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The season ahead for Bruno Langlois and 5-hour Energy presented by Kenda

Bruno Langlois
March 6, 2014
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At the recent 5-hour Energy presented by Kenda training camp in Georgia, while most riders were inside on their computers, Bruno Langlois headed out in a canoe on a nearby lake. He had a rod that he’d found and repaired; he had used an Allen key to replace a missing reel part. It had rained so the cyclist who comes from rural Quebec and has a love for hunting and fishing found some worms to bait the hook. “I’m sure my teammates thought, ‘This guy’s crazy.’”

 

While Langlois wasn’t able to land a fish that day, his place on 5-hour Energy, a U.S. continental team, was quite a catch for the 35-year-old Quebec rider. At the 2013 Tour of Alberta, Langlois was not only riding with Garneau-Quebecor as its team captain, he was managing and directing the team. One night, 5-hour Energy’s manager Jason Kriel saw Langlois doing laundry at a laundromat. “Jason asked, ‘What are you doing here man? You should be resting,’” recalled Langlois. “But I had to get that done for guys. And the next day I was in the breakaway. I had a lot of my plate and I got a bit burnt out.”

Langlois was also trying to help some of the younger riders on Garneau-Quebecor—Michael Woods, Alex Cataford and Pierrick Naud to name a few—find spots on higher-level teams. But conversations would often circle back to what Langlois’s plans were for the future. At the time, he thought his future was set. “I’m an older guy,” he said. “I thought my chances of signing with a domestic team in the U.S. were low because of all the rules—half of the team needs to be younger than 26, only a certain amount of riders can be foreign. I thought I’d finish my career with Garneau.”

The offer from 5-hour is a bit of luck, but Langlois is quick to point out that he did make his own luck. He’s ridden hard for years with teams such as SpiderTech, Jittery Joe’s and Jet Fuel Coffee. “Bruno’s been around forever,” said Langlois’s new directeur sportif Frankie Andreu. “Everybody knows him. Even if you don’t know him, you know his racing style. He’s so dangerous and strong.”

Langlois showed up to the 5-hour training camp having done some higher-altitude riding in Costa Rica earlier in the year. He enjoyed temperatures that were higher than the 10 to 15 C in Georgia. The team was based near Dawsonville, an area that used to feature in the Tour of Georgia and Tour of Dupont. Andreu described the terrain a rolling, but it has steep climbs, which the team used for more intense workouts. On average the team rode four hours a day, with at least an hour of really hard riding. Andreu was not only looking at riders’ fitness, but ensuring they were fit properly on their bikes. When the directeur and his team weren’t on the road, they were planning logistics for the year, discussing the races they’d target and learning about the products their sponsors had provided them.

The training camp marked the first time all of the riders on 5-hour Energy were assembled in one spot. Five riders—Bobby Sweeting, Jim Stemper, Christian Parrett, David Williams and Taylor Shelden—are returning to the squad. New additions not only include Langlois, the lone rider from outside of the U.S., but Chad Beyer, Sam Bassetti, Jacob Keough, John Hornbeck and Gavin Mannion. Both Langlois and Andreu said the team was gelling nicely at the camp.

5-hour Energy presented by Kenda has a tentative 2014 schedule that includes UCI races, as well as events on the USA Cycling National Racing Calendar. In June, the team will head to Quebec to race in the new Grand Prix Cycliste de Saguenay and the Tour de Beauce. “They’re UCI races so they’re super important for our team and they’re important for [Chicoutimi, Que.-based bike sponsor] Devinci,” said Andreu. “I’m bringing the most powerful team I can to those races to try to win.” Langlois is hoping to be in top form for the races in his home province, as well as the Canadian championships in Lac-Mégantic, Que., June 26–29.

When not targeting wins, Langlois will have a varied role with the team. “Probably I’ll have a role of team captain with my experience,” Langlois said. “I think I”ll be a guy who goes on the front and attack and support my GC riders. We have some young climbers here and I can support them.” On Langlois’s role, Andreu was a bit more expansive: “He’s more of a captain because of his experience in reading races and knowing tactics. He can do that hands down. And he’s super aggressive. That style of racing, when you’re aggressive, you don’t have to be on the defensive. I have a few guys who are like that, so Bruno will definitely have total freedom to be able to get into the moves, get into the breaks and try to win races. At the same time, Bruno is a team player. If it comes down to it and we have somebody in the lead, I have no doubt that Bruno can ride on the front all day, keep us in a good position to protect the leader and win. So, honestly, he has a lot of different roles to fulfil. The way a race plays out will affect what role he has. Sometime he’s going to be a worker. Sometimes he’s going to be a leader. Other times, he’s going to be the protagonist.”