Three days after wrapping up a successful Grand Prix Cycliste Saguenay, Aevolo Cycling lined up for the UCI2.2 Tour de Beauce. The six-rider squad was dominant throughout the five-day race, leading the team classification by a wide margin and having the overall win within reach until the final stage.

​

Headlined by Jack Burke, who won the white jersey at Saguenay, Aevolo's Tour de Beauce squad harbored big aspirations heading its second Canadian stage race.

​

“The aim was for a high overall place in both Canadian races, using Saguenay as a warm-up for Beauce,” Burke said. “The young rider’s jersey was just a consolation prize, but it’s great because it shows how young our team is, even though our objectives have always been to compete for the overall, not just against the other U23’s in the race.”

​

Aevolo had a chance to showcase its ambitions from the start.

​

"The first stage of Beauce went almost perfectly for us," Tyler Stites explained. "We managed to get five guys out of twenty-five in the break."

​

Stites enjoyed the company of Burke, Michael Hernandez, Gage Hecht and Laurent Gervais in the breakaway. The scenario looked very similar to the start of GP Saguenay one week ago - when Stites didn't make the cut.

​

“The same thing happened on the first stage of Saguenay,” Stites said. “The break got seventeen minutes that day. I think the frustration from the previous week gave me the impetus to make sure I found the break at Beauce.”

​

Stites finished eighth in the stage, Burke following in seventeenth place. Both slotted into the top six of the young rider classification.

​

After the second stage, Burke jumped up to the top three overall and to second place in the young rider classification, where he would stay until the start of the final stage. Both the GC win and the young rider jersey were still up for grabs if Aevolo could play its cards correctly.