Yesterday I left off with the team presentation that officially kicked off the race festivities. Here are my memories from the first six stages of the USA Pro Challenge. It was an honor to be on the start line of this race.
Race hotel- hilarious art in rooms, hard to find way around, delicious spreads for toast at the buffet. Same meals every night (4 days!)
The race- Started
off feeling like a normal bike race. Then the neutral roll out stopped. Racing
at 9000 feet was… different… The short punchy climbs took their toll on me and
I was dropped in a small group up the run in to the final KOM of the day.
Meanwhile, Ben and Matt were up the road being all lithe and limber and stuff
winning KOM points and making our team look awesome.
Stage 2: Aspen to Crested Butte
Race Hotel- Same
as day 1
The Race- Ah yeah. This one. WOW. I’ve forgotten much of the less than
important details, but stage 2 was the day that the skies opened up as we rode
the final ¼ of the race on dirt mountain roads. I was dropped in a 15 rider or
so group when it was still brilliantly sunny, probably halfway up the final
dirt climb. We hit the top, it got dark, and we proceeded to descend down the
mountain on dirt roads in a thundering and lightning rain storm. I heard that
somewhere up the road they neutralized the main field and everyone got cold.
Our dropped group continued to ride for the length of the race.
We finished and our new hotel was about 500 meters from the
finish line. I got into the shower in full kit. Including shoes.
 |
| After I got done in the shower. |
Stage 3: Gunnison to Monarch Mountain
Race Hotel-
conveniently close to the finish of the day before. Very heavy woodsman vibe.
Meals were across the street somewhere else. Nothing stands out to me if they
were delicious or not. I’ll just assume they were.
The Race- This was the stage I was most nervous about leading into the race. I’m confident with how I climb at the NRC level, but this stage had an HC category climb up to 11+k feet right in the middle of the stage, then a Category 1 climb up to the finish. In the most convenient of things for probably everyone, there were crosswinds for the entire lead-in to the HC climb. That made people tired, which turned this stage into a 100+ rider grupetto. I accidentally was the first to cross the line at the end of the race out of the grupetto so if you look at only the results from this stage you’ll very wrongly assume that I had a great day.
Stage 4: Colorado Sprints Circuit Race
Race Hotel- very
nice hotel, except it was incredibly confusing. Good luck finding dinner here
because there were about 15 different wings of the hotel. I believe that the
dinners were good, and I’m fairly certain that THIS was the best dessert table
of the entire race. There were cakes, pies, tortes, fruits, cookies and bars,
and many other treats. Since we’re all bike racers, everyone judged each other
as they went back for their 5th serving of dessert. But everyone went for seconds, or more. Hopefully… Maybe THAT explains why I didn't win this darn race!
The Race- this
was my favorite stage of the USA Pro Challenge. Ben made the break again, which
would lock up his KOM lead. I figured this as one of the few opportunities for
a reduced bunch sprint, so I tried to race smart and position myself well in
the shrinking field. Things went well,
and I crested the steep final climb suffering badly but still in good position.
Then I looked up, and saw that it was my teammate Robbie Squire setting the
pace on the front of the field. No doubt trying to help catch the last
breakaway survivor (Jens Voigt) so the field sprint would occur, but I had to
jokingly give him a hard time after the race about putting me close to dropped!
I followed US National Champion Eric Marcotte and NRC Champion Travis McCabe as they jumped with around a kilometer to go. They strung it out, and I was 3rd wheel with 300 meters to go. I learned a valuable lesson on this stage, and that is that you can’t hesitate when sprinting against WorldTour riders. I got swarmed, and turned an amazing opportunity into a bunch of “OMG I saw you on TV” text messages and a valuable lesson for me.
This stage made me hungry for more.
Stage 5: Woodland Park to Breckenridge
Race hotel- Same
as Stage 4
The Race- Mostly
flat, with a big climb close to the finish, followed by a descent into another
finish climb. This stage was the most miserable I’ve ever been in a race as we
were pelted by cold rain, winds, and dark/dreary conditions. I froze, then we
started climbing, and life was good again. I crested the climb in the second
group, my best climb of the race, and did the technical descent well. I'm going to assume that this was my best climb of the race because of Winters spent training in the cold rain in Seattle. Tough man training! The
highlight from this stage was that I was in the Jens Voigt group, and people
love that guy. As we approached the final, crowd-packed climb, a person with a
speaker system announced to the crowd “and here comes the Jens Voigt group!!!!”
This turned a certainly already amazing environment into a deafening one.
Stage 6: Vail Time Trial
Race Hotel- I
don’t remember this one, but I do remember that sometime near the end of the
race we stayed in a hotel that was advertised at $750 dollars a night. I
believe it was this one. I’ll just assume that the food was amazing as well.
I just looked through my phone photos, and that reminded me
of something. THIS hotel was the one that I couldn’t figure out how to turn the
shower on in! Then Ben, my roommate for the week, turned the shower on in about
an 1/8th of a second. That’s experience for ya folks!
The Race- I had
been looking forward to testing myself against the best in a race against the
clock so I took this stage pretty seriously. There were a lot of new things for
me, the main two being doing a TT at altitude and doing a TT after 5 days of
racing. I rode a TT I was fine enough with, and lost something like 4 minutes
to TJ Van Garderen. We finished at the top of a crowd-crazed hill, then had to
wait for a shuttle to bring us back to the parking lot.
Stage 7: Boulder to Denver
 |
| One of the buffet's coffee talking trash about home |
Well, a lot went wrong here. Instead let’s focus on what
went right! The crowds in Boulder were amazing. Just completely unreal. Making
our way to sign in took way longer than any other stage, and the crowds during
the neutral rollouts were bonkers. Most of this stage I have no memory of due
to the crash, but I do very much remember the first part of the first neutral
lap we did in town. Thank you Boulder for coming out in force to support us.
Last thoughts
The crowd support every day was great.
I saw a lot of Colorado that I’ve never seen before, so that
was pretty rad.
Much goes into a race like this for each team. The amount of logistical stress that each team has to undertake must be huge, so thanks goes out to all the staff members of Team Jamis HB for taking care of all the details.
Finally, our team’s main goal for the week was to win the
KOM jersey. This was known by everyone in the days leading up to the start, and
was our number one mission. To be a part of Ben Jacques-Maynes winning the
jersey was an incredible experience. Whether it was something as simple as
“protect Ben” or something much, much more difficult like “tow Ben across to
the break”, myself and my teammates would’ve done anything to help us
accomplish our goal.
Writing this post has been healing in its own sense for me. I remembered things I assumed were gone forever, was able to reflect on the athlete of Ian, and as I continue to tick away on the trainer, writing this has helped remind me of the level I want to be at again.
Thank you all for reading and, again, a very sincere thank you for your continued support as I fight through recovery.
