically not alone as I happened to be on the same plane as fellow team mates. I was very fortunate as it helped me; i wasnt worried about getting lost in the airpot. When we landed I was greeted by Maddison Vit one of the coaches of NCCH and I met Rick when I got to their van.
I was only spending my first night with them just outside of thetford mines because I was going to get to know some of the girls I would be racing with for the next couple of weeks, they were my future team mates for the up coming stage race; Tour de Releve.
The first event of the Nationals was the TT. This course wasnt on what I would say to be the most Ideal roads. The day prior to the race I test road the TT and road with NCCH, the TT course was a 14km there and back course with three punchy climbs. Definitly something I wasnt prepared for. Plus it started to pour so first impressions of this course werent looking to good. we then went on to ride the road course, it was what you might say as being "as flat as a pancake". the course started in a small neighbor hood then merging onto a highway for about 1-2km then it snaked back onto a quiter road. we were told that some tracks were on the road but when we came to it we had discovered they had been paved over, good thing too because they would have been a dangerous hazard on the course.
after testing both courses I then met up with my team, Cycling BC. They had rented a small farm house about 40mins from the race venue. so it felt a little bit like we wer ein thhe middle of no where. it was a cute house, pretty rustic. we somehow managed to sleep 10 people with an exception of the coaches who bought inflatable matresses.
Race day; the girls were up first so we woke up at the crack of dawn to get prepped and ready to be on our way for the start of the TT. When we found a good spot and parked the Tara and Ben set up trainers, and I went to go pick up TT bike I would be barrowing from Team NCCH. I was pretty stoked to be able to ride a Di2 Aargon 18 super aero bike. I eagerly set it up oon my trainer and started warming up, about 8 mins in to my warm up I tried to play with th shifting as I had not ridden on a bike with Di2. I ended up hoping off my trainer so that my bike could get worked on. we then went to go put on my disk wheel but then realized that the brake pads were regular not for carbon. i then went to go do a roll out when my gear situation seemed to be resolved. During the roll out my bike did not pass, in fact it was wayyy over. we didnt realize what was wrong until after someone said check your tooth count. I thought I had a 52/14 I had a 53/13. so I ended up having to block out about 1/3 of my casstte in order for my bike to pass roll out. So I knew that I had a bit of time so I went back to where my team was, but I was called quickly to the start line. as i walked up i saw people sittin gdown in the spots to be called to the line next but it quickly dawned on me that all those people who were sitting down ready to rumble were riding after me, a bit flustered I asked the official when I was going and he said your up now. I grabbed my bike and passed it to the holder, I hopped on my bike with 8 seconds to go.
The road race went well, the only hiccup was that we were expected to feed from the caravan (cars following behind the main pack, its called a caravan). The course was reasonably flat, a false flat started coming out of the town and then a short steep descent back into the town. There was almost a schekane going through the last 2-3 corners into the finishing stretch. I ended up getting 4th in the road race, unfortunately because of the lack of nutrition and hydration through the race i cramped with about 5km to go.
The crib also didn't go perfectly but I am happy about the experience, the officials mixed us in with the masters women category. It did from my point of view effect how the juniors raced, one stronger master would help to close gaps that had opened, dragging other riders up with her. I placed 4th in that race two after three girls got up the rode ahead of me. I attacked into the corner creating a gap on the group basically securing 4th place.
Nationals was an amazing experience especially having upgraded to Junior from U17. I would definitely recommend to any junior who can go as a junior or upgrade to junior. Racing with strong girls and making new friends will help so much in the future.
