Tour de Gap

Vanguard was well represented in the Men 3's. Chase, Ricky, Gary, Patrick and I were all in attendance.

Stage one is an all out battle right from the start due to a pretty serious climb. You have a lead group going as hard as they can trying to stay away and a chase group going as hard as they can trying to catch them. Ricky and Chase were back to their old selves and made the front group of 8. The rest of us chased our butt's off, but never caught them. Chase got 4th and Ricky 8th. I ended up 10th, Dastrup 11th. Fasse spared the field of his presence at the finish.

Stage 2: Our goal was to get Chase a time bonus and prevent his opponents from getting any. They rang the bell for the 15 second time bonus priem and I was in good position, so I decided to take it and keep it in house. In the end, a GC rider soloed off the front and we weren't able to bring him back. Chase was leading to the finish with 500 meters to go, then a rider, then me. I let off the throttle to create a gap, hoping Chase would get one of the 2 time bonuses left, but the field swarmed me and nipped him at the line. GC didn't change, the rider that won was already the leader.

Stage 3: An all out slug fest. Now that there was an established GC order, everybody was hungry for a break away. We were full gas as soon as the lead out car pulled out of the way. It stayed that way for about 45 minutes. I swear we went through the the Gap at 30mph! (counter clockwise this year). With 10 miles to go, the Arizona crit champion got off the front and held it all the way to the line. Pretty impressive since were chasing pretty hard the whole time. He got us by about a minute. No threat to GC. Going into the finish, the 6 leading riders missed the turn. This was a lucky break for me, I was back a little and made the turn to finish 4th overall. Chase and Ricky got same time. They were both in position for a great finish if that wouldn't have happened.

Stage 4: 10 mile TT. 20-30 mph wind from the S. My average speed going out was 32 and 19.5 coming back. It hurt. Final GC was Chase 4th, Ricky 6th, Me 8th, Gary 10th.

My legs are sore.

Perseids Meteor show

 

Wolf Creek Pass

I didn't know what to expect from this race. I sucked bad last year, but I was getting tired and I did the Snowbird HC the day before, which probably didn't help. I remember last year that it seemed like the road up went forever. This year, I went past the spot that I popped without a problem. I did get popped before the summit, but I kept going as strong as I could and was by myself going over the top. Patrick and one other went off the front 5 minutes in. It's awesome having a free ride provided by one of your teammates! Unfortunately, they were caught and passed before the summit. Chase made the front group, no surprise. Gary, I can't remember how you did on the way out? Ricky, Patrick and the rest of the chase group caught me on the descent. Ricky was taking it easy, he didn't want to make everybody look too bad on the first climb! So about 10 of us in a bit of a disorganized pace line started to chase. I couldn't believe it when we got close to the turn around and could see the front group just ahead of us. So we worked hard for 5 minutes and it was all back together. Re-shuffle. When the road started to threaten with an ascent again, I got near the front and decided I would stay there as long as I could to try to maker the front split. It was inevitable. If you wanted to win, you had to be there. Then it started to get hard. Chase was right in front of me, and Ricky was on my wheel, with 4 in front of us, and the rest of the field holding on, strung out single file.Then I got confirmation. Chase is human after all as I saw a small gap start to open in front of him. I was quite surprised. I think this is the first time I have seen him falter on a climb. I have to give him credit for providing me a draft as we started up. I came through and gave him some encouragement. Then Hoover cracked and slipped back. I was holding the wheel in front of me, but one acceleration probably would have snapped me. It never came. We held that pace for about 5 minutes before I began to falter. I looked behind me and there was nobody there. I couldn't believe it. I was in the lead group of 5, which was obviously the winning break now, and the chase was out of sight. I just couldn't hang anymore. The 4 started to slip away, so I got into my rhythm and went as good as I could. I never saw the chase group again. I got to the summit and committed to take it all the way to the line, hoping maybe I'd catch the 4 up the road. I never saw them, but I never got caught and ended up 5th. I think they were 2:30 ahead of me. The chase group came in about a minute behind me.

Piotr looks better

Jeff's buddy on Reynold's

The break. This was a sketchy turn. They went from a wide road turning left onto a narrow road with a nice curb. The lap before this shot had 4 riders pile it up. The 3 inch foam pads on those stout trees should help... It was basically 30mph average speed for 100k lined out single file the whole time. It took the peloton 1 minute to go by from beginning to end. Field was about 150 riders. Wise man says "make sure your ready to upgrade"

Rock Racing representing at Superweek

2 Escalades and a sedan with lots of chrome and custom graphics. 10 Scott Addicts with the finest components such as Dura-Ace deep profile carbon sew-ups (2nd to Reynold's and Campy, of course), and a full entourage of mechanics running around with radios and soigneurs. When these guys finish a race, they roll up to the tent while a mechanic grabs their bike and tends to it, and a soigneur sits them down in a chair under the tent they have set up and hands them a bottle of recovery drink. Ahh, to be a pro...

Here is what Rahsaan has to say:
http://bahatiracing.com/rbgroup/