Pro bike racer Adam de Vos of Oak Bay will wear the maple leaf jersey on the domestic and world tour next year as Canada’s 2019 national road race champion.
Local rider de Vos, who first switched to competitive cycling from swimming as an Oak Bay High student riding with Tripleshot Cycling club, is now 25 years old. It’s de Vos’ first national elite road race win and it was in perfect weather conditions at the 2019 Canadian Road Championships on Saturday. The 186.2-kilometre course ran from Saint-Georges to Saint-Odilon in Quebec, where they completed eight loops of a steep 15km circuit. De Vos’ time was four hours, 31 minutes and two seconds.
Adam de Vos is your Canadian champion!!!!!! 🏆🍾 pic.twitter.com/hEuwVI5i9t
— Cycling Canada (@CyclingCanada) June 30, 2019
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De Vos, of pro team Rally UHC Cycling, formed a chase group with four others including Rally UHC teammate Nigel Ellsay, 25, from Courtenay and Victoria’s Jay Lamoureux, 23, currently of Toronto Velodrome Club. The chase group also featured Alexis Cartier of Velo 2000/Rhino Rack and promising 21-year-old Nickolas Zukowsky of Floyd’s Pro Cycling.
The group caught the early breakaway rider James Piccoli with 10km to go. Ellsay then attacked in the final few kilometres, when de Vos bridged ahead and out sprinted his pro teammate Ellsay for the victory. It was an impressive finish for Zukowsky, as the U23 rider managed a podium finish, third among the elites, and also won the U23 men’s title by a nine minute margin.
(Inset photo: De Vos points to his tattoo of a fox (Vos in Dutch) chasing a rabbit as he celebrates a one-day race victory at the 2018 Tour of Delta. Photo by Chris Relke)
“Nigel [Ellsay] got away with about 10 kilometres to go so I stayed with Zukowsky and Alexis [Cartier] for a while,” de Vos said on the Cycling Canada website. “At 3km to go, I attacked in the same spot that I attacked at Tour de Beauce and I made it up to Nigel in the last turn and just rode as hard as I could.”
Former Victoria and Saanich resident Rob Britton, another Rally UHC rider,won the 34km national individual time trial championship on Thursday (June 28) in 42 minutes and 54 seconds. It was 14 seconds ahead of Rally UHC teammate Svein Tuft, of Langley, a known Tour de France and world tour veteran. Britton averaged 39.2km per hour across the 34km course. Ellsay finished 11th and Lamoureux 19th.
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