communiqué

by Maghalie Rochette

New season
On this day last year, we had already done 5 cyclocross races, including 2 world cups. The season was well underway, and there wasn't much else occupying my mind other than cyclocross. When racing is going well and you feel good on the bike, motivation is through the roof, and training hard feels like a breeze. Those are the memories I have from last September.... I was on cloud nine.

This year, well...this year is a little bit different. It's not all bad, though. In fact, although initially it was a little bit more challenging to find the motivation to dig extra deep in training, once we got in a rhythm of training hard regularly, I eventually found my groove and did some really good quality training. I've even been fortunate enough to do one local cyclocross race. I had not realized how much I missed racing until we went to that race. In fact, this summer, I even got worried at some point because I didn't think I was missing racing that much... I'm someone who enjoys training, and I was having fun riding and being home. Sure, I missed having a "project" or a "target" to work towards, but I was pretty content. However, when David announced we were going to that regional cyclocross race, everything changed. I started being excited, the butterflies came back in my belly... The CX FEVER was back!!! And after the event, the Fever was even more back. I had so much fun pushing myself on a real cyclocross race with real competitors. In a sense, it was a bit of a relief to realize that I had, in fact, missed racing... a lot.

The point of this little update was not actually to reminisce on the past. I actually wanted to keep you posted on the upcoming season. WE ARE GOING RACING. YAY! At least, that's what we hope. We booked tickets to Europe for October 1st. We plan on starting the season in Austria with the Mountain Bike (E-MTB) World Championships and then stay in Europe to start our cyclocross season. Both David and I are excited about that. It was nice to book this plan and actually have a direction to follow in training. We're ready to bring our best selves to compete in Europe, and ready to tackle all the logistical obstacles that the COVID will put in our way, because we know there will be a lot of those...

New partners
David and I are excited to announce that our team will still be called Specialized/Feedback Sports this year. I'll be racing on the CRUX S-Works with the Roval CLX 50 wheels, and Feedback Sports is coming back as our presenting partner and is supporting us to insure that our bikes stay in good conditions all season.

This year, we are also proud to welcome Rapha, as a new partner. I've been a huge fan of the company for a long time, and being able to work with them feels like a dream. People at the company are great, and we feel pretty excited to be wearing their clothes, especially in a discipline like cyclocross where we ride in such harsh conditions and where good clothes can make such a big difference.

Xpedo, the cyclocross specific pedals I was using last year are also stepping up as a bigger partner this year, as well as local brewery Boréale who have been supporting many of our local endeavours this summer. SRAM is coming back and were excited to be using their Red E-Tap AXS groups as well as Quarq power meters on all cyclocross bikes. EVOC is back on board to make sure we have all the gear we need to travel comfortably. Lizard Skins is supporting us again with bar tape and grips. We will be running new (and beautiful) Challenge tubular tires, and we will use Muc-Off products to keep our bikes clean. On the local side, we feel lucky to be supported again by ZIBO! restaurants, Partenaire Conseils, Samson Groupe Conseil, and training studio Powerwatts Nord.

For David and I, this group of partners is literally our dream team. We feel like we are really running the best possible products. But on top of that, we feel like we are associated with amazing people who we admire. We'd like to say a big thank you to all of our partners for their support, especially in this year's pandemic conditions.

And of course, David as a Chef d'orchestre of our team

NEW PROJECT
Finally - it wouldn't be a new season if we didn't have a new project to share with you! This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but I've always been hesitant. 5 years ago, I had all the equipment, but wasn't confident enough. Then, in the past few years, I felt like everyone was doing it, so I didn't want to follow the trend. But this year, my internal curiosity overpowered all of these feelings... I have finally decided to do it. I AM STARTING A PODCAST.

I've always been a very curious person. I love to ask questions to people. Plus, I'm lucky to know a lot of passionate people who fascinate me. People who have turned their passion into a career, people who are constantly working on improving their crafts... People who have the FEVER. So I decided to sit down with these people and ask all of the questions so I could learn from them.

This podcast is called FEVER TALK. There will be an english and a french version of it. I've sat down to chat with founders of some of the biggest cycling companies, olympic athletes, master brewers, artists, etc. to hear their stories. I've had so much fun hearing the stories of these amazing people and I cannot wait to share them with you.

For now, you can find the trailer, and subscribe to the podcasthere

Stay tuned for the first episode coming in the next few days.

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