Thursday, May 7, 2009

gila stage 2

the second stage was a 78 mile road race, it was one big loop, starting and ending in fort bayard just about 6mi outside of town.  the course started climbing pretty immediately...well actually it  was mostly just rolling till the first bonus sprint at mile 6 then it stair stepped for a while up to the town of pinos altos, then descended a few minutes, until the hard climb up to meadow creek and the feedzone.  At the top of that climb it rolled along for a few miles until a vicious descent down to sapillo creek.  
once we passed the first sprint, i started going pretty ahrd attacking a lot trying to get a break off, i was hoping to get in an early break and make up some time from the day before.  Over the top of that first climb to pinos altos it split a bit but came back on the descent mostly.  on the next big climb it was pretty hard, immediately robin eckmann ( junior on slipstream) attacked and i was just sitting there weak.   As it got steeper the guy 2nd on gc, the guy with the jersey, and myself got some separation from the group, but eventually it just caused a split, and probably the front 20 guys got up to us.  Through the feed zone the guy 2nd attacked, and everyone just let him go.  It was pretty tame the rerst of the climb and the rollers.  There was a long straight section into the big descent and i got swarmed, a lot of guys couldnt ride the corners well, and soon the front 10 guys split off, i had to take a lot of risks going around guys to get back to the front, but alot of the guys that got gapped on the descent never made it back, so i guess it was the right call.  at the base of the descent i followed wheels and was soon in a move within 30s of eckmann and the other guy.  but soon guys started to shut down, and i backed off then as well.  We kinda regrouped and there were 20 so guys.  at this point we were climbing up to the continental divide and my legs were feeeling not so  hot.  When several more guys rolled off, i just was sitting towards the back, and didnt go with it.  These guys got a decent gap and stayed till the line.  On the final climb topping out about 10mi to the line, we shed more guys and came to the line with probably like 15 in our group.  I finished 21 on the stage, and moved to 16th on GC, but tied for same time with 15th on GC, so no real change there.  Eckmann won the stage

3 comments:

steven said...

but did eckman look as fresh as you?

Chris Abbey said...

haha is that even possible?

TerribleTerry said...

I've been out there ridiing a lot in the winters, so I can actually picture the corners and stuff in my mind when you describe the race.

Did your category go down to the cliff dwelling snd back up the monster on the final stage? Or did you guys head east up that climb instead?