Paris to Ancaster Report

So the Brewchamp, my wife Michelle, and I all piled into the NEW Brewchamp pontoon machaine (AKA Dodge minivan) this past Saturday morning and headed over to Canadia for the first early season test of strength. The Paris Ancaster spring classic has grown every year since my first run down the course in 2006. Over 1800 people lined up with pro's like Canadian National CX champ Michael Garrigan and top USA CX star Jeremy Powers. We stayed in downtown Hamilton and had a nice relaxing Saturday evening to prepare us for the fight to ensue in the morning.

Right from the gun, Powers took the wholeshot and I went straight onto his wheel. From there we hit a long section of uneventful rail trail. As soon as I could see the arrows pointing us off the rail trail, I came to the front and was the first one onto the loose dirt rd climb. I attacked hard! My effort pulled out Michael Garrigan and Jeremy Powers. Soon after, Powers came to the front and I was seeing stars trying to hang onto his wheel. The three of us were off the front for a little while, but I just couldn't seem to recover. I was gased... BIG TIME! So I decided to return to the much larger chase group in an attempt to recover. We eventually caught Powers and Garrigan. From there on out the group would swell and string out over and over again as the attacks would go into the BRUTAL headwinds and crosswinds, which I probably sucked too much of yo-yo'ing on and off the back. The pace surges proved to be too much for me to handle and I eventually fell off the back of the group. I chased hard though and didn't give up.

To my surprise I was able to gather up a few straglers and form a good group. We continued to pick off straglers one by one until we made it to the deadly mud slides. I was first going to each of them and both times I was able to get a gap... which didn't really stick. I came into the final punch to the line with one guy left from the group. I took a good hard dig and made the push to line for 6th.

Not too bad considering the competition this year. It was a fun weekend. Tim Farrar did an excellent job as always. I would highly recomend this race to everyone. Powers is no doubt incredibly strong as he won the day, and it was good for me to get out there and stretch myself against such strong riders to prepare myself for this weekends first NUE show down... COHUTTA!

Full results are posted HERE