My first major stage race, Joe Martin stage 2.
The sun was shining and the weather was hot here in Fayetteville Arkansas. Today we would be riding 175km on a large loop through the gorgeous countryside. Approximately 136 riders started the stage. For myself this would mark my first major stage race and my first major road race. It was wild. My heart rate was really high for the first half hour or so, not because of the intensity of the race but because of the stress. There were so many people! I was getting bumped around, touching tires and trying to stay upright. I avoided a crash nicely, swerving between people on the ground. For the next few hours the race was just fun.
Nothing really happened for a while. We just chilled out and rolled around at 40km/h for a couple hours. There were attacks and there were breakaways but nothing was going to stay away. When we hit the large climb at 3 hours into the race things got rough. It was a nice pace but it was a long climb. We caught the breakaway on this climb; that’s when things really started to get ridiculous. People started hammering. I was able to survive, I held on. As we crested I settled back into the group for a while until I was told to go to the front and help team Jamis control the race. Robert, two Jamis riders and myself were rolling through on the front. Rolling through at 48-56km/h. The goal was to keep the race strung out. Nearing the end, however, other trains began to form. This was go time. JetFuel lined up, with myself unfortunately at the front because I was already pretty spent as it was. I pulled as long as I could until I began to lose ground on the competing trains. That’s when Travis took over, Ryan right on his wheel. Anton and Ryan were right up at the front on their Norco Tactics heading into the final turns. Ryan was able to snag 4th place; unfortunately just outside of the time bonuses. However, he moved up to 2nd overall in GC. Today was a good day for JetFuel. The part the boggles this mountain biker is the fact that I have to do another 175+km tomorrow. It’s going to be another gnarly day on the bike.

Stage 3:
Wild. Stage three was the day we rode out to a 23-mile loop. The loop had two significant climbs in it. The wind was howling in the early morning and afternoon when we showed up to the start. JetFuel knew that today was going to be a hard day. The ride out to the loop wasn’t bad at all. I successfully avoided another two crashes. I seemed to always end up right behind the crashes but, in a fleet of terror, I avoid them. The sound of carbon on pavement is something interesting and unforgettable. Once on the loop the first lap of four was smooth. The climbs were sheltered and into the wind for the most part. The backside of the loop got hard. It was a crosswind in open fields. We were guttered single file at 50km/h. The worst part was the little slinky effects that happened. You’d be coasting and on your breaks to not hit the rider in front of you, but then a gap would begin to open and you’d have to hammer a 800+ watt surge to catch the wheel and the little bit of draft again. This would continue for a while. It was tiring. The third lap got really hard. As the leaders crested the climb they hit it. Somebody let the gap open. Now we were dropped and chasing. Ryan had made the split, but Anton and Travis were with me. We had to hammer and chase hard through the cross winds to catch back on. Once there, there was still one more lap! This is when the intensity turned up. The climbs were now sprints, the crosswinds were sprints, the downhills were sprints – it was ridiculous. Again I got dropped. The race had shattered. There was a select group that made it over the top with the leaders. There was a second group and there was me in the third group. I think there may have been a fourth group, but I can’t confirm this. I solo bridged to the chase group. There I met back with Anton and Travis. This group chased hard. We eventually caught the leaders half a lap later. I was in massive amounts of pain. On the second lap I didn’t think I was going to be able to survive the rest of the race but here I was, heading away from the loop with the main pack. I was barely hanging on within the group. I tried to recover as best as I could and get as much energy back into me. Nearing the end we all attempted to help Ryan. I really had no sustained power left in me. Getting in the wind I could last about a minute. It wasn’t pretty. Coming into the last turn I hacked the group nicely on the inside and slid my way up into the top 15. A good little sprint to the finish and I obtained 12th place. Super pleased with this, as I didn’t think I was going to finish this stage multiple times.
Crit tomorrow, should be interesting to see how the legs feel for that, but I’ll be surrounded by the fantastic JetFuel team so that automatically makes the day ten times better!