It’s time for the Canadian national championships

Back in Canada for the first time in a year. That can only mean one thing: another year at the Canadian national championships. Also, it means that we are reaching the the midpoint of the racing calendar. It has been a busy first half of the season for me. It seems that time on the road has outnumbered my days at home, especially during the past couple months. There have been some big highs, especially being part of the team that helped win Liège–Bastogne–Liège or winning the KOM jersey at Bayern Rundfart and some more average experiences, like the fact it seemed to be raining in every race I did before the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Leaving directly from Tour of Slovenia, I made the trip here to Lac-Mégantic, Que., for another run at the nationals. Usually, I enjoy doing the time trial in the days leading up to the road race, but this year I have opted to skip it for the first time in many years. Coming just off racing Slovenia, which came just a few days after a difficult Dauphiné, I decided I could use a couple extra days of recovery to get over the races and jet lag. And, when Svein is racing the TT, it quickly becomes a race for second place for the rest. I reckon have been there many times already. The road race will be a goal for both Svein and me, as you can imagine. Racing in the maple-leaf jersey in the big Euro races was one of the coolest experiences in my career so far and being able to do it again would be fantastic, but we will be racing lots of strong guys all looking for the same result. It should make for quite a day of racing. The circuit this year offers some difficulties, but not so hard that tactics and team work won’t pay a very important role.

After nationals, I will have a little break so I can enjoy a bit of time in Vancouver before heading back over the Europe mid-July to kick off the second half of the year, which always seems to fly by at double the speed of the first half.

Other, more interesting news: I have just added a nice little addition to my coffee collection back in Girona with the arrival of the little Huky 500 coffee roaster. I’ve had some great afternoons roasting my own coffee. It is a whole other learning experience that will still take some time to master the skills, but I am really enjoying the process. It’s quite rewarding drinking coffee you have roasted, no matter how poor the first batches might taste!