Looking back: Pain faces of the 2023 GP Montreal
As the 2024 World Tour is well underway with the Ardennes looming, we look back at an edition of another hilly World Tour one-day classic, the GP Montreal, that took place back in September 2023.
The summary is this — if you are based in the Northeast, you need to make the trip in September to watch this race and hang out in Montreal.
North American Professional Road Racing
Since the folding of the Tour of California, Tour of Utah, and the USA Pro Challenge, it’s almost impossible for most Americans to see their heroes live on the professional stage. The Maryland Cycling Classic is the last remaining professional bike race that folks from the United States can most easily see in person, but the course itself isn’t spectator friendly. With a start in suburban Maryland and a long finishing drag into Baltimore, there are few opportunities to see the riders on the course, let alone get a chance to check out the team equipment at the start.
Enter the Grand Prix du Cycliste Montreal, also known as the GP Montreal. For New Yorkers, Montreal is an eight hour drive straight north. This drive clocks a similar length of time to drive to Burlington, Vermont or Portland, Maine. Taking into account GP Montreal is on the “World Tour” calendar and classified as a true ”WT” one-day race, New Yorkers are within one driving unit of a top tier professional racing experience. For those unfamiliar with professional cycling, the World Tour is the highest level of racing in the sport. There are many races across the world each year, but only the most prestigious races are on the World Tour calendar.
The city
The largest city in Quebec, Montreal now boasts a distinct French influence that dates back to a political movement too complex to cover in a write-up of a bike race. Glossing over militant separatism and domestic terrorism in the 1960s, the French culture observed in Montreal today was preserved in the 1970s by a series of conservative reforms made by a majority French-speaking polit. For example, all signage in the city must be written in French and all service workers must speak French.
Montreal has been known in the past as fairly snobby, many people who were not French-Canadian or Quebecoi left in the 1980s and 1990s after the reforms were enacted. The children of the folks who stayed are now Millenials in their 20s and 30s – as a result, today most young people in Montreal speak French but are also fluent in English. Though all service workers must speak French, these days most are just as happy to converse in English.
The French dialect coupled with tight urban planning of small blocks, protected bike lanes, and dense neighborhoods gives Montreal an incredibly European vibe. McGill University is also nestled at the foot of Mont Royal and students are a common sight in the central neighborhoods of the city.
With a younger generation composing more of the population, Montreal is shaping into a progressive city filled with culture and vibrant urban life. My favorite record store in North America is nestled in one of the city’s most hip neighborhoods, restaurants serve consistently great and inventive food, and it is an absolute delight to walk about the city on a nice day.
The race
GP Montreal is an attritional one-day classic in many ways similar to Liege-Bastogne-Liege. It’s the second race in a Canadian weekend, the GP Quebec in Quebec City is usually raced on a Friday, GP Montreal the subsequent Sunday. Quality climbers and strong rouleurs usually do well over the weekend – a glance down the winners list of GP Montreal over the past few years shows this race attracts the best in the sport. Tour de France winner and peoples’ champion Tadej Pogacar won in 2022 after a two year COVID-related hiatus, Olympic gold-winner Greg van Avermaet won for the second time in 2019, and the stylish Australian Michael Matthews took the win in 2018.
Run in September, the Quebec weekend of GP Quebec and GP Montreal falls late in the World Tour calendar. Usually, the weekend plays out as a tune-up for the World Championships but with the unique 2023 World Championship taking place earlier in August, GP Montreal was a showcase for the top riders who still had some form left.
The parcours itself is perfect for spectators, as well. Every team has a tent along the start/finish straightaway, which is a kilometer out and back along Avenue Parc at the foot of Mont Royal. A 180 degree turn gives the fans plenty of time to see the riders as they race the final 500 meters up a false flat drag to the finish. The team tents are home to the soigneurs and feed zone and made for a very convenient village to catch the riders and equipment in the morning before the race.
The mountain
Mont Royal is a 750 foot mountain surrounded by a 700-acre Olmstead-designed park. Mont Royal Park is the main feature of Montreal, its shady sloping gravel trail is packed with runners, walkers, and cyclists in summer and Nordic skiers in winter. I can’t emphasize how great this park is, no trip to Montreal is complete without a 5km jog up to the chalet.
A single main road exists for cars, mostly separated from the rest of the park besides criss-crossing singletrack for intrepid trail runners. On this main road, Camillien-Houde, the World Tour riders duke it out 18 times over the course of the race.
Obviously, Camillien-Houde was the best spot to see the racers, as they climbed Mont Royal’s grades. It was on this road the race’s symphony built to a crescendo. UAE Team Emirates gradually wound things up at the front, with the race’s climactic last lap forcing true pain faces out of the best in the world.
It was on this mountain road we bore witness to Adam Yates’ attack off American teammate Brandon McNulty’s infernal pace. We watched top WT hitters like Irish champ Ben Healy, French champ Valentin Maduas, Matty Mohoric, Matteo Jorgenson, eventual runner up Pavel Sivakov, Julian Alaphalippe, Giro winner Jai Hindley, and others turn themselves inside out to stay in contact with the front of the race. It was absolute magic in Montreal.
The best pain faces go to this Arkea rider and Julian Alaphalippe on the last lap of the race.
Flip through the full gallery below to get a sense of how the race played out.
A long solo break by Florian Vermeersch was eventually reeled in by UAE and IPT. As UAE began drilling it on the front, the race was whittled down to the favorites in the last 90 minutes. Eventually, Adam Yates attacked with only Pavel Sivakov being able to follow.
Full Gallery
Espresso addict, soigneur, endurance enthusiast. Racing bikes for TBD and wrenching/fits at ACME Bicycles.
