June 21, 2018 (The Blue Mountains, ON) – The Blue Mountains Gran Fondo, the sole Canadian qualifier for the 2018 UCI Gran Fondo World Series, is put on by my teammate Bruce Bird, the 2-time and current Men’s 45-49 age group road race world champion.

Over the years I’ve helped out at this event with assorted jobs from hauling barriers, to driving a big truck packed with supplies, to putting out race signs and assembling/disassembling finish arches. Now Andrew Paradowski from the Ontario Cycling Association (OCA) takes care of that stuff (thank god).

A huge group of volunteers run the event and Grace Bartz is certainly among them. For those considering doing the event next year – DO IT. If you race road O-Cups and purport to “like road racing” in Ontario you essentially have no excuse. Even if you don’t race O-Cups yet enjoy events like Centurion, Tour de Grand, Tour de Norfolk etc., there’s a new shorter “medio fondo” at the The Blue Mountains Gran Fondo which is set up like the main events with controlled intersections, feed stations and timing etc. but not geared as a serious “race.”

There are neutral feed zones with water bottles and gels and volunteers handing them out at Epping and after Red Wing climbs. There are follow cars and course marshals and controlled intersections. The roads are swept clean the day before.

There is extensive course signage ticking down the KM to go, there is even a giant inflatable red arch marking 1-km to go. The cost of doing this event is about 2x more than the average industrial park crit, but that cost is literally the cost of offering quality road racing without cutting corners i.e. not marshalling intersections, lack of first responders/EMS, no signage, no neutral feed etc.

For women and 50+ age groups the race course is 112 km, with the 4 km at 4% Epping climb, the gradually steepening “passo de Red Wing” (5 km at 2% followed by 4 km at 4%), and the hardest climb in Ontario, the 2.4 km at 10% Scenic Caves Rd. The under 50 men complete a 155 km course, which is the same as the short course but include two laps of the Epping climb. Sure it’s hard and you’ll get dropped and then you’ll chase back on then get dropped again then cramp up and finally limp to the finish line with a few others or by yourself but newsflash – THAT’S THE FEATURE, NOT THE BUG, OF ROAD RACING.

Finishing in the pack after 60 minutes racing a crit is a solid adrenaline rush and it has its place. But finishing 20 minutes down after riding alone for the last hour of a 4.5hr stint, cramping and bonking, completely broken… that’s what makes road racing so transformative. After each of these experiences you learn something more about yourself and you inch ever closer towards being the best racer you can be. It’s not raising your FTP, it’s not cornering or sprint practice, it’s not feed strategies, it’s not tactical acumen. It’s truly just learning how to suffer internally, learning how to deal with it and getting the job done. THAT is the true nature of road racing – coming to know yourself better through suffering. Getting better at racing is just the byproduct. And this race is one of the last of them in Ontario that can give you that. So support it!

Rant over, the race report itself.

I told my teammates that I planned on just going “full send” i.e. attack from the gun and keep attacking until I got into any early move, and then ride towards the finish line hard until my legs gave out. The main question is why? Well, a lot of reasons…
1. I knew half the field was just trying to survive and would be looking to conserve, conserve, conserve.
2. I knew some of the field were just trying to qualify for the World Amateur Championships so they wouldn’t care about one rider.
3. I’m not planning on going to Amateur Worlds so I literally have nothing to lose going for a moon shot.
4. I knew the two Silber guys, and a number of others, are more talented climbers than me. The number of climbers better than me grows even larger if the race is easy beforehand. Sitting in and waiting to lose is not a strategy I subscribe to.
5. The first 90 minutes of the event last year was not even racing – two of my teammates (Aaron and M1 Phill Hodgkinson) in a break of four gained 7 minutes, which was then slowly brought back (mostly on the climbs). Overall the race was orderly, predictable and the guys who conserved energy and had the best watts/kg had the best results. I didn’t want that to happen this year.
6. To quote Jens: “to cause chaos and mayhem… isn’t that good enough reason?”

So first uphill ramp of the day and I’m slamming it. The group didn’t want to let me go. I jumped in a number of moves and bridged up to a few more – the leash was tight but at least we were racing in the first 30 mins instead of coasting along in a 35 km/h blob.

Scott Brubacher and Mike Patte (Faction Racing – Smile Tiger C.R. p/b WCC) were active here, as were a few riders from Techy Kids Cycling Team and three of my WOB teammates (Phill Hodgkinsonl , Aaron Hamill, and Marc-Antoine Beaudoin aka “Frenchie”).

Around 30 mins in a small group (with me in it) got a small gap and we actually got a few good rotations in before we were chased down. I knew the pace was hard, and with the first time up Epping looming ahead, I knew the group was liking the idea of letting me go more and more. So just as our small group was caught I rolled off the front and basically just kept riding hard, right when the group was likely to decelerate and fan out having caught the small move. That was my pass… so I put my head down and began the work.

I had two minutes at the bottom of Epping, I had one minute at the top. I held the minute on the descent and got word from a commissaire that a group of four was coming up to me. Awesome, that probably meant the half the peloton now had teammates off the front and they wouldn’t chase for a while. Sure enough the gap to the peloton went out to 3.5 minutes. I stayed at my rhythm and by the time I was up Epping the second time Noah Simms (Toronto Hustle) bridged up to me.

We started working together perfectly – Noah let me take a bit of time on his wheel to recover from my 60km solo effort and eat/drink etc. We slammed the descent and began the long grind up Red Wing. When the road got steep I was just suffering on Noah’s wheel – he won the Queen Stage of Killington earlier this year. Yeah he’s better than me at going uphill, but I hung on. We went through the Grey Rd. 19 feed zone and got some more water for the final 50 km. We bombed the descent and continued trading pulls right up to the roundabout before Scenic Caves. Commissaire said we had a two-minute gap there.

The game plan formed in my mind: two minutes was enough time to get up Scenic Caves before getting caught, no matter how messed up I was from the previous 120 km, I figured I could do that. Noah would likely drop me but he has 35 km to go from there and it’s mostly downhill and a fair bit of headwind. And whoever comes in from the front group barreling over the top of Scenic Caves, well it’s highly highly unlikely any of them can outsprint me. Again no matter how messed up I was – and they’ll know I’ve been off the front all day – so again they’ll probably disregard me sitting-in in favour of chasing Noah, and maybe, just maybe I’ll get a sniff at the sprint for the win.

So on Scenic Caves I let Noah go and rode up within myself, going as hard as possible still but not with savage desperation. I knew I wasn’t losing the race here. Noah was a minute up on my by the top. I came over the top and saw a solo rider, the unmistakable Silber Pro Cycling Orange bullet flying towards me. I sat up, drank what was left of my water, and sprinted onto Travis Samuel’s wheel as he flew by at 55 km/h. I took two ~20-second pulls over the next 7 km – this train was bound for glory and we caught Noah near the turn onto Grey Rd. 2. My game plan remained the same: collaborate with these guys if they’re willing because I can probably beat them in a sprint, or…? Well at that point the only card left was the sprint because I’d played every other card my body had to offer.

We haphazardly rotated on the descent but clearly things were gonna get attack-y in the final 10 km when we started going uphill again. Ugh. Sure enough on the first uphill ramp Travis sees and he slams it. I hang on, Noah doesn’t. Travis yells at me to pull through. Both legs are cramping, I pull through gingerly anyway just to show him I care. Travis took another pull then got me on the front going into the next kicker, right at the bridge after crossing Hwy 13. I saw the attack coming from a mile away and we slowed right down before the bridge – but Travis kicked and I couldn’t match it. So I was alone again.

The final 10 km I was in a dark dark place. Both legs cramping, pedaling squares, trying to manage the ever widening gap to Travis and worrying more and more about Noah and any other chasers catching me. Just get the job done. By the finish I was a minute behind Travis and only 43 seconds ahead of the “first group.”

So after 140 km off the front of the race I actually managed to be the first amateur, which netted me my second “qualifier champion” jersey (I won the TT last year), and plenty of accolades from my peers on the “legendary send.”

Would have been nice to take the overall, but at the same time it was really great to see Travis execute in the finale – he crushed everyone up Scenic Caves, utterly erased Noah’s lead on the descent/rollers and then disposed of us with savvy attacks and a solid 10 km time trial.

I had hoped he would make a tactical mistake and take us to the line but he made sure of it – and that’s exactly what a seasoned pro does, they don’t roll the dice unless they have to. It was a very, very “Ryan Roth-like” execution and it’s great to see that even being passed by Silber, I’m (still) on the receiving end.

The Blue Mountains Gran Fondo 2018 Road Race results here.
The Blue Mountains Gran Fondo 2018 ITT results here.