Day One Jitters

Racing internationally is never an easy thing, especially with all the logistics of travel hiccups are bound to come up. Our team was definitely not immune to these, as we had one rider unable to get on his first flight due to a baggage issue and unfortunately upon arriving at 12am, they ended up losing both his bags (including bike). On the team side, we did not make it to the hotel in time to attend the directors meeting since we were amid transportation from the airport. So coming in to day one we had no race guide, no car, no transponders, no numbers and one rider sans any equipment.

This made the morning a little hectic; thankfully we had a 3pm start time to sort some of the mishaps out. After spending some time on the phone with American Airlines, Leo found out that his equipment was not going to be here until 2:30pm, making it logistically impossible for him to have anything prior to race start. After running around like mad, he was able to get a bike (one the start line) from the US National U-23 team and also had some borrowed shoes from a local store. Before the lunch we had numbers and everything was looking to not be so bad. Eventually after signing in and prior to our team presentation, the timing official provided our transponders. So 10 minutes to start and we are good to go!

Right from the gun things became aggressive and on lap two, I was able to be a part of a large split that looked very promising. Eventually as riders came across, it looked like every team was represented, sans the Kazak-Astana mega team. We had three riders in the split, so we were very well represented. Two laps later, we got brought back and a small move of three riders went away, with their team slowing the front of the group to insure their gap.

Coming into four laps to go the gap grew to 2:15 forcing Astana to the front. As the laps counted down, it seemed that they were cutting it very close as the gap was not coming down fast enough. Thankfully we caught the three riders starting the last lap and looked to be a bunch gallop. 4km to go teams were jockeying for the front and creating surge lines that made it hard to stay on the right wheels. As we hit the last corner, a bit of rough road shot my chain off, but I was able to get it on without losing too many spots.

With an uphill sprint it was very hard for any team to establish dominance and it looked to be laid on the shoulders of the Kazaks. At 1km to go, riders from La Vega had serged hard starting their lead out and it came to be too hard for the US team riders in front of me. After Navigating around and staying out of danger, I figured it was better to stay towards the front rather than risk it for a 14^th or 15^th place finish.

It was amazing that all our guys raced so well together, especially for the first race together. Thankfully everyone kept it upright, no one flatted and no major mishaps other than some lost bottles. Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow’s double stage day and hopefully we can put some results on the board!