Saturday, May 21, 2011

Ottawa and Gatineau

Ottawa turned on the charm for our trip this weekend - flowers blooming, trees emerald green, and the Ottawa River full of cool rapids. Paul and Betsy were amazing hosts, even putting is up at Paul's brother's for our unexpected extended stay. Thanks Andrew!

A little over 2 hours to drive out on Thursday night, and we arrived for the TT with about, oh, 30 seconds to spare...I call that excellent time management! The course is amazing, flat, and FAST! It may be just a midweek race, but the locals lay down killer times (the winner nearly averaged 50kmh!), and didn't even leave room for me on the podium.

Today was the GP Outaouais road race in Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa. Crazy hot and humid, so I was even more salt-encrusted than usual! No major hills to make a selection. The team missed the early break, and since we were only three-strong today we decided getting on the front to reel them in wasn't in our best interest, so we kept attacking to try to bridge, but the peleton would always chase us down. Eventually the break was brought back, although another got away with a couple of laps to go. In the field sprint our leadout broke down in the mayhem - Nick used his pack ninja skills to stay well positioned and get 10th overall, I came 18th and Matt 35th.

The fun continues tomorrow with GP Hudson.

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