Gila finished up with the expected hardest day, 105 miles with over 9,000 feet of climbing. But before that was the 16 mile time trial which was fairly uneventful for me, which is a good thing. After waiting in the bike inspection line for 25 minutes they realized they were running late and told us all to go away. Now it was 10 minutes till my TT start and I had no UCI bike inspection OR warmup, a loose loose. Anyway, I went out and rode a steady ride so that I would not blow my legs up for the next two days. After all, I was over 20 minutes down on GC and could only make up a maximum of 2-3 minutes in an all out effort in the time trial= not worth cramping and suffering the rest of the week.
The 40 crit on Saturday was actually easier than anticipated, which was a pleasant surprise. I had good legs, but not good enough to throw in some attacks towards the end of the race like I had planned on. I finished in 31st, despite the fact the original results left me off all together.
Sunday was the final stage, the infamous Gila Monster 105 miles. It has three major climbs starting at mile 50 and I was able to hold on through that one. Over a third of the field began dropping out as the Bissell team drove the pace at the front. Descending the backside of the climb was not a pretty site when I came around a sharp turn to see almost two dozen riders splattered on the road and against the cliff wall on the side of the sidewalk. Troy Wells and I quickly pulled out our cat like reactions to avoid the team cars that were stopped all across the the road. I later found out that our team leader, Ben Sonntag was involved in the accident along with overall race leader Tom Zirbel who had to abandoned with a broken collarbone, finger, and several ribs. Worst of all was a Teco's ride who literally went headfirst into the cliff at 60 mph and broke his neck. He had no feeling below his waist and was airlifted to El Paso, Texas. Let's all think about him and hope the parallelization is temporary. After just over 5 hours on the bike at summited the final climb with Marco Rullo and a few others. I ended the week in 46th out of 125 starters.
Overall my team rode a great race and everyone raced their ass off. Joe "went for it" in several breaks and Sonntag was always in the right position as a leader should be. Nice work boys. Thanks a ton to Rick Crawford for driving the sweetest team car (1989 Volvo w/o door handles).
Troy is flying out to Little Rock on Monday and we will head north to Fayetteville for the Joe Martin Stage race and Shannon's Graduation! Her party is Saturday night so if your in Fayetteville contact me for directions to lots of food/fun/festivities. After all, our crit doesn't start till later afternoon on Sunday.
