TBC was the last race of the camp for us, a local three day stage race that usually attracts a few Pro Domestic teams and various Pro’s riders that are still around for the training camps here in Tucson. That being said it’s usually plays as a good intermediate level race to test early season fitness and form before taking on some of the bigger NRC projects. It always brings out the memories for me from two years ago when I tried it for the first time, and for the first time EVER experienced being dropped by the peloton. I still have that image in my head of “yo-yo-ing” on and off last wheel over the rollers at 55km/h in agony until it slowly peeled away from me on the flat. That’s when I realized US racing is not Ontario racing.

Ever since then however, I felt a little bit more disappointed with it (in some sort of masochistic way). Perhaps it is my new fitness talking. Last year’s race had only one Pro team (Competitive Cyclist) that with ease controlled the yellow jersey, and hence what felt like a much easier race to stay in. This year we saw three Pro Domestic squad’s signing up: Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies, Jelly Belly Cycling, Team SmartStop p/b Mountain Khakis, and always strong Mexican team P&S-Specialized. It had my hands rubbing with anticipation of some hard racing, Pro teams ripping each other’s legs off for that yellow Jersey…

Stage 1 – 5km Time Trial
Given the fact that we are all on our road bikes and no TT equipment, trying to compete for any sort of GC position was out of the question. So on Friday we rode out our usual 50km to the TT start and had some fun. Yuri and Lucas tried to TT it just as a leg tester, but both messed up a little bit with pacing – 5km TT’s usually end a lot faster than you think! A good practice for the future. I personally opted out taking the day easy and giving a little extra rest time from recent hard training days earlier in the week, and just rode little tempo with some surges to open up the legs – placing in a solid 3^rd position… from the end, of course.

So here is when it gets interesting. The winner of TT was Mexican rider Rangel Hector of team P&S-Specialized and 2nd place taken by Travis McCabe of Elbowz Racing. However, Jelly Belly took every other position in top 7, and Optum’s best  surprisingly only at 8^th and 9^th. SmartStop out of top 25 entirely… Perhaps they have been training hard here at camp, or also did not have the TT equipment (I haven’t noticed). So with this situation here I am thinking “oh good, all the pro’s going to go on attack to somehow take the Yellow jersey”. With all positions separated with a margin of seconds, any small gap from a breakaway would do it.

Stage 2 – 125km Road Race

Maybe I haven’t been in the sport long enough, but things never stop to confuse me. All the teams let the Mexican team ride peacefully on the front and control the race for majority of it. Sure it was lit up on hard tailwind rolling uphill section every lap, but the rest of the race everyone seemed happy to soft pedal behind them. I guess Optum’s team were more interested in finish line bonus seconds for their sprinter Eric Young who could overtake the yellow with two wins, and JellyBelly perhaps was satisfied with 2^nd…

So maybe that made sense. But here is where I’m disappointed and confused even more.
Halfway through the race, on particularly fast and aggressive section of those high speed rollers Yellow Jersey gets a flat by slamming his brakes and skidding on a tire. What happened next had me somewhat shocked – all pro teams that where driving the pace on the front slowed and started soft pedalling for solid couple of minutes until the Yellow jersey came back with its team back to the front. These good sportsmanship gestures are common in cycling, but usually when unexpected mechanical  or  fall happens when the leaders are already isolated and fighting it out on the climb. But not, in the middle of peloton half way through the race! He has teammates all around him, swap wheels and off you go! But here we got a rider with already very questionable reputation, and screws up on his own, yet everyone stops to wait for him… The Irony is, when the 2^nd place GC rider from JellyBelly got caught up behind a crash on a last lap on the same section that Yellow Jersey was off the front shredding the peloton apart, which lead to JellyBelly losing their 2^nd GC rider and a Sprinter who also had a shot for the race win! HA!

Erik Young of Optum in fact did end up winning the stage and moving up to 3^rd GC. I was stuck in the top 20 of barely moving pack on a thin one lane road, just to watch front 10 guys jump out for a sprint in the final kilometer and open a gap to the rest. I marked a wrong wheel of what I thought would be a lead out train for JellyBelly, but was wrong again. Sprinted past everyone that I could in the brutal headwind and sneaked in top 10 in something that did not even look like a field sprint – It exploded with gaps in just one kilometer. Yuri was near me on final two km, but had a similar scenario of getting stack behind the open gaps and finished maybe some dozen guys back.

Stage 3 – 80km Circuit Race

So now Jelly Belly out of GC podium but have guys in 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th just a stone throw away from getting back to top. Again I expected a full blast race on this short hilly circuit, but yet again to my surprise no action. My hopes were not very high in my sprint legs that day (and the bike replacement that isn’t much of a sprint machine) or contesting it against the lead-out trains of full teams so instead I was determent to get a workout and get in the breakaway, or at least have fun trying. I took numerous short lived fliers and eventually got away alone at the base of the hill in pursuit of Michael Friedman of Optum who was also going hopelessly solo for quite a while. I reached within 50 meters of him at the top of the crescent,  he looked back but decided not to wait for me… and we both rode 100-200 meters apart for another 10 km’s. The peloton slowly started to creep back up, and saw another rider shoot up and bridge to me, we worked together for few minutes almost catching up to Optum rider but attacks from the field on the hill again soon brought everybody back together. With only 10 km left to recover after the effort, best I could do was just to take it home with the pack. I had fun, wish there were others willing to have fun too tho!

After the race, 50km still away from home but only 12 noon we decided to have a little stop at local burrito shop and then drop by to Starbucks patio by the University Campus to enjoy the day. On a St. Patrick’s Day how can you not? We did not have any green beer, but kicking the feet up and watching crazy Uni kid’s have fun was close enough!

We all agreed that racing that weekend was a little easier than we hoped and figured one more big day of riding and visit to Mt. Lemmon before flying home was a must. With yet another 8 hour day in the saddle and climbing to the very peak of Lemmon later, I would say we got all our BASEs covered for the season. 😉

Looking forward to coming back, finally picking up our brand new smoking hot Norco rides, and getting to race with the rest of the teammates at Ontario Cup season opener, Good Friday Road Race! We got title a to defend after all! 😀