The Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec usually comes down to a sprint of strongmen, but the race panned out differently last year. Benoît Cosnefroy attacked inside the final 2 kilometres and stayed ahead of the charging peloton. The last rider to pull this off was Rigoberto Uran in 2015.
The race consists of sixteen laps of 12.6 kilometres long. Each round begins with a section through the Parc des Champs-de-Bataille, a park that’s perched up a cliff overlooking the Saint Lawrence River. After 4 kilometres the route drops down to the river bank and continues on the Boulevard de Champlain, which is the flattest section of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec.
The last 3.5 kilometres of each round are the most interesting. The riders tackle the Côte de la Montagne, a 375 metres ramp with an average gradient of 10%, before continuing onto the city walls of the narrow Rue de Remparts. Then the next climb appears. Côte de la Potasse is 420 metres long and slopes at 9% before a short descend leads onto the Montée de la Fabrique.
The Montée de la Fabrique, which is 190 metres long and climbs at 7%, tops out with 1.2 kilometres to the finish line remaining. This is a testing uphill drag at approximately 4%.
The Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec starts at 11:00 and the race is expected to finish around 16:15 – both are local times (EST).
Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec 2023: route, profile, more
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