Redlands Bicycle Classic

The 25th anniversary of The Redlands Bicycle Classic did not disappoint. The race again consisted of a prologue and 3 stages and the race winner again was determined by a single second. This year the race was won by Ina Tuetenberg, teammate to last year’s winner, Alex Wrubleski. On the women’s side there were approximately 150 starters including all of the big NRC teams in addition to Team Columbia High Road and a Composite team including Nurnberger’s Amber Neben. I raced as part of the National team and Gillian M. started the race with a composite from BC. Unfortunately Gill’s race was cut short after stage 1 due to sickness. Speaking of sickness, one week out from the start of the race I came down with nasty illness...food poisoning? Stomach flu? Jury is still out, but needless to say I didn’t have ideal preparations for the race. At least I discovered after 3 days of not eating that I could keep plain crackers, rice cakes, and eggs down so that my glycogen stores weren’t completely depleted. Luckily the day before the race I started to come around and I had a little more energy. At least I was super rested! We pre-rode the prologue course and I started to get excited. The town of Redlands and the race organization does a fantastic job putting on this event – it’s one of those races that no matter how much it hurts or how well or poorly you ride, it’s still fun.
I had a surprisingly solid ride in the 5 km uphill prologue. I finished in 29th place, 1:30 back from the eventually winner and reigning World TT Champion, Amber Neben. It’s one of those courses that once you finished your ride, you feel like you could have gone faster...I can’t wait for next year!

Stage 1 was the Beumont road race consisting of 3 laps totaling 117 km. I now see why the race is affectionately called Blowmont, as the race was in the gutter from the gun. It was an ugly day – I was caught behind an early crash and never actually got into the pack. On the bright side, I never gave up...I chased so hard for the first 45 minutes and made contact just before the climb. Unfortunately my legs were cooked, so even though the pace on the climb wasn’t too bad, I got dropped just over the top. So the chasing began again. The winds were horrific...50 miles/hour that in sections had you riding at a 45 degree angle to the road. I was riding my compact crank and my biggest gear was a 12...bad news on a day when the pack was flying along some sections at 70 km an hour. I kept getting dropped from the caravan simply because I couldn’t sustain 130 + RPM. Again, I rode myself into the ground trying to chase with a couple other girls and again made contact right before the climb. Unfortunately, the story was repeated but this time my legs were done and I wasn’t able to get back on. I rolled in 9 minutes back (53rd place), completely wasted and really disappointed by how the day had gone. It was an “if only” day...if only I hadn’t been caught out in the first 3 minutes my day would have turned out much better. Next time! Over 50 girls were time cut or DNF’d, which shows just how tough the day was.

Stage 2 was a hot, fast, and technical 9 cornered criterium in downtown Redlands. I finished in the group, still trying to get my crit legs back and get more comfortable with the technical corners. The crowds were great and the race was exciting. Ina had now won back all but a single second of her 27 second deficit to Neben, so tomorrow’s Sunset road race was sure to be exciting.

The excitement started for me about 15 minutes before the start when Serge our mechanic realized that my chain was about to explode. There was a last minute scramble to try to locate a new chain, but ultimately I ended up with a chain that was a few links too short, effectively taking away some of my usual gears. I had to be really careful not to cross chain, which unfortunately I do all the time with the compact. On about 5 occasions in the race I thought I was screwed for sure – I’d jam up the chain and derailleur and have to stop pedaling and then frantically try to shift out of the precarious situation. The course was simply amazing – after 8 kms of “neutral” (i.e. gradual climbing at threshold) we hit the Sunset circuit where we would complete 9 laps of 10 kms...5 km of gradual ascent and 5 km of fairly technical descending. It was a race of attrition for certain. I was shelled out on the first climb largely do to inopportune chain jamming situation as previously described, but was able to chase back on. I ended up making an important split on lap 5 that decreased the front group to about 30 riders. Unfortunately on the next time up I was behind a small split of 3 girls that again left us chasing. We didn’t end up making contact again, but we did get to cross the finish line back in town...which I’m told is an accomplishment in itself (about 35 girls actually crossed the finish line in town this year). I finished in 26th place and 3:41 back of the lead group. Overall I finished 33rd on GC – not bad for my first go at the race I suppose, but I’m already looking forward to next year!