Quebec master men's race report

click for biggerHey race fans – Quebec Provincials took place this past weekend in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, a hilly little town just south of Tremblant.  Rolling 20 km TT on Saturday, and hilly, if not mountainous, 110 km road race on Sunday. 

TT’s are not that exciting to watch, and probably less exciting to write or read about – but Saturday I had a day.  Since Catskills, coach Fraser has been burying me, but we took our foot off the gas with about five days to go and it seemed to have the desired effect.  I had one of my better TT efforts ever, and won by a minute over a strong field that had me worried at the outset.  The combined results had me 5^th, just 28 seconds behind the 1-2 winner, which I was also pretty pleased with.  Anyways, a second Provincial TT championship was a nice reward for some hard work, and hopefully a sign of some return to form.

Sunday, clouds and wind greeted us, as well as some pretty chilly temps.  I was happy to be in the good company of teammate Tom Stevens, who’d also hosted me at his palatial cottage at Tremblant the night before – thanks Tom! Nice field of 75 or so assembled for a 110 km point to point race.  The profile wasn’t crazy hilly, but I don’t think there was 250 meters of flat in the entire race.  The first 50 k was mostly rolling descending with a headwind, some really fun, twisty, although optionally paved Quebec roads, and it was fairly obvious nothing was going to be going early. I spent the first 20 k chatting about whatever Tom was talking about at the back of the race…  About 25 k I decided to stick my nose in the wind a bit and took off up a big roller with Alex Boiteau, the big Trek rider that has won a bunch of races this year, and was third in the TT… if I was going to get anywhere early in the race, I needed a Trek rider with me – they had three of the strongest riders in the race, along with Erwan Peres and Eric Prevost, but while he and I tried a few times over the next 10 k, there was too many guys too strong early on, and I went back to the back to chat with Tom some more.

At about 50 k, we came out onto a nicely paved secondary highway with apparently a series of big rollers…

Click to read more ...

David Gazsi, Tour of Catskills race report

Monday August 08, 2011

Tour of the Catskills, with the impossible-to-overhype Devil's Kitchen, took place this past weekend. It was harder than last year, both parcours and field, and I was hampered by having spent much of the last 3 weeks on the trainer due to a crash and some soft tissue damage mostly in my wrist. Never mind, we're bike racers, !#$@ happens... and the race goes on!

The preamble is that I've been pretty quiet this year, with many near misses... a 2nd and 3rd at Bennington (TT/GC), illness at Killington, 5th at Whiteface, 3rd at Nationals TT... I've felt like I had great fitness all year and either no race luck, no form, or both... both of which are all on me, no doubt, its just been a season of wouldacouldashoulda... unfortunately this weekend was a continuing theme, but the racing at ToC is just so damn fun, I decided to write a report despite another near miss outing.

Click to read more...

Everest Challenge, by David Gazsi

click for bigger.

My Hardest Race Ever-est

A few years ago, I stumbled upon this race online and was fascinated by the idea of being able to race against some of the best climbers in North America, on mountains that actually approximated some of the epic climbs we all love when watching the Tour. Earlier this season, I’d mentioned it to a couple of friends and before long, we had a little posse of lunatics all willing to take it on.  Unfortunately, Andrew Stewart broke his collarbone at GMSR (last stage, last lap, brutal) but Cary Moretti and Mark Davies from the Endurosport Team in Toronto joined me by landing in Las Vegas and driving thru Death Valley and onto Bishop California for the 10th anniversary of the Everest Challenge. The drive was amazing. Death Valley was spectacular from every perspective, hot, dry, stunningly beautiful. On into the Sierra Nevadas where the race was based, and you are suddenly surrounded by 14,000 foot peaks, striking and imposing bare rock mountains.  Cary and I were racing the 35+, while Mark was doing the tourist thing, riding the citizen’s race. Mark also provided the trip’s first great quote, as the mountains came into view, declaring, “This isn’t a race, it’s a f@#ing dare!”

Click to read more ...

Green Mountain 2010 Race Report, by David Gazsi

click for biggerWhen I started to get serious about road racing about 10 years ago, there were 3 races that, from my limited perspective, held some of the cache of what big time stage racing was really like. I’ve had success in the GP Charlevoix, and at Sutton/NAM, but the one I’d always wanted the most was GMSR. I’d been on the podium there 3 different times, and won a stage or two, but had never won the overall.

This year, with the support of the whole family in tow, I was also running up against some great competition in the names of Fred Thomas who’d won Killington this year where I was 2^nd, Jonny Bold who’d won at Catskills, where I was 5^th, and David Taylor, who’s won a ton of races this year, and who’d won GMSR in the past.  The field was deep as well, and as normal, nobody comes to GMSR unprepared!

Stage 1 Time Trial

Tough start, a 9 km ride that climbs between 3-10% for about 4km, and is then rolling-descending for the rest.

Click to read more ...

Tour of the Catskills by David Gazsi

Drove down to the Catskills this past weekend to take on some of the best climbs and climbers in the northeast at this 3 stage event. Right off the top, I have to say these were some of the most amazing road courses I’ve ever raced, just beautiful twisting, turning, lane-like roads, crazy hard climbs, super fun descents, and really well supported by the three towns that pulled together to put on the event.

Prologue

3.5 km, avg 4% but with some steeper sections and some little descents, not unlike Fortune climb, just a little longer... I had a descent ride, but having chosen just a straight road setup, I realize that except for about 200 meters of very steep road, it was probably best to have ridden a TT bike, or at least with clip-ons... I tried to pace myself, but in that short an event, its nearly impossible.  At about 2.5 k, I pretty much blew, almost stopped for about 15 seconds, then gathered myself and pushed on to finish 3rd, 15 seconds back of Johnny Bold. Bold had outclassed the field, but places 2-20 were separated by about 25 seconds total – class field, very deep!

Click to read more ...

NA Masters Champs, Sutton, Que. by David Gazsi

David Gazsi and Steve Proulx duking it out. click for bigger.Last week, headed down to Sutton for the North American Masters Championships with teammates Paul Chedore and Alistair Scott. The race is 4 stages, an uphill prologue Friday night, a 13km TT Saturday morning, a 40km crit Saturday afternoon, and a 115km hilly road race Sunday morning. Defending last year’s win was going to be very tough this year. The field was nearly 120 deep, with steep competition on many fronts, most significantly from Roger Aspholm, a US rider I know well and have been chasing for years. Roger was bringing 4 teammates, and was on top of his game to say the least.

Click to read more ...