2010 Tour de l’Abitibi

On Stage 1, the riders encounter great expanses of sky, water, forest and distance on the roads from Preissac to Val-d'Or.

For Stage 1 of the Tour de l'Abitibi the riders and their bikes were shuttled from the high school in Val-d'Or to the starting line in the sky-filled world of Preissac, Quebec.

The starting line was at the top of a steep rise. The riders would go down the rise towards the camera, make a sharp turn left, then travel south then east for 52.6 miles to reach Val-d’Or.

Preissac is northwest of Val-d’Or. The riders will race 52.6 miles from Preissac to Val-d’Or over relatively flat roads.

Once the riders enter Val-d’Or from the west (blue arrows below) , they will turn right and complete 3 laps of a 2 mile hilly circuit before finishing in front of the Val-d’Or town hall in the town center. Black arrows show the climbs on the circuit and red arrows show the descents. The total length of Stage 1 is 58.7 miles. When the race was over the riders had covered the course at an average speed of 26.5 miles per hour.

If you want to find where camaraderie lives, go to the starting line of a bike race and watch the teams. Neal Forbes and Taylor Gaines wait for the start of Stage 1.

Below, Taylor Gaines, Graham Dewart and the team car driver, Charlie Rabinowitz, wait together for things to get organized at the starting line for Stage 1 in Preissac.

Once the race started, the riders descended the hill and made the left hand turn heading for Val-d’Or. In the picture below, you can see the caravan of team support cars falling in behind the riders at the top of the hill where the race started.

Right after the picture above was taken, there was crash. 30 riders went down. All 6 riders on the ProChain Junior Cycling Team either went down or had to stop and put a foot on the ground to avoid fallen riders in front of them. Meanwhile, the riders ahead of the crash raced ahead. Johnathan Freter and Brian Lark hit the ground the hardest and were most affected by this crash. It was this crash, maybe 1 minute into the 8 days of racing, that went on to have a such a huge impact on Brian Lark’s and Johnathan Freter’s placement in the overall standings (General Classification).

The ProChain support car in the caravan, the Prius, was assigned position 16 in the caravan. It reached Johnathan Freter first. Johnathan Freter had fallen hard, wanted to go on, but could only proceed after a bike change. Initially, Brian Lark was able to recover largely on his own from the crash. Brian got his broken bike going and got himself a little further down the road while the team car was helping Johnathan switch bikes. Brian needed help when the team support car reached him. The crash had thrown Brian’s handlebars out of alignment. Team Mechanic Cory St. Clair had Brian’s bike straightened out in 18 seconds. Still, Brian and Johnathan had lost sight of the pack which averaged 44 km/hr during the first hour of the race (27.3 mph). Charlie Rabinowitz is the team driver. He skillfully drove the Prius so Brian and Johnathan had a chance to catch up to the tail end of the car caravan.

Brian and Johnathan made a huge effort to reach the tail end of the car caravan that followed behind the hard-riding peleton. At times Brian and Johnathan were riding over 50 mph in an effort to catch the caravan. There is a cutoff time for each stage. If your finishing time is 20% slower than the lead rider, you are not allowed to start any of the remaining stages. Below, you can Brian Lark and Johnathan Freter have caught the car caravan and are making their way through the cars to reach the back of the pack.

Brian and Johnathan made it back to town with a good enough time that they can race again in Stage 2. Ten riders did not make today’s time cutoff. It took a huge effort from Brian and Johnathan to make the time cut. Jonathan’s ride was particularly impressive. His arm was so severely hurt that we took him to the hospital in Val-d’Or after he finished the race to make sure he had not ridden the entire race with a broken arm. The doctor assured us that it was only a soft tissue injury, but it was a painful injury that would make riding difficult for several days.

Even though two of our riders had a tough day, Neal Frobes, Taylor Gaines, Graham Dewart and Nathaniel Beams were not as affected by the crash. Below, Graham and Nathanial are at the front of the pack as the group enter's Val-d’Or.

The photograph above was taken by Paul Brindamour. Used with permission.

The photo below shows Taylor Gaines moving up on the last lap of the hilly circuit around Val-d'Or.

Other teams had more of their riders affected by the crash than we did. Some of these teams had initially been ahead of us in the General Classification. The ProChain team started out 16th in the overall team general classification. Because Johnathan and Brian rode so hard to catch the peleton, made the time cutoff, and the rest of the team did so well, at the end of Stage 1 the ProChain team had moved up in the overall team standings from 16th to 11th.

Below, you can see one of the beneficial effects for the team if they have a higher place in the general classification. Your team support car gets to move up in the line of cars in the caravan that follows the race.

Below, you can see the view of the race that you have when your team car is in the 16th position in the car caravan. From this far back, you waste a lot of time getting to a rider on your team if they need food or water or have a mechanical problem.

Tomorrow our team car will move up in the caravan and will be able to reach riders sooner to deliver food or solve mechanical problems. Hopefully the crashes are behind us.

• Stage 1 Individual Results
• Individual General Classification After Stage 1
• Stage 1 Team Results
• Team General Classification After Stage 1

ProChain Junior Cycling Team Individual Results For Stage One: Preissac to Val-d’Or 85 Kilometer (52.8 mile) Road Race

Place	Rider Name	Elapsed Time	Time Behind the Leader
14th	Graham Dewart	02:12:54	00:00:00
23rd	Nathaniel Beams	02:12:54	00:00:00
71st	Taylor Gaines	02:13:08	00:00:14
100th	Neal Forbes	02:15:01	00:02:07
127th	Brian Lark	02:22:07	00:09:13
137th	Johnathan Freter	02:30:24	00:17:30