Meier on his return to Beauce

After a bit of down time following the Giro, things are quickly swinging back into action here as I have decided to take part in another edition of the Tour de Beauce with the Canadian national team. Since the Giro, it has been mostly relaxing and recovery for me, first at our home in Girona, Spain, before making the trip over to visit my family in my home town of Sussex, N.B. It was good to get back to see my family for a bit and ride the old training roads where I discovered my love for cycling. Besides a bit of training, my wife and I also got to enjoy a few of the rural Canadian activities: shooting some rifles, four-wheeling and plenty of barbecuing. It was a great trip.

The rest periods always seem to fly past. I’ve already finished the first stage of the Tour de Beauce. This year we have a very strong team assembled that should let us be competitive in almost all situations. Tuesday saw some superb work by the boys to control the stage with Guillaume Boivin running second in a chaotic, rain-soaked sprint. Unfortunately, Hugo Houle, who was one of our GC hopefuls, came down in the sprint. Besides losing some skin, he should be OK. For me, it was a day of unknowns. Since this was the first real effort since the Giro, it was always a bit of a surprise as to how the legs would react. In the end it was OK, but there’s some room for improvement, as my coach likes to say.

We are also debuting a new jersey design that will be the look of Canadian cyclists for the next couple of seasons. I think its a very cool design being a bit more simple and bringing back the classic blue colour that was always the standard.

Wednesday, I hope we can provide Giullaume another shot at a sprint before heading to the Mont-Mégantic stage and the time trial, which should shake up the GC.