November 20, 2012 (Huye, Rwanda) – After a double-header day of racing the South African National Team took a three-man lead in the Tour of Rwanda overall classification. The morning’s Stage 2, a 44-kilometre jaunt taking riders out of their Kigali base and into the true point-to-point tour of the country was a rain-soaked taste of the climbing to come. The 75km Stage 3 followed four hours later amidst a hot and sunny afternoon, finishing on a climb in the southern city of Huye.

As for the Canadians in the race, lunchtime saw us back in yellow with Rémi Pelletier-Roy launching a number of attacks including the one that stuck, giving him the second KOM of the day and five tagalong riders, two of whom out-sprinted him at the finish. The gap by that point, however, was large enough for him to take the GC in a podium presentation in front of thousands in the country’s second-largest city, Gitarama.

The afternoon yo-yo returned, though. As Bruno Langlois and myself covered every South African move we found ourselves in both a break and a bridge with them…but not with our Pelletier-Roy, now mistakingly (and wearily) two minutes back in the bunch.

So Langlois pulled himself out of the breakaway (for the second time that stage) and waited for Pelletier-Roy. Jean-François Racine and a back-from-the-stomach-bug dead Tim Abercrombie to help close the gap, while I struggled to stay with the now four South Africans in the break.

And while our team reduced the gap to a minute, it was still a few seconds too late, bumping Pelletier-Roy back down the list, now in 8th and 45 seconds behind on GC.

In many ways the first three stages are just a warm-up for the ‘real’ tour, which spans Stages 4–8 and repeats a forumla of roughly 150k days with two-to-three times as much climbing as we’ve done so far.

GC after Stage 3

1. LILL Daren    National Team South Africa    06h55’02”
2. WARD Shaun    National Team South Africa    06h55’09”
3. GIRDLESTONE Dylan    National Team South Africa    06h55’16”
4. MERHAWI Kudus    UCI Continental Center    06h55’18”
5. ABEBE Alem    National Team Ethiopia    06h55’22”
6. KAHSAY Afewerki    National Team Ethiopia    06h55’39”
7. NIYONSHUTI Adrien    Team Rwanda Karisimbi    06h55’40”
8. PELLETIER-ROY Rémi    Garneau-Québecor    06h55’47”
9. MAREE David    National Team South Africa    06h56’05”
10. DESALE Nahom    UCI Continental Center    06h56’07”

31. WERNER Jeffrey    Garneau-Québecor    07h00’01”
45. LANGLOIS Bruno    Garneau-Québecor    07h09’41”
48. RACINE Jean-François    Garneau-Québecor    07h18’42”
54. ABERCROMBIE Tim    Garneau-Québecor    07h30’29”

Jeff Werner races with Garneau-Québecor and is a writer and designer based in Vancouver.