Luke Valenti on what it took to win the Tour de Beauce

Luke Valenti took an impressive win at the 2023 Tour de Beauce, riding his way into the lead and defending it on the pivotal last stage. Valenti, who is 19, joined the Ecoflo Chronos for his first year as a senior, following an impressive tenure in the junior ranks. The Orangeville rider won the national ‘cross championships, won the mountain’s jersey at the Tour de l’Abitibi, and finished 12th at the world CX champs, among many impressive results.

He had been targeting Beauce all year, but with a week to go, he began having doubts about how he’d fare. The reason? The smokey air from the Quebec wildfires.

First few days of the Tour de Beauce were up in the air

“With all the crappy air, I went out on the road one day and afterwards I felt terrible,” he says. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do much at Beauce as I had a stuffy nose, I was sneezing, coughing. So when we got there, I figured I could go for a top ten, grab some UCI points and I’d be happy with that.”

The first few days, Valenti says his legs weren’t great. But as the race got on, he started feeling better. Not just better, but fantastic. “My legs started feeling amazing after 2 days,” Valenti says.

His teammate Matisse Julien took the early lead, but according to Valenti, that was part of the plan.
“Matisse and I were co-leaders going for the GC,” Valenti says. “So after the first stage, I was still being protected by my team. And so after that, I was just thinking about helping Matisse and defending the GC for as long as we could.”

A big win for his team

Beauce is an important race for his team. Ecoflo Chronos, a Quebec-based squad, formally known as Premier Tech, made Beauce, and the nationals, the main goals of the year.

“It’s great that we won, for sure,” Valenti says. “It’s great for the sponsor and for our morale.”

His team has been based in Europe for most of the year, which has been good for all of the rider’s development. Doing races like the Ronde de l’Oise, the Tour du Loir et Cher, Le Samyn against other continental teams, WorldTour or WorldTour development squads, has helped all the members of the team level up.

He notices some differences between racing in Europe as well. At Beauce, even though the level is just as high as some of the races he’s done, he said that the peloton isn’t quite as compact. That means it’s a little easier to move up, since the riders aren’t quite as close, and the roads aren’t as twisty. But racing in Europe has helped up his learning curve.

“I’m still young and I’m still learning how to ride in the bigger peloton and it’s a lot different than junior last year,” he says. Although he has raced in Europe as a junior, the pro and continental level is that much faster, and more technical. But he knows that with every race, he’ll get a little better.”

There was no time trial at Beauce in the 2023 edition, which Valenti was happy about.
“I’m not sure I would have won if there had been a TT,” he laughs. “I’m still working on my time trialling.”

King of the Queen stage, Mont Mégantic

There was, as always, the critical Mont Mégantic stage. The 169-km stage finish on the legendary climb is 5.3 km long, and averages 9.6 per cent, with some sections up to 15 per cent. Valenti would finish third on the stage, and would be vaulted up to second overall.

Since it was his first Beauce, he’d never done the stage, so went in with his eyes open.

“I really enjoyed it. I was really, really stressed about my position in the run-up to the climb,” he says. “Everyone is fighting to get to the front.”

Valenti would then take the lead the following day when he finished 7th in the 70-km circuit race in Québec. But he knew it was far from over.

The last stage is often quite pivotal at Beauce. In the last ten editions, the lead has changed hands six times on Stage 5.

The peloton today pic.twitter.com/nUSbARk7I0

— Tour de Beauce (@TourDeBeauce) June 18, 2023

“Before the race we had talked about getting someone in the break and me going across if we could so that’s what we tried to do with Matisse in the break. And we knew that even though Tyler Stites was fourth on GC, he would still go for the win,” Valenti says. “He did most of the work right away, honestly. I had to follow and because even though he was two minutes behind me, you can lose massive amounts of time if you falter on that course, as it was tough and everyone was riding hard.”

A rare Canadian win at the Tour de Beauce

Once he got to the final kilometres, he knew the race was his. When he crossed the line, he was thrilled: he’d just won the Tour de Beauce in his first go. There haven’t been a lot of Canadians that have won the race in recent years. James Piccoli won in 2018, and you have to go another ten years to find another win, by Svein Tuft of Symmetrics cycling. Before that, it was the mid nineties with Eric Wohlberg. Not only is Valenti one of the few Canadians to have won it–he’s the youngest.

His next race is the upcoming 2023 nationals. He won’t be doing the TT, but will instead concentrate on the road race. Although he’s certainly one of the favourites, he also wants to pay it forward with one of his teammates. “Honestly, I would like to help the guys because all the guys really helped me in Quebec and it wouldn’t have been possible without their help,” he says.

No matter what happens in Edmonton, you can bet you’ll be seeing Valenti’s name more and more on the results sheet, whether it’s Canada or Europe.