Grand Tour of Montreal
May 30 - June 2, 2005
Webcor Team: Christine Thorburn, Erinne Willock, Betina Hold, Stefanie Graeter
Report by Christine Thorburn

Hi everyone. Sorry for the delay, but we have a VERY slow internet connection where we are staying. After the World Cup race in Montreal, Felicia and Katheryn are taking a break to recover from l'Aude in France and before the Wachovia Liberty Classic in Philadelphia. The remaining four of us – Betina, Christine, Erinne, and Stefanie – are racing the 5-stage, 4-day Grand Tour du Montreal.

The tour started on Monday with a 2.8km prologue on a flat bike trail with a chicane and a 180 turn around. The first stage is a 50km four corner flat crit later that evening. The second stage is the only day for climbers, 73 miles and three times up a 2km pitch that ends on an 18% grade over the top and more rollers on the back half of the course. Stage three is an 80km circuit race (8 laps of 10km) with one power climb and a crit-style start/finish through town. Stage four (last stage) is today and is new this year, but we've heard it is very flat as well. After the prologue, each stage has two or more intermediate sprints for time bonuses of 3 sec., 2 sec., and 1sec. for the first three across the line, respectively. Then each finish has time bonuses of 10 sec., 6 sec. and 4 sec. (except the crit finish has bonuses of 6/4/2). So, while the prologue time matters, this stage race is often won by a good all-around rider who has a good sprint and a strong team. Certainly the favorite this year is Oenone Wood, the Australian strong rider on the Nurnberger team. Quark also has a good team to support Annette Beutler, and Genevieve Jeanson has a composite Rona team, but is highly motivated and fit herself, and of course there is the Webcor team!

Prologue
Not much to say about this other than it is around a 4-minute all out effort. Genevieve set the early fastest time of 3:56, so when Christine went off she knew she wanted to go 3:55. Fortunately, the track work this winter paid off, and Christine beat Gen by 0.1 seconds to win the prologue. Erinne had a great ride to finish 5th at 4:05. Betina also rode well for 18th at 4:12, and Stef finished near the top half. Third place was Grace Fleury at 4:03 and 4th was Annette Beutler at 4:04, both from Quark. Oenone Wood had a good finish on a road bike at 4:08 to put her in good position to catch up by time bonus sprints and finishes.

Crit
Not too much to say about this except we all stayed out of trouble (no crashes) and did not get time gapped in the finish. Oenone took both the intermediate sprint and the finish win to move into 3rd in GC. Genevieve finished just outside the time bonuses each sprint, so Christine stayed in yellow for the next day. This was basically a motor-pacing session with constant speed. The only activity was Lyne Bessette's mid-race solo break off the front, which was brought back by Betina and Erinne in defense of the jersey.

Stage 2
Despite having the leader's jersey, with the time gaps so small and our team outnumbered by several others, we decided it would be good to have Erinne available for a surprise break-away move. The first of three intermediate time bonus sprints came at 5km into the race. There was a slippery right turn about 500m from that line in which Oenone slid out and took her teammate Olivia Gollan and Lyne Bessette down with her. Oenone and Olivia were fine, but Lyne suffered a mild concussion and went to the hospital. Sadly, her father was watching the race and was initially thought to have had a heart attack, but fortunately it was more of a "panic" attack. Stef covered an early attack by a Nobili rider on the first QOM climb, and Genevieve countered over the top at the steep section. Christine and Erinne were right there, but Christine failed to dig deep enough to get on her immediately, while Lynn Gaggioli was right next to Gen and responded. The two of them took off over the false flat and continued to roll away down the descent and flat section of the course. The next group over the top was Christine, Erinne, Annette, and Oenone, who worked fairly well together in pursuit but obviously not everyone was pulling all-out since Gen and Lynn's gap kept growing.

Christine took the final 1sec time bonus across the second intermediate sprint, and then what remained of the field caught the chasing four. Stef went immediately to the front to pull, and Christine and Erinne took a brief break before the rollers on the back side of the course. No other team seemed interested in chasing much, which meant we would slow to 12-15mph unless Christine was rolling through. Gen dropped Lynn the second time up the QOM climb and her gap kept growing. Christine barely nabbed the remaining 1sec of the final intermediate time bonus just before the peloton caught Lynn. Gen's time gap grew to nearly three minutes before Nurnberger came to the front to chase for real, wanting to put Oenone in yellow by the end of the day. Christine continued to roll through with them and a couple Quark riders while Erinne rested in the group. By the bottom of the final QOM climb, Gen's gap had shrunk to 50 sec., and Erinne attacked to bridge up to her. Erinne caught Gen by the bottom of the descent, but Gen was too tired to help much, so they were caught about 5km later. The front group was now about 20 riders, and we prepared for the final 4km to the finish, which were initially uphill for nearly 2km and then rolling to the finish line, which was a "big-ring" uphill drag. Since Gen had gained six seconds to Christine's two seconds in time bonus sprints, Christine had to either win the sprint without Gen getting 2nd, or put time on the climb over Gen to keep the yellow jersey. Christine attacked on the steepest part of the lower climb, but unfortunately Gen did have enough left to get on Oenone's wheel who was the first to respond. This strung out the group, so Erinne started to counter, but an alert Judith Arndt (Nurnberger) signaled Oenone who responded immediately. Edita Pucinskaite (Nobili) started the sprint, but Oenone won with Dorte Rasmussen (SATS) in 2nd and Annette Beutler in 3rd with Erinne in 6th and Christine 8th, all at the same time.

Now Christine was in 3rd at seven seconds behind Gen and four seconds behind Oenone. Annette Beutler was 3rd, Grace 4th and Erinne 5th at 19 seconds.

Stage 3
This course usually ends with a field sprint, so we wanted Christine to try to go for the intermediate time bonuses and the finish while Erinne was to cover the QOM competition and go with any moves over the top of the 300m 5% grade. At the top of the first QOM, Annette Beutler had driven the pace to form a gap with Oenone, Erinne and Dorte Rasmussen on her wheel. Gen had missed this move, so the four of them were motivated to work well together. Their gap quickly grew to a minute within 7km while Gen's Rona team was chasing a bit desperately and haphazardly. It was clear this break would stick, so Christine settled in to cover any dangerous bridge attempts, and Erinne focused on trying to take intermediate time bonuses and preparing for the finish. Unfortunately, the laps that had the QOM's and sprints got very confused by all, so Erinne's group ended up "sprinting" basically for everything! It was very unclear who had taken the intermediate time bonuses, but at the finish Erinne did a great job of following Oenone through the third to last corner, which was around 700m to go. The second to last corner was at the bottom of a short hill and very tight, and Dorte cut inside taking Oenone and Erinne near the barriers. Annette capitalized on this move and took the lead through the final corner to steal the win. Oenone was 2rd followed by Dorte and Erinne. When the final calculations were done, Oenone was in yellow by 10 seconds over Annette followed by Dorte at 18seconds and Erinne at 24 seconds. Gen is 5th and Christine 6th at nearly 4minutes.

Stage 4

This was a new stage for the race. It was five laps of a 23km circuit with one ~1.5km shallow climb each of the first four laps and then an uphill big-ring drag to the finish before the climb on the final lap. There were two intermediate time bonus sprints. Since Erinne was 5 seconds out of the podium, we wanted to do our best to get her some time.

Unfortunately, the field was getting tired by today, and there was a bit of wheel over-lapping on the flat, open stretch of road where many attacks were launched. One of the Quebec team riders started leaning onto little Erinne, who initially held her own but finally got pushed over. She landed on her bars, which broke (fortunately, or else perhaps her bones may have), and her elbow and ankle. Stef held back right away to help tow her back on after her bike change. Later, Betina dropped back to help as well. Their chase was made harder by Genevieve Jeanson and her teammates, who chose to drive the pace on the front during their chase! These efforts meant Stef and Betina could not get back on, and Erinne got through the caravan not far before the 3rd climb. In the final lap, there was a break of three off the front, so the time bonuses were gone if no one chased them. The top three GC riders' teams seemed content with their placings, so Carmen told me to go for it if I could. I tried two different hard attacks, but Genevieve was marking me--presumably to salvage her 5th place over my 6th.

So, in the end we finished 4th (Erinne--top Canadian) and 6th (actually, top US rider) with Oenone Wood (Nurnberger) 1st, Annette Beutler (Quark) in 2nd, and Dorte Rasmussen (SATS) in 3rd.

We are very grateful to our "host family," Betina's parents, for putting up with all our craziness.

Next up--Wachovia Liberty Classic in Philadelphia...

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