Paris to Ancaster

Wow, what a race.

The P-A turned out to be a lot more intense then I thought it was going to be. That was likely due to the large number of elite and expert racers that came out from all disciplines of racing.

I succeeded in making the top 20, which was my goal, winding up in 14th overall. 14th was what the results said post race, but according to the video my dad made of the finish, getting everyone before me, there was only 12, so I may have been 13th but w/e.
(Results have been fixed, I was 13th....)

Unfortunately I had to line up with well over 100 racers ahead of me, having never done this race before. With a good warm up in, I was ready to try and make my way up to the front before things split up to much. That was a little tougher than I anticipated. I picked the right wheels to follow and they brought me up a little, but the front seemed to be 1km ahead heading onto the doubletrak.

I gained a lot of spots taking some turns wide, and a bunch more by dodging a crash, but it was my sneaky moves off the trail that got me right to the front. What I did was go on the grass on the left side of the doubletrack and pined it passing about 30 riders at a time. I had to burn a few matches to get there, but I did it and was able to relax for a bit before things sped up. I lost the leaders on the rocky climb when I got stuck behind some guys who dismounted, and my legs felt like jello when I tried to close the gap. I couldn't do it and settled in with a group of strong riders.

The race was quite uneventful for some time. We worked together, I was able to pitch in more later on as I felt better, and we stuck together for the most part. I didn't feel super strong today, and closing some small gaps had me working really hard, but I always closed them, and was able to cover attacks later on.

With about 10km to go, on a straight gravel path I tried to bridge to the group I could see ahead. I felt great at the time and chose a Cancellara style attack. I got clear and gained a ~200m gap, then started to fade quickly with still another 100m to close on the other group. We turned down to a muddy dh with a big tree spanning the trail, an I didn't know where to go. A bad line resulted in me being caught, and I found that Ben Perry had caught this group, so that was good to see.

I got my legs back on the road section by hanging on the back, and I got by a few on the muddy downhill near the finish. We caught some others here, and I started the final climb with about five guys within striking distance. I got by all of them, but one passed me back just before the top and I could not respond.

The end.

I managed to get three gels in me during the race, and 1.5 bottles of water. Two would have been ideal, but I lost a half bottle about 15km in when it shot out of my cage because of a big pot hole. I was out of water with 5km to go, and felt cramps coming on, so I had to stay seated for the rest of the race. No big ring grinding up the last hill for me. That's the way she goes I guess.

Course was kinda cool, a bit more adventurous than I expected.
I will be back for it next year.