The Beauce

This year’s Beauce was probably one of my most successful. I did miss a couple of the more important breakaways, but since I wasn’t there as a true GC hopeful it wasn’t the end of the world. I managed a couple of great stage finishes, notably a fifth place in the criterium after being part of a break that lapped the field, and played a role in helping my teammate for the week, Dominique Perras, defend his GC position. (Andrew road the week for the National Team -Ed). In part the race is an annual reunion of all the Canadians. I was joking with Alexandre Lavallee, of the VW team, that this year was my ninth GP de Beauce in a row; he topped me easily with eleven I think it was, having started as junior.

“The Beauce”, as some like to call it, is made up of some of, probably, the most challenging courses on the international calendar; for the 2004 edition of the race there were four stages that had close to 3000m of climbing. One of the most fun things at the race is hearing all the Europeans swearing as they see the course unfolding before us. “Not another @#$#%#$% climb!” is the common phrase. “Por que dio!” was the favourite of the Italians last season. Add unbelievably rutted and pitted roads to the hilly terrain and you have a recipe for complete crushing of the peloton.