I had another great time participating in L’Etape Canada by Tour de France in Edmonton, AB. I can say it was even better this year because I am now cycling with Saskatchewan's top masters cycling team, HPL Cycling! To be honest, I had no plans to join any events this year because of lack of training with my busy schedule preparing for our wedding. My Job also requires a lot of travelling. By joining HPL Cycling I know the team will help me improve myself in this sport and lift up my mindset. After I registered, I only had 2 weeks to work hard and prepare myself for the race! Just to make it interesting the 2nd week of my training it rained 5 days straight. How convenient was that! 😂 I was like “some training is better than nothing!” 😄 not in my best shape this year but will definitely be 1% better every day!
Race wise, I managed to hold with the first peloton for the first 40-50km of the race. Unfortunately, through a little chaos in a turn, a gap formed, and I was dropped from the lead group. I tried forming a chase group, but nobody wanted to take a turn and work with me in the front 😓.
Another situation happened, there was a turn that a marshal decided to let a car pass while our group was approaching and got distracted guiding us on the course for the left turn. I was in the front of that group, me and 5 other cyclists ended up missing the corner and had to turn around and chase back on to the group.
Overall, with all the setbacks, I always take everything as a lesson to improved myself for next time around 🙂. Moving forward, this was my 1st time to be included in 30-39 age category as well. Oh boy oh boy! It sure was a competitive group! Especially with my teammates Mike and Deven in this age group!
All said and done I placed 15th /35 place age group, 72nd/195 gender, and 75th/219 overall in the 135km course. To sum up everything, it was indeed a good experience! Always a good experience! Thank you for reading, Josh Pardon De La Cruz
