Nationals RR and extra- pictures!

I will try and tell the story with as few words as possible. Instead I will share pictures from the week (minus TT ones that are in the post below)

When we first arrived at our place in Frampton, Quebec it was raining. The sun came out and gave us a lovely rainbow right in our backyard!

Blackberry's can now take panoramic photos, so here is one of the view from our back porch. 

Snagged this bad boy on my ride to watch the women's road race. The scenery was outstanding. Also after having ridden back at home today, everything now feels flat. These hills were good training!

Before we get into the race pictures, here is one of the climb on the circuit. The women had to tackle this 3 times, where the men (that stayed in the race) had to do it 8 times.

So the road race was insane, and I knew my chances of finishing were pretty low after looking at the results from last year. The race started and Anton on Garneau flatted in the neutral start. The race was stopped until he caught on with a new wheel. Then right off the gun I was in the red. We climbed this 1.7km hill, avg 5%(according to strava), I was giving it everything I had to stay on and heart rate hit 193 (we are only 8km in at this point). We get to the top make a right hand turn and go up hill again. I popped off the back (yes only 10km in) and so did a few others. Most of them just gave up at that point but I tried chasing. After about 10mins chasing (I really need to learn how to better use the caravan, didn't help that the roads weren't the best condition in this spot) I had a massive side cramp and then the peloton sat up at the top of another hill. I was so close to catching on but could barely breath because of the cramp. This cramp was maybe a gift from the cycling gods as then there was the crash that I then missed. I got cut off by the H&R block car trying to get through the crash. Couldn't quite catch the peloton but had them in sight until we hit the circuit. They then put 4mins on me in 15km (I was riding with 2 other riders at this point). I rode another lap and pulled. This was for your enjoyment so I could take pictures!

Break away of 8, incredibly strong group of guys there

Peloton moving through, they let the break get up to around 4 mins at one point.

Ontario warrior and world champ Bruce Bird was always seen climbing the hill at the front of the peloton. He was making it look easy with this smile. 

A few people tried to bridge while on the circuit, but none got across. 

Each lap the peloton got smaller and smaller.

I was following the race on twitter, and it was a nail bitter finish. A group from the peloton bridged across to the break guys. Maybee they had started attacking each other too early. Anyway, higher quality shots and race report can be found HERE and results are HERE

Either way, I have a ton of work to do before I will be able to stay in the mix with these guys.