amy alison dombroski

The team, consisting of Karen, Dave, Jezza, Katheryn, Erinne, X, Nikki, and myself arrived to rainy Montreal on Thursday evening, just in time for rush hour traffic. Sleeping our travel legs away, we had Friday to prepare for Saturday's World Cup. We took a leisurely morning and mounted our Leopards at noon to recon the course. Luckily we were able to ride it once at a mellow pace, because it's actually a beautiful view from the top of the climb.Friday was Katheryn's birthday, so after a delicious Thai dinner we sang Happy Birfday with a chocolate cheesecake.My dad came up for the World Cup - a 2 1/2 hour drive from Jericho, VT. I was stoked for him to come watch and ride for a bit in the follow car. Plus, I always seem to race well when he's watching and it was no exception this time! The race started at noon, shortly after the rain had cleared, the roads dried, and the sun was full-board.

In the Montreal World Cup we do 11 laps of 10km each and each lap we climb to the top of Mount Royal which is a 1.6km hard climb. Emma Pooley attacked from 400m and held it! This is very unusual, especially in World Cups and so not everyone reacted very quickly. Luckily for Webcor, Katheryn reacted and got away about half way up the first climb with Andrea Dvorak (Colavita)and Eva Lutz(Nurnberger). Columbia was missing from the front as well as Tibco, Lotto, Selle Italia and everyone else of course. Emma Pooley continued to gain time and Katheryn’s group of three also did for about 5 laps. Back in the field Columbia had a couple attacks and kept the group rolling but no one ever drove it until just before half way through. At that point, Eva had gotten dropped from Katheryn’s group so Trixi and Amber Neben attacked and split the field. Katheryn’s group was caught another lap after their attack and from then on Nurnberger and Columbia were chasing hard. There were only a few attacks after that since the pace was high. We brought Emma’s lead down from 4mins to 1:15mins by the end but she was never caught and rode the whole race solo.