We're in Canada right now. Hasn't been much internet access recently... right now we are all sitting in the rental car outside a hotel, stealing there bandwith. This weekends race is in a tiny town called St Felicien, around 4hrs drive from Quebec. Its totally in the middle of nowhere, but I must say the drive was very beautiful. I guess there was not much accommodation up here either.. many riders, including us, are staying in a camping ground, amongst overly tanned, fat holiday makers... I think they are very confused at all the cyclists suddenly invading their territory.

Last weekends race in Mont Saint Anne went well, with another 8th place finish. It was also the second time this year the whole team have finished top 10, so that was nice. I was riding a new prototype Cannondale, which I can't say anymore about at this time ;) For once the conditions were really good... cool weather and a fast dry track. Julian Absalon and Jose Hermida were again on a different level to the rest.

Oh, I think we're about to head off, better finish up...

World Cup - Champery

I had some rather mixed emotions after the race... I had made a decent start, although I did not feel as good as a few weeks ago. The course was extremely technical and I managed to claw back some riders each lap. I still had the leading group (Julian, Christoph, Nino and Cedric) in view after 4 laps when I had my first puncture. It was on a tight drop and I must have clipped a sharp root or stone. Luckily the tech zone was not too far away and I maybe lost 90sec or so. But then after fighting back again for a lap I managed to hit the exact same thing and punctured again! Talk about frustrating!!!
At his stage I was still in 16th place, so I settled in and found my rhythm again, just in time for a massive rain storm making the roots even more challenging. It ended up being a long race and I found my way back into 11th at the end... which is a result I should be super stoked about, but knowing where I could have ended up, I felt a little let down. Julian won again before Christoph, no big surprise really. The other kiwis suffered with various problems.. Marcus broke his chain and finished 115th.. he's busy now studying for exams.
I was starting to feel a little fried, already in training the week before, so now I'm taking a nice 3 day break to regain some strength again. We're off next week to Canada for 2 in a row...