Tucson Bicycle Classic

Tucson Bicycle Classic - Three Stages (Prologue, RR, Circuit Race)

We had two Swami's race in the Cat 1/Pro Men field at Tucson Bicycle Classic this past weekend, me and Colby Elliot.

800 miles of driving round trip meant I would need to make the three days in the desert well spent...

Prologue - 3.2-mile TT
The course was well-suited for a power rider as it started with a slight downhill, followed by several rollers, and ended with a short punchy climb into the finish. Breathing the desert air made the effort a miserable experience but luckily Colby returned from his ride in time to give me some advice on the course and it allowed me to stay confident in riding into each of the winding corners tucked in the aerobars and focusing on driving forward rather than worrying about gear changes. You can never know how well everyone else rode but I felt good about my ride. I ended up taking 5th on the stage, four seconds behind winner Phil Zajcek and two seconds out of second.

Road Race - 80-miles
This would be my second Cat 1 road race so I had no clue what to expect. I knew I wanted to stay aggressive and see how I could stack up against a field that included riders from Kelly Benefits, Jelly Belly, Fly V, Kenda, RealCyclist.com, RideClean and Pista Palace. I wanted to stay in position to cover any breakaway attempts made by Eric Marcotte (lofty goal, I know), Zajcek and Paul Thomas (the only other rider I personally knew in the race). Despite being hilly course, with a few steep kickers, and an uphill slog to the start/finish area, the group stayed together because of headwinds and crosswinds in each direction we rode! A few break attempts were made throughout the ride so I figured rider's legs must be feeling fatigue going into the final uphill section. The pace slowed as we neared the finish and I thought it would be the perfect chance to pounce and make a break for the line before the sprint could wind up. I dangled for a few hundred meters but was swallowed up within the final kilometer and upon being caught the group launched into the final sprint. I was gassed, BONKED, and broken. I limped across the line so far back that I was not listed in the results that evening. Upon further review, the officials gave me a time of one minute behind the main group, which I thought was 30 seconds too many, but I don't know what good it would have done to argue. I took a chance for glory and instead was relegated as the group goat!

Circuit Race - 50-miles
The GC was still only separated by seconds which instigated a flurry of attacks from the gun. I stayed out of trouble near the front of the group and after covering a few of the early break attempts, missed the break that stayed away. It featured Cole House (winner of the road race), Paul Thomas (VOS winner at ripe at of 43), Antony Akers from Pista Palace and a rider from the Mexican team. They went away on lap 2 of 9 and built a lead of two minutes. The main group rode steady over the gentle risers and downhill portions of the course but turned on the jets each time we went up the sustained climbs. I felt better being near the front during these efforts so I tried to stay behind Zajcek as often as possible. On laps 7 and 8, Marcotte launched attacks up these hills and it split the group up but everyone was able to recover on the subsequent downhill section. On the final lap, the pace was hot as we were still 45 seconds down to the leader. We caught three of the riders the final time up the sustained climb through the feed zone on the back half of the course but Cole House held off a fast charging field sprint to take his second straight stage win. Marcotte won the field sprint and pulled to within one second of Zajcek in the final GC standings. I finished in the middle of the sprint and unfortunately Colby fell into bad luck and snapped his chain earlier in the race and had to pull out.

This was my final race tune up before Redlands the weekend after next and it was a good confidence builder to ride aggressively with some of the area's top riders and teams. I don't see the point in trying to hold onto 5th position in GC when the object is to win or podium in a race, so in this specific instance, I would have done the same thing over again. Then again, $200 could have paid for the gas on the drive back home!

Safe training and riding out there.