The Tour De L’Abitibi kicked off on Monday July 20th with the Challenge Sprint (not part of the GC). Fergus Horrobin represented BC and made it into the second wave.
Stage one of the tour took place Tuesday under some overcast skies and lower than normal temperatures. The 115.6 km to Rouyn-Noranda was relatively uneventful with most of the riders sizing each other up and marking the field for the movers and shakers in preparation for the stages to come.
Day two was the Amos stage which was a bit shorter at 104.4km. This race saw several pile ups with broken wheels and even a few broken bikes. Some of the BC riders were lucky enough to stay clear and stay with the main peloton–a few were not so lucky, riding behind the caravan solo trying to catch back on. There were a few big breaks, including a 30 km solo break by a fellow Canadian from Quebec. The BC boys’ goal was to stay in the pack, mark the field and let the other riders know we were here to play too. They all worked hard to get our top sprinter to the front for the the final 10 km through the 3 km circuit. Our top finisher in this stage was Cam Fitzmaurice in 29th position.
Today is half way through the Tour De L’Abitibi and a double day with stage 3 (10 km time trial) and stage 4 (50 km road race) taking place. The weather was less than desirable today with some heavy rains at times and big cross winds. The boys fought hard, with some solid times being laid down by everyone. The top BC finisher for Stage three was Brendan Armstrong.
All in all we’ve had a great start to the tour with all riders finishing in the main pack or higher, getting into some moves with the National team and managing to stay (mostly) out of trouble. We’d also like to say thank you to Team Ontario’s Sean and Luke, as well as Team Canada’s Luc, for helping us out with a spare crankset, shifter and lending us a loaner bike.
To catch some of the racing live or on replay check out TVGO here: http://tvgo.ca/abitibi/
