Paris to Ancaster has been a staple of early-season racing in Ontario for close to 30 years now, it’s attracted pros from all over Ontario, Canada and even the US, making a win or even a podium a fairly prestigious event.  This year, their “Cento” event attracted what was arguably the most staked field in all of P2A history.  For example, after the first “split” or “selection” of the race 50km in, the front pack consists of 4- 10 riders at the most. Where this year after that same split there were easily 40 riders still in the front group. All of which led to some very nervous, yet exciting bike racing.  The morning of the event went like most gravel events, 5:30 am wake up, Oatmeal, some hotel coffee, a “business meeting”, get my bottles and ride food ready, another “business meeting”, change and roll out of the hotel.  Adam Hill, Mark Lancia and myself decided to ride from the hotel to the start as a bit of a warm-up, which was a nice change.  This meant we could leave the hotel a bit later, not deal with the chaos of finding a parking spot on-site, and not use the on-site porta potties.  The latter was arguably the biggest bonus of riding to the course! The start.  The first 35km of the race was interesting to say the least.  There weren't any elements on course to split up the field in that first hour which lead to almost the entire field riding together.  This created a pretty nervous and unsettled group, as no one wanted to be too far back in case someone decided to attack, a selection event happened or heaven forbid get stuck behind a crash in the peloton. At around 20 minutes into the race, I started feeling some severe discomfort behind my knee. This is something I felt during Barry Roubaix the previous weekend, and was something I had anticipated having to deal with.  However it was much earlier into the race then I had hoped…  All in all far from ideal and was definitely a contributor to the rest of my day.