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…
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