Noah Ramsay had a great 2024: What’s next?

The 2024 road and MTB season is coming to a close, and Noah Ramsay had a pretty good one. He just came off a fifth place in Mt. Ste. Anne in the short track—an impressive result given his starting position. Ramsay has also been racing some local road races in 2024, with one race being especially impressive. He’s even hinted that he’d like to do more road racing in 2025. As far as the Quebec World Cup, he was definitely satisfied.

Great day at Mt. Ste. Anne on the short track

“The short track went really well. I went in with a slightly different attitude than most UCI World Cup XCC races. Since I always start on the last row due to my lack of UCI points, I usually take the first lap and a half slow and try to pick my way through, staying out of trouble, to try to secure a second or third row call-up,” he said.

“This time, with it being the last one and at home, I really wanted the front-row start in front of the Canadian fans, so I was quite aggressive from the start. I made sure to still pace it in a way that I could fire off a couple of bullets at the end. Which is typically when the race is won,” Ramsay said. “But I knew I had to be in the top five wheels going into the last two laps to contest for a potential podium or be on the first row for Sunday.”

Ramsay moved up about 4-8 spots each lap until he got to the last third of the race, which took a lap to settle down a bit and get ready for the final push of the short 20-minute race. In the last lap, he was sitting in sixth wheel. And the rider in front of him couldn’t go with the attack when it went.

“I tried to close to the front four, and in doing so, I put a gap into the group of six behind me. I wasn’t able to fully close the gap. But I had to hold the effort to the line to get that first front-row start I’ve been looking for,” he said.

XCO was a challenge

The XCO wasn’t quite as ideal, however.

“I had a couple of pretty hard crashes in training the day before the race, and my body was quite sore, so I was riding all the technical sections too cautiously and kept losing the wheels. I was also struggling a lot with back issues. It made putting down power quite difficult. I rarely have both aspects of racing go poorly together. But I guess it simply wasn’t my day. I need to learn from the mistakes and move forward so I can be faster next time,” the 21-year-old Toronto rider said.

Watt monster in Windsor

Although he didn’t get many chances to race on the road given his MTB focus, when he did in 2024, he impressed. In August at the Tour de Via Italia in Ontario, Noah Ramsay, riding for Bateman’s Bicycle Company dominated the race. He broke away on the first lap and staying off the front for 74 km to take the win. The 21-year-old averaged 47.4 km/h, finishing 1:18 ahead of Ashlin Barry (EF Education – ONTO), who won the field sprint.

400 W for 90 minutes: Noah Ramsay rides solo for entire crit

Despite being more accustomed to mountain biking, Ramsay showed impressive form in the crit. He averaged around 390 watts for the 90-minute race, with one hour pushing 395 watts. Ramsay kept a steady effort, maintaining a comfortably hard pace to avoid surging, knowing that any sudden increase in pace could allow the group to catch him.

So, where does that leave him for the upcoming season? He’s still working on that.

2025 team?

“No news on a team for 2025. I’ve reached out to many teams between road and MTB but haven’t received any real interest yet. I’m aware that on the road side I don’t have any results in Europe in that discipline, but I’ve made it clear when I reached out that I’d be happy to do some testing and talk to them more in-depth on how I think I can be a positive impact in helping their team succeed,” he said.

Given that he doesn’t know who or where he will be racing, he hasn’t yet planned out his goals for 2025. But he knows, no matter what, he will want to be at the top of the podium.

“Whatever it is I am doing, I always have a national champs medal as a target. And I love being a part of the world champs team and being able to compete at the biggest event of the year. Outside of those two, I’m going to take the month to get a better idea of what my 2025 season will look like. Then go from there,” he said.