#TBT - Bateman's Bike Co shreds Paris To Ancaster

The Bateman's Bike Co Team has been a major presence in Toronto area CX, MTB and Road scene since Rob Bateman started the store and with one of the biggest teams they've ever rocked, they went out in force to this year's 2016 Paris to Ancaster, or P2A race at the end of April.

One of the paramount spring classics in Ontario, it was rad to see the crew repping Brodie's - Mike Spagnola's custom Ti Romax and James Keezer riding his green machine, 105 11spd hydro equipped, and Rob on his special edition Pink Bromax.

James lends us some words on how the race went down before his untimely flat:

The Elite wave start was extremely fast and I made it to the rail trail in maybe the top 30. It was very difficult to move up as the paceline rotation was only in the top 10 people or so.

In my position, I had to dismount and run the "first" right turn up the hill. After that there was one large lead group of about 20, a chase of about 20, and a small second chase group that I was in.

Within the first 25km, Merrick fell back to our small chase of about 6 riders. A few of us were strong, a couple rarely pulled through. It was hard to organize a rotation, but we still had the group in front of us in sight.

A lot of the "middle" of the race is a blur to me, but somewhere along the way we were picked up by a big group containing Scott Elliott and Chris McQuinn from Midweek.

The trail section with the felled trees split us up again. When it comes to bottle necks like this, don't hesitate or be nice, just take the first chance you get to jump over the obstacle. I made it though with Merrick, Larbi from Octto and one other guy. The other guys were left behind and had to chase hard to get back to us.

In the last few hills before the mud chute, we pushed hard and everything got split up. I let McQuinn go ahead of me in the mud chute because he's better at it than I am, and I didn't want to hold him back.

I was lucky I didn't even have to put a foot down. However, I had run over a nail somewhere and got a front flat before the last trail section. I should have just fixed it, because running/walking 4km is a lot longer than it sounds.

Overall, it was a great day! Congrats to all of you and I hope to hear your story soon.

Thanks for the writeup and keep an eye on the Bateman's Facebook and Midweek Cycling to see what the season holds!