Valley of the Sun Stages 1 - 2 - 3

Mark and I ,along with Ryan Roth (Gears), drove up to Phoenix for the VOS. The opening stage was a 19k TT in the rain. The course was a false flat out and back. Mark only had clip-on bars, and 32 spoke wheels. My set up was my Cervelo Soloist, a fast bike indeed, but with no clip-on bars and just training wheels, I wasn't looking to break any records. Mark and I rode in with pretty high times, while Ryan managed to crack the top 15. The winner Brian Sheedy of the Endeavour team rode an impressive time to take the GC lead into the road race the next day.

So, with Mark and I a little back on GC we had some work to do in the road race. The rain continued from the start, with only a 10 minute break on the 4th of 5 laps. Mark and I, along with the rest of the field tried to get something off the front, but nothing really worked. Over the only climb in the race, with 1 lap to go, Mark and 3 other riders managed to get a group off the front, with a small gap. Their gap never gained more than 1 minute, and Sheedy's Endeavor team were on the front slowly bringing them back. The kilometers ticked by, and with around 5k to go, Mark's group had only 21 seconds and a 2k climb to get over to the finish. I'm not one to turn down a bunch gallop in a road race, so I was following the wheels waiting to launch to the line. Up the climb we go, and the race starts splitting up, I was keeping the pace fine, as was Ryan. Just ahead of us, Mark attacked the only rider able to stay with him up the climb, Steve Cozza of the USA National Team. He was on his own with nothing but the finish line in front of him, but it wasn't to be, we caught Mark with less than 300 meters to go. I had 50psi in my front tire compliments of a slow leak, and was suffering to hold the wheels, Ryan "I swear I'm not a field sprinter" Roth managed a 4th, and a disappointed Mark stayed in the front group of 30 guys over the line. I felt bad for Mark, he raced smart, and almost got it, but what can you do eh?

Now on to stage 3, the crit. I'm usually in favor of this event, and on a 7 corner crit it's even better! Well not today. I have realized how much I hate crits after this race...for good.

Yesterday's road race was tough. There were 32 riders that didn't finish. And on the last lap, the main pack was split up pretty good. On the start line of the crit are those 32 riders that didn't finish the road race. Call me whacky, call me kooky, but I don't think that should be allowed. In a stage race, if you don’t finish a stage, you're out. There were a lot of those faces "mixing it up" and getting in the way in the crit that ended up affecting the GC big time in the end. The race was coming down to a field sprint, and I wanted to make up for my poor finish in the road race. With 3 laps to go, sure enough, a rider that should not have been there caused a BIG crash that totally re-arranged the top 10 in GC, taking me and another 45 rider's out of the race, and the crash started inside the top 20 rider’s.

To sum the weekend up, I think I was a rabbit's foot in reverse. Mark had a good road race, and seems to be getting stronger as the weeks go by. I'm glad this weekend's over, the "Buckbus" is in trouble, it might need a new alternator. Perhaps I'll start a "keep Buck's van on the road fund".

Till next time.....