July 21, 2004 – The past four weeks have been wicked times. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my Gears Racing teammates and other racing friends I must say that I have racked up some pretty strong results including the coveted title of Canadian National Espoir Champion. I’ve been traveling across Canada racing a couple of World Cup races, an O-Cup and the big daddy of them all, The Canadian Nationals at Mont Ste-Anne, Quebec.

The block of races began out east at the World Cup in Mont Ste-Anne. It was my first World Cup race since a crash during training last year’s event took me out with a broken rib. I was a bit cautious on my first pre-ride lap of the course. The course was fun, technical and always hard. The race went pretty good. I went into the race with an expectation to ride the technical sections fast and smooth in preparation for Nationals (which were at the same venue) and just have a clean race. I was pretty happy with my race and finished 49th – earning myself a handful of UCI points to bump me up in the rankings. Then it was off to Calgary the following weekend for the second consecutive World Cup in Canada. When we got there we were so tired from traveling early in the morning that we rode for a bit, ate, went to bed and slept right through the Canada day fireworks at COP which were apparently quite loud!

The course at Calgary was very fast, with no substantial climbs, and nothing too technical that would make you shake in your boots. On the other hand, the changing weather in Calgary (hot and sunny one minute and rain the next) had put riders in a bit of a shuffle with tire choice until the last minute. That is how the race played out: first two laps or so were fast and dry, even hot on the open climbs and on the start of the lap four dark clouds rolled in over the ski jumps at COP. It rained and hailed harder than I’ve seen it in a while. For the next two laps it was like riding through chocolate milk and riding through massive puddles that were at least a foot deep, just waiting to swallow you and your bike up. I improved in this race finishing in 38th position, second espoir behind Max Plaxton with an impressive 14th back-to-back at the World Cups.

After the race we went over to Matt Patterson’s aunt’s place for a wicked good feast, Tour watching, and Chillin’ before we caught our late night flight outta there back to TO.

After some last fine tuning at home, we headed off to Calabogie for the fourth round of the Ontario Cup series. Andrew Watson took the honors while I was behind in second place and Derek Zandstra rounding out the top three. After the race we drove to Ottawa to Matt’s other aunt’s house where we again got treated to a wicked dinner and a nice place to get some rest. Props to the Patterson’s for the hook-ups and the generosity.

The only race left was the most important one: Nationals. Next morning, Matt P, Andrew W and I got into the Windstar as if we were off to soccer practice and drove to Mont Ste-Anne. For the next week we were riding the course and getting ready to battle it out on those famous slopes.

That Thursday we were plagued by a full day of rain which turned the fun and technical course into oatmeal — still fun though… Well, kinda. One section of the course there was a huge flowing stream of water that looked like it was going to sweep you all the way back down the mountain. Before the start of the race it was warm and sunny but clouds were slowly rolling in over the hill. After the second of six laps, I found myself leading the Espoir race after Max Plaxton (the favourite for the Espoir race) had some problems and ended up abandoning the race. The Espoir is a sub category for riders under 23 years old, but we still race together with the Elite men.

The conditions were very tough with flat tires and broken derailleurs and chains being very common. On the last lap I was still leading the Espoir race but Kris Sneddon was close and I knew I had to give it all I had. My coach Neil Ross was on a difficult section of the course cheering and told me on the fifth lap that he would give me a hug no matter how dirty I was, so I had to make it worth while and I just pinned it, full gas!

Coming into the finish I managed to hold onto my lead and became the new Canadian Espoir National Champion, finishing fifth overall with Greg Reain right on my tail and got that hug I was promised from coach! Must say that this is the best I have ever felt and still today I can’t believe I won. It’s still sink in.

Congrats to my teammate Ricky Federau for tearing Everyone’s legs off and winning the Senior Elite title. Also congrats goes to Marie-Helene Premont for winning the Elite Women’s race for the second year in a row. The bikes took a huge beating this race, which means that our team manager Havy and mechanic Dylan were busy night and day fixing and cleaning everyone’s bikes so that they were dialed for another beating. Thanks boys, you’re real champs!

Can’t thank Gears Racing, Kevin Wallace, Mark Bonham, and Ira Kargel enough for all of their support since without them racing to this extent would not be possible. Thanks to my coach Neil Ross for helping me get to where I am, and for being such a pleasure to work with.

Much love to my parents for the support and always being behind me and to my dad, Mark, for always being there and taking some sweet pics, check “˜em out at: www.lazarskiphoto.com.

I’m off to B.C. and Calgary in a couple weeks to finish up the Canada Cup series and then I’m going to start my preparation for the World Championships in Les Gets, France.

Thanks for reading!

Marty