Arsenault has been involved with road racing for more than 30 years. In 1974, he was a Radio Canada commentator for the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal, which the great Eddy Merckx won. From 1988 to 1991, Arsenault organized the races in Montreal that were part of the UCI’s World Cup circuit. His television stations, Serdy Vidéo and Canal Évasion, have broadcasted the Tour de France. Out of these experiences, Arsenault was able gain a UCI licence last summer to hold North America’s first ProTour races.

The Quebec City race, on Friday, September 10, is a 12.6 kilometre circuit that will take riders by the Plains of Abraham and through the old city 15 times. The Montreal race, two days later, is a 12.9 kilometre circuit that takes riders around Mont Royal 16 times. According to Arsenault, they are tough, aggressive courses. He figures only 40 per cent of the riders, out of roughly 170, will finish the race.

“A rider won’t win in Montreal and Quebec City by chance. He and his team will have to have a perfect day and execute their game of chess without mistakes,” Arsenault says alluding to the myriad tactics involved in winning a road race.

For Arsenault, these two races mark the future of professional cycling. From the early 1900s to the 1970s, cycling was a continental European sport dominated by riders from France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain. The riders from the U.K., North America and Australia have only been a fixture over the last 30 years, over which time the field has become even more international. There is pressure to make the ProTour races reflect this growing internationalism and to take the sport beyond Europe. While there are continental UCI races around the world, only Europe and Australia have had ProTour races.

“Both Russia and China want races,” Arsenault says, “In the next year—maximum two years—the U.S. will have race.”

Arsenault wants to be ahead of this wave of expansion and be a part of the new face of cycling. For the two Canadian Grand Prix races, he’s pulling out all of the stops. You know those motorcyclists who follow the cyclists in the Tour de France? The ones with a cameraman on the back. Arsenault has hired those guys because they are the best. It’s a good thing too. These races will be broadcast during the afternoon, Eastern Standard Time, but during prime time in Europe. Arsenault is also trying to create a festival atmosphere around the races. One proposed event is a festival express train that will take riders, journalists and fans from Quebec City to Montreal on the Saturday between the races. The train ride has been billed as an event in and of itself.

There may be one damper on the festivities already though. The races in Quebec will happen in the midst of the Vuelta a España, which is the last of the three Grand Tours, after the Giro d’Italia in May and the Tour de France in July. This arrangement doesn’t seem to worry Arsenault too much. The ProTeams have to send eight racers each to the Canadian races so there will be no problem stocking the event. But how attractive will these races be for riders? Will the big name cyclists want to ride in these new races, or participate in the Vuelta with its history and prestige? In terms of the points a rider can earn from these races, which determine his UCI World Ranking, Arsenault sees the Canadian races as a better deal.

“A winner at both Quebec and Montreal will get 160 points,” he said. “That’s in just two days. A win at the Vuelta, which is 21 days of racing, will bring 170 points.”

Arsenault added that the Vuelta is in decline. This year may be its 75th anniversary, but it also seems to be its last as a 21-day race. In 2011, it will run 14 days. The ProTour calendar is already pretty busy, and will get busier. There just doesn’t seem to be room of 21-day epics. However, the Vuelta still carries weight amongst riders. Dominique Rollin, a member of Cervélo Test Team, has some ambivalence over the Canadian races and the Spanish Grand Tour. He’s the only Canadian on the Canadian-backed team, which is, however, based in Switzerland. He knows it would be good from a marketing perspective to be in Quebec City and Montreal, but his sights are set on the Grand Tours and he would prefer to attend the Vuelta.

I can’t blame Rollin for wanting to go to Spain at the end of August for three weeks. But, I’m keen on watching the Canadian races in their respective cities, even if that press pass doesn’t work out. There are many reasons to go. One of those reasons, which Arsenault pointed out near the end of our conversation, is that cycling is the only professional sport that you can attend for free.

At Dundas and Yonge a trumpeter was playing Taps. Yvonne Bambrick, executive director of the Toronto Cyclists Union, thanked pedestrians and motorists blocked by the ride for their patience and understanding. Going north on University, a woman shouted, “Our friend was murdered by the former attorney general of Ontario,” repeatedly. Tommy Toast and a friend opened a can of Grolsch, each took a swig and poured out beer for Sheppard. Later, a cyclist would make a similar offering at the Canada Post grey box on Bloor on which messages for Sheppard are attached. The cyclist would squat down beside the piece of street furniture that Sheppard collided with and break apart a cigarette.

When the ride got to Avenue and Bloor, at about 5:45pm, riders gathered around the site of Monday’s accident. Many raised their bikes up in salute. Friends of Sheppard put their bikes on the road and sat down. Stephanie Thompson, a friend who had seen Sheppard a few days before the accident held up a sign that read “Justice for Al.”

A man walking by the gathering said to his companion, “When you hang onto a car, that’s what you get.”

One cycle cop on the scene said to his co-worker, “You still with that beautiful broad?”

The reply: “Yup.”

A woman walking by said, “…and this ruined his political career.”

Around 6:15pm, the police, who had managed traffic around the protest, started corralling the remaining riders, either to bust up the event or open up an eastbound lane on Bloor. Some of the riders shouted at the police. Then they chanted, “Who’s streets? Our streets!” for a bit. But the crowd dwindled. By this time, I was on the north side of the street talking to some interested passersby.  We agreed that the best things that could come of this tragedy are more awareness and action for safe cycling in the city.

Click for pictures.

So, as an exercise in ego resuscitation, here are a few things I can do faster than Lance Armstrong:

• walk through a crowd at a cycling event (because I don’t have the burden of being recognized and having to sign autographs)
• name all the provinces and territories of Canada
• use the Toronto subway system to get from Bay station to St. Claire West station (Lance would probably make the newbie mistake of transferring at Spadina instead of St. George)
• parse a sentence
• buy a two-four of Lucky Lager from the Dupont Street Beer Store (Lance would probably ask the guy to send it up from the back. Sucker. I know the Lucky is always on the left slide of the open rack—Crap! Now Lance knows where it is too.)
• copy edit
• really dig an album by Vibracathedral Orchestra
• vacuum my house (I already live there and have a key; right now, Lance would have to fly in from France and have someone let him in…and then find the vacuum)
• get annoyed by one of Margaret Wente’s articles
• buy the latest New Yorker from Book City on Bloor Street (Lance doesn’t know that the issue is usually…Nice try Lance. I’m not falling for that one again.)

We all know that much of Lance’s success comes from the support of his team during the race. I must acknowledge the help of Team Amadeus Patio for helping me to recognize some of the skills presented above.

Really though, now that I think of it, I could beat Lance Armstrong in a race from my home to my office, assuming he follows traffic laws like I do. Lance would probably take the designated bike routes through the city, which are never direct. Think about it. He always follows the prescribed routes. Those Tour de France organizers say, “You’re going to bike from here to here following these roads.” (Well, they say that, but in French, I guess.) And then he just rides where he’s told. Not me, man. I take whatever route is fastest.

I was jumping between three live blogs of Obama’s visit today, including The Agenda’s. (Holy. Lots of love for Cover It Live.) It seemed Mr. Paikin’s Web event was relying mostly on the #obamawa hash-tag feed. Disappointing I thought. I was so impressed with their AgendaCamp broadcast from Thunder Bay. They combined television and Web much better than CBC ever had. So I called The Agenda on rehashing a hash.

They replied, letting me know that they did have someone in Ottawa covering the event. Fair enough. But then I felt a twinge (twinger of guilt?) for having written the dis-tweet into the #obamawa feed, and thus into The Agenda’s live blog.

I do assuage the guilt a bit with the idea that there is no bad publicity. I did present all 23 of my followers with a link to The Agenda page.

Really Mr. Paikin, there’s no need to thank me.

But then we come to the words of Elmira, Ont.’s favourite son and US college football fan: “…and the last [of five quarterbacks drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1999] was so awful that after failing out of the N.F.L. he ended up failing out of the Canadian Football League as well.” Whoa, three-down-football burn! Now, I’m pretty sure that Gladwell has watched more football than me, but I know the Bills/Dolphins game I saw from a Rogers Centre box was way more boring than any of the Ottawa Rough Riders games I used to see from the cheap seats at Lansdowne Park. The level of play was about the same in all cases.

Take that, bro.

The Stelmach government—which was selling itself in Washington as environmentally responsible when the incident occurred—is facing accusations of a coverup for refusing to release photos of the ducks.
The provincial government is also being skewered for summarizing its U.S. junket as “Mission Accomplished.”

I can’t imagine why Stelmach and friends are catching flak for hyping their tour as “Mission Accomplished.” The dead ducks in the oilsands wastewater show that the premier and his crew appreciate the phrase in a way similar to George W. Bush, as the president spoke on an aircraft carrier in 2003.

On Tuesday, the FDA passed a drug called Lybrel, which stops a woman from menstruating. The Washington Post reported that it is designed “for women who find their periods too painful, unpleasant or inconvenient and want to be free of them.” While the FDA said the risks of this pill are the same as any contraceptive, an endocrinology researcher at UBC said the menstrual cycle is not understood well enough and the consequences of suppressing it are unknown. Others feel this pill reinforces negative attitudes and taboos surrounding menstruation.

Also on Tuesday, a team of Canadian and American researchers revealed that spiking a Northwestern Ontario lake with synthetic estrogen really messed up the minnows. The male fish started developing eggs instead of sperm. The level of estrogen was the same as that found in water discharged from sewage treatment plants in Canada and other countries.

While I don’t know how the dosage of estrogen in the menstruation-suppressing pill compares with current contraceptives, aquatic life near sewage treatment plants should probably start lobbying for better filtration.

I mulled around by the stage for a bit wondering how I could find out who won, when I recognized Glen-airy Glen Rock, the winner of the Toronto Open Air Guitar competition.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“Good. I won,” said Mr. Glen Rock.

For this event, he aired to The Cult’s Love Removal Machine. The win means he’ll be representing Toronto at the national competition, which I believe will be held right here in Toronto. If he wins that, it’s off to Finland.