For the second consecutive year Team Specialized is proud to send a team to the only UCI event in North America. Tour de l’abitibi is a six day, seven stage race. Five stages of 100+ kilometers per day and one day with a time trial (12.3km) and short road race (52km) comprise the week-long event. Team Specialized is set to start stage one tomorrow afternoon, July 19. Racing will wrap up on Sunday, July 26th.
This is a UCI Nations Cup event. Twenty three teams of six 17 and 18 year old riders make up this years’ field of competitors. France, the UCI number one ranked nation is here, as well as national teams from Japan, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Thailand, Mexico, Canada and Team USA. Unfortunately, that means that our best possible placing in the caravan will be 13th spot behind the commissar, medical, neutral support, and all 23 following support cars. We were spoiled last year after James LaBerge won stage one and we moved right up to the front three cars. There’s a managers meeting at 10am tomorrow to determine our spot in the rolling circus.
Tough competition aside, Team Specialized has a rich history at this event. In 2007 Ben Barsi-Rhyne won a stage, in 2008 Charlie Avis won the time trial, in 2009 Charlie Avis was 2nd overall, in 2010 James LaBerge won stage one and Eamon Lucas was 2nd overall. We have high hopes for our six riders and here’s a bit about our team:
- Five of the six teammates have experience from 2010. This is Kyle’s debut and that’s because he is just 17 years old.
- Four of the six teammates have been a part of the USA Cycling European trips.
- All six of them have won events and placed well at the USA Cycling Junior Road National Championships.
- On paper, we have a strong team well suited for this event.
And, our six teammates:
- David Benkoski (18) Menlo Park, CA
- James LaBerge (18) Napa, CA
- Jeff Perrin (18) Lakewood, CO
- Torey Philipp (18) El Dorado Hills, CA
- Kyle Torres (17) Laguna Nigel, CA
- Willy Zellmer (18) Missoula, MT
Amos is a small Canadian city in the Quebec region of Canada. French speakers dominate the local scene but seem to understand our English questions easily. The beauty of this event is the region that we ride in, and the organization capitalizes on that by starting the majority of the stages in another host city and having the athlete’s race back to Amos. The stage maps resemble a spider web with stages coming in from the west, south, north and east. This layout helps simplify the logistics. Another benefit of this set-up is that the courses tend to be along wide highways until we get back into Amos, then the riders are treated to a number of circuits in Amos. This year we have two different circuits. Stages one and two use a three corner 5.3km circuit and have the athletes hit it five times, then on stages five and seven the riders are treated to a twelve corner 5.3km circuit. Stage three is the time trial, stage four is a short out and back road race in another host city (Malartic). Stage six features nine laps of the 11km combined two circuits and could be the decisive stage if there is no big weather swings out on the open roads. These are just my opinions but I think that the circuits favor the American riders that grow up on criteriums. We shall see.
While many will accurately say that we are “out in the middle of nowhere”, Amos is a great place to visit. I can’t imagine the winter months (brrr!) but the summer days are nice and long. The sun was shining through our window well before 5:30am and the sky was still lit up at 10pm. Yesterday we had temps in the 80’s and a thunderstorm. Today started off cool (high 60’s) and settled nicely into the 80’s with gusty winds. I’m not one to care about the weather much but we pay attention to these details when we’re racing up here. One big wind day and general classification could be set.
You can follow all of the action at: www.tourabitibi.com
The team presentation went smoothly. The team is pumped up and ready to race. Wish us luck and speed. Cheers, Larry
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