GMSR Prologue & Stage 1

As final preparation for the T-Mobile International in San Francisco on the 12th the Jet Fuel team headed down to Vermont to compete in the Green Mountain Stage Race. A hilly few days of racing was just the prep we needed and the racing started off with a bang. The GMSR is run on a points system and so is a little different from most stage races. On a points system it pretty much means that you need to finish up towards the front on every stage to stay in contention.

Prologue

The first day was a 13km mass start hill-climb prologue, ending on a steep 2km pitch on which I rode a 26 cog. With such a steep finish the goal was to try and not tax yourself too much and be out of steam come the steep section, but as it was mass start you had to try and stay in contact with the leaders. Rolling into the climb the fight for wheels was fierce; with the yellow line rule in effect I was throwing some elbows to stay up front.
On hitting the climb I was riding well up and felt that the tempo was well within my limit. It wasn’t until the last kilometre that I really started to suffer. After all the talk of making sure not to over do it before the last steep bit I ended up overcooking myself a bit; as we hit one kilometre to go Dominique Perras attacked and I tried to follow. Until that point I had been comfortable pushing my upper limit. Holding the best tempo that I could guys slowly started to trickle by me.
In the last 500m the climb levels out and it was funny because I thought that I would put on a burst of speed there, throw the bike into the big ring you know. Well I got it into the 53x17 but was soon pushing the lever to get up on the 23 again and just at the limit.
While it would have been nice to finish a little higher I was really happy with how much I had pushed myself; for much of the last 2km or so I was pushing 185 beats on the heart rate monitor, which for me is super high.

1 Dominique Perras (Ofoto-Lombardi Sports) 29.45.7
2 Mark McCormack (Colavita Olive Oil Pro Cycling Team) 0.02.7
3 Todd Herriott (Colavita Olive Oil Pro Cycling Team) 0.11.9
8 Andrew Randell (Jet Fuel Coffee) 0.24.8
14 Stig Somme (Jet Fuel Coffee) 0.36.7

Stage 1

A 116km, 4 lap, circuit race with a decent climb and a couple of small rollers was the setting for Saturday’s stage. This was one of the stages that Buck and I had discussed as a day for him to target and he definitely rode to impress.
Racing started out fast and aggressive from the gun and for much of the first lap the peloton was strung out. Towards the end of the lap I countered a move that had been hard for the field to bring back. My legs were feeling the burn as I wasn’t fully warmed up yet and it only got worse as we were brought back coming into the base of the climb. That was a mistake I wouldn’t be making again.
It wasn’t until the third lap that things really got interesting. The team had missed a good sized break that moved away on the run in to the climb and we were all up towards the front looking to get across. Up the climb the tempo was high but coming to the top the peloton slowed once again. In the interests of keeping the pack animated I did a light attack up the side, which provoked the response I wanted as Colavita chased me back. Catching me the pack slowed once again, ballooning as riders put on their breaks, and from the middle burst Buck. Carrying all his speed Buck hit the decent and chased across to the break in once smooth move, a perfect display of teamwork.
The break stayed just ahead and was soon being brought to heal once again, just as we were coming up a long uphill drag. In my mind I was urging Buck to counter and what do I see up ahead? Buck putting his head down and forging up the road with a few guys. It wasn’t to be though and everyone was together for the last climb. Dominique and Charles Dionne put in some heavy attacks towards the top of the main climb, but with a long decent afterwards they weren’t going anywhere.
My plan coming into the last lap was to try and attack on the long drag where we had caught Buck’s break, from there it was 5km or so to the finish. It looked like my plan was to be ruined though when the commissaries came up and neutralized the race. They had decided to slow us down as we were in danger of lapping the women’s field. The race only came back on a kilometre or two before the climb I wanted to attack on and I didn’t think that there would be enough tired legs in order to get away. Luckily for me a hole opened as the pack slowed on hitting the climb and as Buck had done I launched myself full-speed off the front. Jamming up the drag I pulled away from the pack, Joe Papp glued to my wheel. He wouldn’t pull through as he had a rider just up ahead of us so I put my head down and drove the pace. In the end Papp helped me get across to his team mate and four of us formed up into a break to try and ride to the finish.
With the pack just 30seconds or so back there wasn’t much room for finessing and we all rode hard to get to the line. In the last kilometre I was starting to think that we might get caught and decided to attack the break with 500m to go. Drifting off the back a little I wound up my bike and shot past the guys as hard as I could go. I never looked to see if anyone got my wheel but just concentrated on driving to the line. Papp came past me with 20 meters to go and there was nothing I could do. Matt told me that from the peloton he could see that it was a long drag race to the line as Papp tried to get onto my wheel after my attack. Second on the day was pretty good and to my surprise I ended up getting the race leader’s jersey as well.

1 Joseph Papp (America's Cycling Team - UPMC) 2.48.25
2 Andrew Randell (Jet Fuel Coffee)
3 Eneas Freyre (Americas Cycling Team) 0.03
7 Kevin Miller (Jet Fuel Coffee) 0.06