We arrived in Gruissan on the Wednesday before the race, a small touristy town on the Mediterranean. The weather was terrible – pouring rain, cold, and very damp. All the teams were staying in a trailer park for the first few days which was very entertaining, it was my first time experiencing trailer park living. The rain was disconcerting – the winding descents and small roads were going to be challenging enough without it being wet and cold.
The race productions officially kicked off on a very rainy and stormy Thursday (May 14th) with team presentations in Carcassonne. There were many speeches and each team was called up on to the stage – we were given cowboy hats which was good for some funny photos. It was nice to put a face to the names of the fast riders and of course to hear the accomplishments of the riders and teams that we would soon be sharing the road with. It was amazing to sit there and realize what we were about to be a part of. It doesn’t get much better – tomorrow we would start racing in one of the most prestigious stage race in women’s cycling. The winds were howling and the trailers were shaking all through the night before the race start – on the bright side the strong winds seemed to have blown the dark rain clouds away.
The tour got started with a short and fast 3.9 km prologue in Gruissan – an individual race against the clock that is spectator friendly and establishes a race leader to pull on the yellow leader’s jersey for the first real day of racing. There was much discussion by all the riders and staff about which equipment to use. Normally the big teams with the fancy bikes would pull out every piece of aerodynamic equipment for a time trial, but the winds were so strong and the gusts so unpredictable that it was difficult to know what could safely be ridden. Vince, our National team coach, made the call that no riders on our team would ride disc wheels – it was not worth risking being physically blown off the road. The ride to the race venue was scary – it was hard to stay upright on my time trial bike with my race wheels (a Zipp 404 front and 808 rear for those that are curious). A gust would hit and we’d be abruptly pushed several feet across the road. The excitement of the day continued for me when I crashed hard on my rollers while warming-up. I hit my knee on the headset as I tried to save myself from falling. So just in case the race wasn’t going to be hard enough, I was starting with one sore swollen and bruised knee that was painful to bend. The prologue started from a ramp and each rider had a lead moto in addition to their team car following with a spare bike. It was really cool! Usually the short and fast prologues are a good race for me because they require lots of power, but I didn’t have a good ride. I nearly crashed twice because of the winds and had a couple other close calls. It was a scary ride and I was a little shaken after – I had never before become that close to crashing in a time trial. Vince and Serge were in the follow car and they thought I was going down for sure on one of the corners, so I think they were pretty happy that I crossed the line without further incident. Our best rider was 32nd place and I was just happy not be last after my eventful ride! So it was home to ice my knee and get ready for the first real day of racing.
We woke up the next morning to a calm warm day – what a relief! Stage 1 was a 116.5 km race that would start and finish in Rieux-Minervois. With only one GPM (a system of classifying the hills), the pack stayed together for a sprint finish. My knee was very sore from my rollers incident, so although it would be the easiest of all the days, it was still a hard day. Our team leader Julie, blew her rear tubular at the base of the climb and luckily stayed upright...not so lucky for the 7 or 8 riders that crashed behind her. Moriah and I were called on the radios to stop and wait so we could help get Julie back to the group – our job was to wait until the team car changed her wheel and then help to get her back into the group. The wheel change took a very long time, because all of the cars were stuck behind the crash that had ensued from Julie’s tubular blowing, so our “easy” day was made a little tougher with the chasing to get back to the pack. Our sprinter got in the mix for the finish and did a great job to finish in the top 20.
Team time trial day! This was an exciting stage – it’s not very often that races have a team trial and for most of our team, it would be our first TTT experience. The course was a 27 km loop from Port La Nouvelle with a couple small climbs. We had done two practices as a team to determine the best order and get comfortable riding together in a time trial formation. One of the challenges in our group was that one of our riders didn’t have time trial equipment, so she wouldn’t have the same aerodynamic advantage as the others. I was the starter which was fun – I got to lead the team down the start stretch and into the first tight corner. We started out well, but going by the 10 km mark we started to lose two of our riders. The finishing time is determined by the 3rd rider to cross the line, so we needed to keep at least four riders together in case of a mechanical. Vince made the call from car for the two riders to sit on the back while four of us rotated through. At the bottom of the first climb we lost the two riders, so we were down to four. We had to keep the reins on Julie because she could have just ridden away from us all. That’s one of the fun challenges of the TTT – figuring how to get the most out of all the riders while getting to the finish as fast as possible. Julie took some longer pulls and we kept the pace on the climbs a little slower to help keep from losing any more riders. Having fewer riders to share the work made the time trial even tougher, but we gave a great effort. We finished 10th of the 19th teams and only 4 seconds back from 8th – not bad for our first TTT together against some very established teams.
As I write this race report it is becoming evident that I started to get tired after about 4 days. I’m having a hard time remembering what happened in the race – each day is a blur of waking up and eating until you couldn’t eat anymore, followed by afternoon racing to exhaustion. The racing was so aggressive – attacks would go from the gun and the speed during the ‘depart fictifs’ would often be 40 – 50 kms/hour. It became a game of seeing how long we could hang on before being blown off the back and forming a group with which you would ride to the finish fast enough to ensure that we made the time cut. The hardest stages came later in the week and the final day was no exception with 5 GPM’s and 2 sprints. The roads were amazing – beautiful scenery which sadly I was usually too tired to notice. The roads were often so narrow and winding that it was so difficult to move up in the pack. The gendarmes did a fantastic job of following the race – each day there were probably 20 + motos that would speed ahead to point out and whistle violently about upcoming obstacles with their little yellow flags.
On the morning of the second to last stage Ina came in to the lunch room and looked at the spread of food – the usual bland pasta, rice, baguettes, and pork – we were served so much pork – and stated that “it’s time to go home” in her German accent. Everyone laughed and you could feel that all of the riders and staff shared the same tired sentiment. I feel proud that I was able to finish the race, but I would love to be able to go back again and contribute more to a team performance. Unfortunately Julie, our GC rider, crashed out on stage 5 due to a very inopportune stopping of the photographer’s moto on a downhill roundabout. Thankfully, she didn’t break anything, but of course it was extremely disappointing for her not to be able to continue.
We had a fantastic support crew – we were well cared for and they always kept us laughing. Serge kept our bikes running smoothly and our Michelle kept our legs feeling as good as possible and made us the best race food ever – the team favorite was kiwi sandwiches on pain au lait...YUMMY! After a week of racing the thought eating more gels was not very appealing so it was always exciting to unwrap the small tinfoil surprises. It is simply amazing when you look around at the amount of time, energy, and volunteer power that goes into putting on a race like this. It makes you realize how deeply woven cycling is in European culture. Each day there would be many people out cheering in each small village through which we raced – it made me feel like we were part of something much greater than a bike race. What a trip and what a race. Now it’s time for some real recovery...or as much as I can fit in before the racing begins again on Saturday!
The race productions officially kicked off on a very rainy and stormy Thursday (May 14th) with team presentations in Carcassonne. There were many speeches and each team was called up on to the stage – we were given cowboy hats which was good for some funny photos. It was nice to put a face to the names of the fast riders and of course to hear the accomplishments of the riders and teams that we would soon be sharing the road with. It was amazing to sit there and realize what we were about to be a part of. It doesn’t get much better – tomorrow we would start racing in one of the most prestigious stage race in women’s cycling. The winds were howling and the trailers were shaking all through the night before the race start – on the bright side the strong winds seemed to have blown the dark rain clouds away.
The tour got started with a short and fast 3.9 km prologue in Gruissan – an individual race against the clock that is spectator friendly and establishes a race leader to pull on the yellow leader’s jersey for the first real day of racing. There was much discussion by all the riders and staff about which equipment to use. Normally the big teams with the fancy bikes would pull out every piece of aerodynamic equipment for a time trial, but the winds were so strong and the gusts so unpredictable that it was difficult to know what could safely be ridden. Vince, our National team coach, made the call that no riders on our team would ride disc wheels – it was not worth risking being physically blown off the road. The ride to the race venue was scary – it was hard to stay upright on my time trial bike with my race wheels (a Zipp 404 front and 808 rear for those that are curious). A gust would hit and we’d be abruptly pushed several feet across the road. The excitement of the day continued for me when I crashed hard on my rollers while warming-up. I hit my knee on the headset as I tried to save myself from falling. So just in case the race wasn’t going to be hard enough, I was starting with one sore swollen and bruised knee that was painful to bend. The prologue started from a ramp and each rider had a lead moto in addition to their team car following with a spare bike. It was really cool! Usually the short and fast prologues are a good race for me because they require lots of power, but I didn’t have a good ride. I nearly crashed twice because of the winds and had a couple other close calls. It was a scary ride and I was a little shaken after – I had never before become that close to crashing in a time trial. Vince and Serge were in the follow car and they thought I was going down for sure on one of the corners, so I think they were pretty happy that I crossed the line without further incident. Our best rider was 32nd place and I was just happy not be last after my eventful ride! So it was home to ice my knee and get ready for the first real day of racing.
We woke up the next morning to a calm warm day – what a relief! Stage 1 was a 116.5 km race that would start and finish in Rieux-Minervois. With only one GPM (a system of classifying the hills), the pack stayed together for a sprint finish. My knee was very sore from my rollers incident, so although it would be the easiest of all the days, it was still a hard day. Our team leader Julie, blew her rear tubular at the base of the climb and luckily stayed upright...not so lucky for the 7 or 8 riders that crashed behind her. Moriah and I were called on the radios to stop and wait so we could help get Julie back to the group – our job was to wait until the team car changed her wheel and then help to get her back into the group. The wheel change took a very long time, because all of the cars were stuck behind the crash that had ensued from Julie’s tubular blowing, so our “easy” day was made a little tougher with the chasing to get back to the pack. Our sprinter got in the mix for the finish and did a great job to finish in the top 20.
Team time trial day! This was an exciting stage – it’s not very often that races have a team trial and for most of our team, it would be our first TTT experience. The course was a 27 km loop from Port La Nouvelle with a couple small climbs. We had done two practices as a team to determine the best order and get comfortable riding together in a time trial formation. One of the challenges in our group was that one of our riders didn’t have time trial equipment, so she wouldn’t have the same aerodynamic advantage as the others. I was the starter which was fun – I got to lead the team down the start stretch and into the first tight corner. We started out well, but going by the 10 km mark we started to lose two of our riders. The finishing time is determined by the 3rd rider to cross the line, so we needed to keep at least four riders together in case of a mechanical. Vince made the call from car for the two riders to sit on the back while four of us rotated through. At the bottom of the first climb we lost the two riders, so we were down to four. We had to keep the reins on Julie because she could have just ridden away from us all. That’s one of the fun challenges of the TTT – figuring how to get the most out of all the riders while getting to the finish as fast as possible. Julie took some longer pulls and we kept the pace on the climbs a little slower to help keep from losing any more riders. Having fewer riders to share the work made the time trial even tougher, but we gave a great effort. We finished 10th of the 19th teams and only 4 seconds back from 8th – not bad for our first TTT together against some very established teams.
As I write this race report it is becoming evident that I started to get tired after about 4 days. I’m having a hard time remembering what happened in the race – each day is a blur of waking up and eating until you couldn’t eat anymore, followed by afternoon racing to exhaustion. The racing was so aggressive – attacks would go from the gun and the speed during the ‘depart fictifs’ would often be 40 – 50 kms/hour. It became a game of seeing how long we could hang on before being blown off the back and forming a group with which you would ride to the finish fast enough to ensure that we made the time cut. The hardest stages came later in the week and the final day was no exception with 5 GPM’s and 2 sprints. The roads were amazing – beautiful scenery which sadly I was usually too tired to notice. The roads were often so narrow and winding that it was so difficult to move up in the pack. The gendarmes did a fantastic job of following the race – each day there were probably 20 + motos that would speed ahead to point out and whistle violently about upcoming obstacles with their little yellow flags.
On the morning of the second to last stage Ina came in to the lunch room and looked at the spread of food – the usual bland pasta, rice, baguettes, and pork – we were served so much pork – and stated that “it’s time to go home” in her German accent. Everyone laughed and you could feel that all of the riders and staff shared the same tired sentiment. I feel proud that I was able to finish the race, but I would love to be able to go back again and contribute more to a team performance. Unfortunately Julie, our GC rider, crashed out on stage 5 due to a very inopportune stopping of the photographer’s moto on a downhill roundabout. Thankfully, she didn’t break anything, but of course it was extremely disappointing for her not to be able to continue.
We had a fantastic support crew – we were well cared for and they always kept us laughing. Serge kept our bikes running smoothly and our Michelle kept our legs feeling as good as possible and made us the best race food ever – the team favorite was kiwi sandwiches on pain au lait...YUMMY! After a week of racing the thought eating more gels was not very appealing so it was always exciting to unwrap the small tinfoil surprises. It is simply amazing when you look around at the amount of time, energy, and volunteer power that goes into putting on a race like this. It makes you realize how deeply woven cycling is in European culture. Each day there would be many people out cheering in each small village through which we raced – it made me feel like we were part of something much greater than a bike race. What a trip and what a race. Now it’s time for some real recovery...or as much as I can fit in before the racing begins again on Saturday!
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