Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Redlands vs. Stefan 1:0

Ah, California was fun but after being back in ATX I could tell I need a well-deserved break. Coming off a good ride at Fayetteville I was flying out to Redlands along with teammate Alex in hope of having "some legs" there. Well, I think I forgot them at home :-)

Thursday's uphill/flat prologue wasn't really my thing anyways but I had nothing in the tank. Even though the competition was pretty stiff this year here I expected a bit more.

Friday's road race was already a bit better, as we did 4x25mile loops on a flat/rolling course with some Texas-style winds. It was pretty epic. Rolling enclosure, echelons all over the place, riding on the shoulder, dodging parked cars on those shoulders, going 50+mph in the tailwind. The field shrunk from lap to lap with guys getting shelled in the x-winds. I was sitting fine in the field with 10miles to go but had to say good-bye the last time up the hill on the back side. I crossed the line together with 5 guys from Fly-V who rode at the front all day long. Weird.

We did a nice recovery ride Saturday morning with our host Mark around Yucaipa before getting ready for the crit. Due to some bike issues I was onboard a bright yellow MAVIC spare bike. That didn't get anywhere though, as I missed all the crashes but had only legs for 60minutes of the crit. Ouch!

Sunday's road race didn't look good on paper and from what I was told it was even worse in reality. The Sunset Loop course reminded me a bit on Tour de Delta at BC Superweek in Canada where you race through residential neighborhood all the time and the road goes up and down. Well, i called it a day/race after a handful laps and rode back down to watch some of my teammates compete in the local P/1/2 crit - that was far more exciting! Alex had a good day finishing in 40th place among a stellar group of guys.

Thanks to the NOW MS Society Team for getting us on board for this race and of course to Mark & Janet Smith who offered us some excellent host housing in Yucaipa.

Alex and Mark crusing through Yucaipa.

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