Early season review: Canadians in the pro ranks
With the men’s professional road season all ready well under way, most of the Canadian male professional riders have a few race days chalked up. Within the ProTour ranks, Guillaume Boivin, Christian Meier, Svein Tuft, Hugo Houle and Ryder Hesjedal have all had one-week stints. Although most of these riders have larger goals later in the season, each has started his season on a solid footing.
Guillaume Boivin
Boivin, who’s in his second year with the Cannondale professional cycling team, started his year in Australia at the Tour Down Under. The team’s goal revolved around setting up sprinting ace Elia Viviani. While the Cannondale outfit failed to win a stage, Boivin completed the tour well and showed enough promise to earn leadership responsibilities at the following weeks Herald Sun Tour. While the young Canadian rider didn’t deliver a victory during the week of racing, he finished in the top 10 on every road stage. Not exactly something to write home about, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.
Christian Meier
The Orica-GreenEdge domistique started out his year in Argentina at the Tour San Luis. While Stage 1 proved to be an odd race tactically, Meier nearly capitalized on a sleeping peloton. He climbed well enough the following day to move to third overall after two stages. In the following two stages with mountain-top finishes and a flat 19.2-km time trial still to come, Meier slowly conceded time to Movistar’s Nairo Quintana and Garmin-Sharp’s neo-pro Phillip Gaimon. Meier eventually slipped out of contention finishing in 16th place overall. While slightly disappointing for the 29-year-old professional, it is by no means a major blow as Meier is mostly employed to take care of Orica-GreenEdge super-star Simon Gerrans and the team’s stable full of sprinters.
Svein Tuft
Svein Tuft had a demanding 2013 season as he raced two Grand Tours and contributed massively to the team’s successes in the Tour de France, which included winning the team time trial, and then defending the yellow jersey throughout the next three days. While reportedly taking some time to cross-country ski in his ancestral homeland of Norway, he’ll need a few more race days before we see the big time trial engine that he is noted for get into gear. This pace is by no means surprising for the notoriously slow-starting Canadian. After getting a few more racing kilometres under his belt, don’t be surprised to see Tuft at the head of affairs again. With the Spring Classics fast approaching, Tuft will look to build his form steadily throughout the next four weeks.
Hugo Houle
In his second year with Ag2r-La Mondiale, Hugo Houle displayed deeper physical reserves in his first outing of 2014. While the Tour of Qatar, where Houle started his racing campaign, is a notoriously unforgiving race with crosswinds and a strong contingent of Classics super-stars at hand, Houle showed some grit and improved daily. Slated for a full spring of Classics this year, Houle seems on track to continue his development.
Ryder Hesjedal
The inaugural Tour Dubai was Ryder Hesjedal’s first race was of the 2014 season. The opening stage was a 9-km time trial completed Eddy Merckx-style: on a road bike with no specific aerodynamic equipment—a perfect test for one’s early season form. Hesjedel finished in 41st place, 57 seconds down on the winner Taylor Phinney, and spent the rest of the race in anonymity.  After a crash-filled 2013, Hesjedel is looking to rebuild.  He’ll surely take aim at the Ardennes week of racing. There is still time for the Garmin-Sharp superstar to return to his race winning forum.
UCI continental tour riders Rob Britton and national road race champion Zach Bell have started their season with the re-vamped Team SmartShop. After a disappointing 2013, Britton has trained well over the winter and placed third in the opening stage of the Vuelta Indepdencia National while his teammate Eric Marcotte won. He now sits in second place overall. Bell appears to have started the season a little slower, but is sure to improve quickly as he will now be tasked with defending the leader’s jersey in the coming stages.
This winter saw the migration of three Canadians to the Italian based Amore Vita team. Michael Woods and James Piccaoli both started their season with G.P. Costa degli Etruschi while Alex Cataford is still recovering from being hit by a car while training in Tucson, Ariz. Although faced  with a big jump in the level of racing, the talented Woods fared well in his first outing, placing 41st in the second group, alongside Giro d’ Italia champion Ivan Basso.
