First let me say that I neither support nor reject what Mr. St Laurent points out in his article. I think that he brings light to a tendency that many of us have fallen into recently.
I must say that Mr. Garneau has been a large contributor to my career, both on and off the bike. He is a shrewd business man with a large heart and passion for this sport. Although his recent trip to Africa may not be what he advertized it to be, he did get his team together in November, got on a plane to Rwanda to show his personal support to a cause that he has been contributing to since its existence.
Did his public image gain from it? Yes it did. Was it for business? Maybe. Did Louis personally gain from it? That has yet to be determined. Whatever you want to call his presence in Rwanda, he went there, he saw, he did it and he allowed his team to have a wonderful experience. An experience that not many of us will see in our lifetime.
I have been a world globetrotter via cycling for the better part of the last decade. I have done this as a rider, as a team director and as an industry professional. I must say that I am very thankful from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has enabled me to enjoy the fantastic (and not so fantastic) places that I have visited, traversed and called home. Cycling has given me more stamps on my passport than I ever could have afforded out of my own pocketbook, and I want to be apart of a movement that will allow others to do the same.
For personal reasons, I have decided to move on from the director role of the Garneau-Quebecor program in 2013. Eventhough the way that things have shaken out could motivate me to be vindictive, I am choosing not to be.
After seeing and being a part of the disbanding of Team SpiderTech this year, I have heard and seen many skeptics saying negative things about the team, the management, etc. Once again, Steve Bauer and Co. built a structure, the first of its kind in our country.
Did they have all the answers? No, they didn’t. Did they have all the resources? No they didn’t. Did they make mistakes that we all can learn from? Yes, they did, as most of us would when doing something for the first time.
The important part of all of this is that Steve has infused and shared a dream of having a Canadian presence in the World Tour peloton with every cycling enthusiast in this country. We now know that its possible, but what do we need to do to achieve this?
My answer and the answer that I’d like to bring to the forefront of this article is that we need Unity. There is no reason that a country which is so proud, patriotic and driven cannot unite during these tough times for cycling and lay the groundwork to actually achieve this.
The point in all of this is that 2013 will be a pivotal year for cycling in Canada. We have Ryder Hesjedal who will defend his Giro title, and we have a larger than ever a presence at the highest level of professional cycling. This is mostly thanks to Steve Bauer and what Team SpiderTech has been able to achieve over the past few years.
So where do we go from here?
Well I don’t have all the answers, but I suggest that we put our heads together and focus on building something that will allow us all to showcase and develop the future of Canada’s cycling scene. We need to get everyone around a table “figuratively” and unite our forces.
Whether you’re a businessman that rides a bike to get your mind out of numbers, a cyclist who races for fun on Sundays, a person who loves pro cycling or who rides a bike to stay in shape, a parent who believes that cycling can be a good school of life for your children or a former professional like myself who wants to make a difference the future of Canadian cyclists, we all need to be a part of a common movement.
A movement that will produce the next crop of Hesjedals, Tufts, Parisiens, Meiers so that we can all have something to cheer for five years down the road at the pro level. But most important so that we can send a message to young cyclists, that they can race and be competitive at the world level by maximizing their talents and remaining as true to our ethical upbringing that Canadians can be proud of.
We can all be armchair critics, or keyboard Debbie-downers, but we all know that we’re better than that, and that cycling in Canada needs us to act.
The future depends on us.
Phil Cortes