I had my first event yesterday at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the men's road race. It consisted of 14 laps around the F1 track. It was also my first ever pack race and was pretty nervous/anxious.excited about it. The field consisted of mostly men 30-39 and a few 18-29 (my age category). I always considered myself a pretty strong recreational cyclist and was thinking I'd kick some butt during this event. It unfolded, however, quite differntly than what I expected.

Right off the bat, there's a very technical portion of the track about 300m from the start line consisting of 5 tight 90-degree turns with a puddle of mud and gravel on the last turn. It was ther that the pack would stretch itself out a bit. It would regroup immediately after, but the strong riders at the front pushed the pace at an incredible speed. The first 2 laps were at an average of about 28 or 29mph. On the second lap, a technical miscalculation on my part caused me to drop behind at the sequence of 90-degree turns and I spent the rest of the lap playing catch-up to the rest of the pack. They were right there in front of me but I was just out of drafting distance and so I really had to push it hard to keep up. It was then that I met rider Yulav Hets from Israel who was profiled on this website yesterday. He saw me riding off the back and he dropped back and helped me draft off him so I could join back with the pack. I thought that was a very cool sportsmanly thing to do. Unfortunately for him though, at the hairpin turn some slower riders got in front of him and the peloton was split up. From that moment on, there was the lead pack thta kept its blistering pace and ours wihch fell back and continued at a slower yet still respectable 24-25 mph. Over the ensuing laps, we picked up a few riders here and there who had been dropped by the lead group. Among them was rider Brian McSorley of Calgary who -total bummer for him- was keeping up with the lead group for 7 laps until his chain fell off. At that point thre was no chance we could catch up with them and he did a couple of laps all by his lonesome. He told me he was glad when we caught up with him and he had some other guys to ride with. Our group wsa pretty cohesive, taking turns at the pull, Yulav and I each trying to push the pace and see how fast we could finish. In the final lap, I could see all the riders trying some tactics, letting Brian pull more than he should have, since he had such massive thighs, he looked like he would just sprint ahead of everyone to take the "win". Of course, that's what happened, he took off, increasing his speed as if we had come to a stand still. Yulav and I both accelerated vying for an exciting photo finish style. Yulav beat me by a full bike length. I had no more power in my legs whatsoever.

All in all, a really wonderful experience and I had a great time pushing myself hard for 60km at the fastest pace I've ever done. Even though the lead pack finished well ahead of us (and almost lapped us, but didn't thank god!) I think we all had an excellent race and we congratulated each other wholeheartedly.

Good thing about there not being many "recreational" 18-29 riders is that I got myself a silver medal, Brian McSorley rightly earned his gold and good man Marko from Switzerland scored himself the bronze in what will surely not be his last race (nor mine, I'm joining a team in New York first chance I get).

I'm looking forward to my next event, the Olympic triathlon, which will pit me against Yulav once more. I won't be allowed to draft off him this time, so I better eat lots of psata tonight.

I like your description of the race. It sort of visualized in my head while reading. I guess the technical turns on the circuit are the "Senna turns" (at the opposite end from the hairpin).

Tuesday was a very hot day. I saw some participants on tv - some words with a woman, an older man who didn't finish. If all people were racing at the same time, it would have been people in your race.

Congratulations on your silver medal and good luck in triathlon. The water shouldn't be too cold!

Excellent description, Greg Faber! With all the cycling scandals, it's good to know that there are some good people in the sport.

I was looking at results and in the triathlon Greg Faber won the bronze in his category.

Congratulations! (if he doesn't fail a drug test)