Our squad will race on the North American continent for the second time this season.
After the Tour of California, where we took a stage win and placed two neo-pro riders in the top 15 overall, Quick-Step Floors are now traveling to Canada, for the two spectacular one-day races which have become part of the World Tour since their inception, in 2011.
First event of the weekend is the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec, which will see the riders cover 16 laps of a 12.6km circuit that includes four climbs: Côte de la Montagne (375 m, 10%), Côte de la Potasse (420 m, 9%), Montée de la Fabrique (190 m, 7%) and Montée du Fort (1000 m, 4%).
Then, on Sunday, the peloton will line out for the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, another race run on a circuit, this time 12.1km in length; Côte Camillien-Houde (1800 m, 8%), Côte de Polytechnique (780 m, 6%) and Avenue du Parc (560 m, 4%) are the three difficulties of the day, which should shake up the bunch and act as launch pad for attacks.
Quick-Step Floors – most successful team of the season, with 48 victories in the bag so far – will tackle the two Canadian World Tour races with a strong and experienced eight-man outfit made up of New Zealand ITT Champion Jack Bauer, Gianluca Brambilla, Rémi Cavagna, Dries Devenyns, Fabio Sabatini, Pieter Serry, Petr Vakoč and Julien Vermote.
"We have a solid and balanced squad for Canada and as always we are motivated to do well and have an impact on these races. Both Quebec and Montreal are beautiful races, with a challenging parcours, spiced up by the climbs which don't give you too much time to catch your breath. We're aware it's not going to be easy, but we'll try to be up there", said Davide Bramati, the team's sport director.
Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele
